I knew it wet (total rain fall was 3.07 inches ), I had been outside a few times during the day, but the wind didn't start in any kind of serious way until after I had settled in my office for the evening.
Leaving the dock was a bit of a problem, actually it wasn't leaving the dock, but getting turned around by the wind in the space between dock and rocks. There isn't alot of room there. I was thinking about just backing out, but decided that I could work my way around.
The wind hadn't built any waves to speak of, but there were white caps. The waves were low, almost flattened by the strong southeasterly wind. I thought that the wave height might increase as I went out toward Morne Island, so I went around the west of Breast island, what I call the Lighthouse way. I was also a bit concerned about plowing right into such a strong wind., I would need to go at a higher speed than I was comfortable with in the dark, as it was I had a tough time keeping the bow down so that the wind couldn't push it around. I had to slow down a number of times as the bow was getting turned by the gusts.
Had to turn the flood light off because it was raining so hard the light was just bouncing around obscruing everything outside the blur of light. I couldn't see the islands that I was steering around until I turned off the light.
Steering was a very active job, particularly once around Breast island. Keeping a given direction was a bit of a challenge and I was very happy that the engine cooperated. It was easy to imagine that the skiff would end up at the airport or on a beach at Kruzof in a very short time without power.
Getting into the stall at the dock was kind of a challenge, in fact slowing down enough to feel comfortable going between the dock and rock, also meant that the skiff was pushed closer to the rock than was comfortable. Decided after the second try to tie up at a spot that the wind would work with me rather than against me. Tied up the rather heavy fiberglass double kayak to the bull rail. Apparently the kayak isn't heavy enough to keep it from getting scooted across the dock.
There weren't many branches on the trail and I didn't feel compelled to run through the woods. I did hear one large crack, I assume that it was a branch.
At home the windows were flexing during the big gusts and there was a good breeze blowing through the one window that was redone in a less than adequate fashion.
67 mph gust at 10pm. The airport measured a gust of 62mph. Looks like there were 3 gusts of similar energy between 10 and 11pm. I found a summary of the weather recorded at the airport. Yesterday's weather
On the walk to the dock this morning found 3 small (up to 16 inches dbh) dead trees across the trail. One of the trees was pretty close to where I heard the cracking sound last night.
2 comments:
Sounds exciting!
very much so, last night's commute was alot easier, just a nice westerly chop.
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