T&T: Gustav Redux

[Larry N. Brown]

Of course, all things considered, we'd much rather have been Chattanooga the
last few days. Or Montreal. But we weren't. So let me tie the ribbons on the
the dread Gustav Chronicles. (Boy am I ever sick of that name. But it does
beat the heck out of Katrina's dead fish and FEMA helicopters)

As you can see, we made it through fine. No losses of any kind. Just checked
on our house and we got an inch or two of flood water in Teri's shop. A mere
bagatelle.

Turns out, we made a good plan and we implemented it. Had no equipment or
material or crew failures. Few little nerve issues but they were all caused by
apprehension before the storm. Exactly which squiggly line on the map would
Gustav. follow? Thank God for the Verizon aircard setup. Had full internet
connectivity throughout. I don't know if the tracking was better than
Katrina's or whether Katrina just was more fickle but we made our plan for
just what we forecast the wind to be and our nerves began to settle down as
Gustav got closer. The unpredictable became ever more predictable and our
shipboard wind forecasts were spot on. As the wind piped up, we calmed down.
One of the most useful tools we had was Nexrad. Beautiful presentation and
pinpoint accuracy. It reinforced our confidence in our ship-board forecasts.

Lowest baro pressure was 29.35 as the storm passed some 50 miles to the SW of
us. Max wind gusts on the fly-bridge were 45 kts. at around 1500 yesterday
however we know they were 80-90 in the tree tops. Gusting 30, dropping to 25
all night long. Still gusty. Tide's still 6.5' above normal and varying.

Here are a few good things that came in handy. The Davis weather station with
recording software. Constantly plotted barometer and wind readouts to
establish trends. George Foreman electric grill. The Kohler genset has
performed flawlessly but then, it only has 1000 hours on it. Still, this has
been the longest run time to date. Turned it on Saturday morning and it's been
running flawlessly since. 2" vacuum at the Racor. Air conditioning, hot
showers, water maker, all good. (Teri's got a load of clothes in as I write.)
Got an old DAK bread maker which sees near constant use. But not in the usual
way. I use it to manually make pizza and bread dough. It kneads and rises and
kneads and rises then beeps and shuts off. Then I bake the bread loaves or
bread sticks or the pizza in the convection oven or in the Force 10 oven. Got
a 12" pizza stone that does a great job in the Force 10.

The lessons we've learned are lessons we'd already had learned but apparently
forgoten. Never burn below half  fuel capacity  (unless you're in transit);
thought I'd learned that lesson from Katrina but noooooh. I had half a fuel
load aboard, around 400 gallons, and went down to top up the mains but the
fuel dock was out. (Hope they get a resupply before Ike rears his ugly head.)
Make your food and booze runs early. Keep a good supply of frozen meats and
veggies and rotate your stock. 8 month old freezer burned rib eyes are not
appetizing. Get " interesting" canned and packaged goods. Seems like when the
deal goes down, fun food helps to elevate spirits.

12:34-- Ironically, Gustav has taken a twist and gone inland in Louisiana and
we're getting strong SW winds. Functionally, nothing's changed aboard Cigano
but the house, once again, is in peril.

Chattanooga here we come.

Regards,

Larry and Teri
M/V Cigano, 47' Prairie Sundeck Cruiser
Lying: 64 Cypress Road
          Covington, LA

PS--  Teri and I spent some time in Brazil a few years ago and we described
our boating plans to a friend there. He said, "Why, you're just a couple of
ciganos. Gypsies." To which I replied that that's an excellent name for a
boat. When we purchased the Prairie 47, the name was a natural. Well, we're
gypsies now for sure.

L