Sunday, November 08, 2009
Gracious Hospitality turns to Hunkering down for Ida
Saturday and Sunday, November 7-8.
On Saturday the skies were blue and the winds fairly light but building as we left the Levines at Mobile Bay to spend a day or two with Looper friends Tom and Patsy Conrad in beautiful Russell Bayou just before Pensacola, FL. The Conrad’s house is lovely, their dock secure, and their hospitality superb. Tom is the “Weather Guru” for Loopers for the waterway stretch that begins in Mobile, runs along the Panhandle, and continues across the Gulf or around Florida’s Big Bend. Loopers depend on his “Weather Musings,” which he sends out every morning during the late fall and winter. Even as we enjoyed Patsy’s delicious dinner, our conversation kept returning to the weather, specifically Ida, a volatile minor hurricane which was supposed to reduce intensity and become a tropical storm, turning east before it reached this part of the Gulf.
Unfortunately the weather update at 9 p.m. Saturday evening got our attention. In spite of all the factors against Ida affecting us too badly, conditions have changed. We needed to prepare for a pretty big blow. So this morning (Sunday), we headed back to The Wharf, a huge marina/resort complex in the Orange Beach/Gulf Shores area. The wind has picked up, and Ida is currently a Category 2 hurricane in the lower Gulf. Fortunately our slip is well protected and has floating docks. That’s a big plus if Ida continues her status as a hurricane by the time she arrives in the northern Gulf. We are now under a hurricane watch, but we are hunkered down and feel pretty secure. The forecasters still aren’t sure how the storm will progress, but they assure us that we will likely see rains of 6-8 inches, lots of wind (gusts to 85 mph?), and heavy thunderstorms. This is more excitement than we expected, but we’ve experienced plenty of big storms in the past and did just fine. Oh, and I'm happy to say that the Levines are also here at The Wharf with us, as well as some other Loopers. We’ll update the blog as we can. For the record, our current Lat/Lon is 30 17.6 N / 87 37.88 W.
On Saturday the skies were blue and the winds fairly light but building as we left the Levines at Mobile Bay to spend a day or two with Looper friends Tom and Patsy Conrad in beautiful Russell Bayou just before Pensacola, FL. The Conrad’s house is lovely, their dock secure, and their hospitality superb. Tom is the “Weather Guru” for Loopers for the waterway stretch that begins in Mobile, runs along the Panhandle, and continues across the Gulf or around Florida’s Big Bend. Loopers depend on his “Weather Musings,” which he sends out every morning during the late fall and winter. Even as we enjoyed Patsy’s delicious dinner, our conversation kept returning to the weather, specifically Ida, a volatile minor hurricane which was supposed to reduce intensity and become a tropical storm, turning east before it reached this part of the Gulf.
Unfortunately the weather update at 9 p.m. Saturday evening got our attention. In spite of all the factors against Ida affecting us too badly, conditions have changed. We needed to prepare for a pretty big blow. So this morning (Sunday), we headed back to The Wharf, a huge marina/resort complex in the Orange Beach/Gulf Shores area. The wind has picked up, and Ida is currently a Category 2 hurricane in the lower Gulf. Fortunately our slip is well protected and has floating docks. That’s a big plus if Ida continues her status as a hurricane by the time she arrives in the northern Gulf. We are now under a hurricane watch, but we are hunkered down and feel pretty secure. The forecasters still aren’t sure how the storm will progress, but they assure us that we will likely see rains of 6-8 inches, lots of wind (gusts to 85 mph?), and heavy thunderstorms. This is more excitement than we expected, but we’ve experienced plenty of big storms in the past and did just fine. Oh, and I'm happy to say that the Levines are also here at The Wharf with us, as well as some other Loopers. We’ll update the blog as we can. For the record, our current Lat/Lon is 30 17.6 N / 87 37.88 W.
