Sail Beausoleil

Got back to the boat Wednesday night after a two-week trip to Louisiana and Texas to visit family and pick up our car. We visited my family in St. Martinville, LA, Shawna’s parents in Edgewood, TX, and our friends Yolie and Geno and their kids Dane and Chase in Keller, TX – near Dallas/Ft. Worth. Dane, our godchild, just graduated from high school!

We took our time driving back to Hampton. We spent a night in Hot Springs, Arkansas, visited Elvis’s Graceland in Memphis, and spent a night in beautiful Asheville, NC. We’ll create a blog entry just for Graceland soon!

When we got back to Hampton, we decided to shop for groceries before going back to the boat. While checking out, we saw that it was pouring down rain outside with a howling wind, so we decided to wait a bit before leaving. Driving out of the parking lot, we saw a hint of what was waiting for us at the marina – the wind had blown a shopping cart into the middle of the exit lane of the lot and we had to drive around it.

It turns out we missed all the action! We arrived just after a small tornado hit the edge of our marina. A large power yacht (about 75 feet long) was “yanked” from the dock, ripping two cleats off the dock and spinning the boat around. Apparently, one of the flying cleats hit the boat’s pilothouse window, shattering it. The electrical shorepower pedestal it was getting electricity from was also ripped right out of the dock. The boat was only two slips away from ours – less than 50′ – and yet when looking at our boat, you’d never know how close a near-miss it was. The only thing amiss was that some items in one of our forward cabins had fallen off the berth and onto the cabin sole.

A couple of neighboring boats lost loose items – deck chairs, cushions, shoes. One catamaran had its roller-reefed jib partially unfurled by the wind, but at least it was undamaged.

Finally, it also turned out that we just missed flooding in the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.  The tunnel pumps failed, and by early Thursday morning during rush hour, the traffic backup was up to 14 miles long. I guess we had good timing!