HURRICANE SANDY: DAY THREE: AFTERMATH

Woke up and was still without power. A tall tree in the neighbors backyard fell down sometime during the night. But,it fell in the best possible direction away from all the houses but, did land on the power and cable wires. But, at least it did not come through my bedroom. I headed to the harbor. Most streets were pretty clear though trees and shrubs on peoples property were knocked down. Getting on the main roads which were pretty clear but, it seemed every other traffic light was out. I drove passed the gas station where I filled the car yesterday and it was closed because of the power outage.

The road I took yesterday to the harbor was now blocked by a tree across the road as was a second route I would sometime use. I backed tracked and tried a third route and it was clear. As I approached the harbor I could see BIANKA's distinctive catboat mast and boom. She did not seem to be where I left her but, at least she was vertical and not on the shore. It was low tide and I was able to drive around the large puddles left over from the previous high tides. As I came closer I could see BIANKA had dragged across the channel and west by about thousand feet. But, she was floating and it looked like the mooring lines were still connected though I could not see the mooring bouy which was underwater. Though it appear it seemed to have snagged on another mooring as it dragged.  So that at least was good news.

The boatyard was empty except for the mechanic who had just got a generator working as they had no power. He mentioned they found my Porta Boat dingy which I left at the dock with the Honda BP2 outboard on it was found overturned. The outboard is somewhere in the water as it fell off. The dock it was connected is in two pieces and no longer connected to the work barge. There were several boats on the shore:

I walked the docks while I was also keeping an eye on BIANKA as the southeast winds continued to gust. There was still a lot of damage even on boats that were secured:

I drove on the shore road to see Long Island Sound looking as peaceful as I had ever seen it. With the southerly winds it would have been a fine day to sail today:

Unlike the raging scene from yesterdays post it was very benign. The parking lot however looked more like a beach than a paved lot:

 See all this sand and and rocks in the parking lot got me wondering how the entrance to the harbor might have changed as a result of the storm.

I spent several hours keeping an eye on BIANKA which was floating in a location across the harbor different from where I left her on Sunday night:

It was still blowing but, she seemed to be holding in position. Though I did not know how well the mooring lines were holding up. It was still blowing 20 to 25 out of the southeast so rowing was out of the question. Too bad the outboard is in the drink. I came up with a plan while waiting at the marina. Since I had no power at the house and I had an ENGEL freezer on board. Not only that I had all the power I would need thanks to BIANKA's three legged stool of power. That being solar, Marine Air-X wind turbine and the Honda 2000 generator. So I decided to wait for the winds to subside and empty the freezer at home and bring the items to the boat and put the in the ENGEL. I'd also move on board which is pretty much where I've been anyway. The only problem is I'd have to wait because as like yesterday to single road out was flooded at high tide:

After the water subsided I headed back to the house took emptied the freezer and came back to the boatyard. The winds had calmed down quite a bit by then I was able to row out to BIANKA's new location and load up the freezer on board. It's also means that I'll have my dining plans set for a few days as I use up the frozen items. The menu last was steamed Snow Crab Legs with melted butter along with Mussels and I think I'll throw in some shrimp into the mix too:

Yumm!  Life is good! Looks like lunch today will be steamed shrimp!

Though after getting back to the boat  I found it was not totally undamaged. I'll be showing what I found when I got on board in the next post.

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