I never thought I’d say this but we’ve just experienced our first tropical storm in Florida!! Hurricane Nicole hit south-eastern Florida early Thursday morning and we had tropical storm weather in Green Cove Springs.
We knew the storm was coming so on Wednesday we prepared our boat for high winds and rain. We stowed or tied down everything on the deck and we secured the boat with additional dock lines. At about 5pm, our dock neighbours (Barbara and John on Mojo) came to tell us to move our boat onto the solid wood wall of the pier because the rising river could put our fenders above the lower wood platform. So out we went and with their help, we moved the boat about 10ft forward and tied up to the wood wall. It took a bit of time to change all the dock lines for our new position on the pier. In the end, we had 2 bow lines, 3 spring lines and 2 stern lines. We were ready for the storm.
Things were not bad overnight. Hurricane Nicole came ashore at Vero Beach (the place we spent about 6 weeks at last year) at 1 am Thursday and was down graded to a tropical storm. We started feeling the full impact of the storm early in the morning. By mid morning the rain was pouring down sideways and we were seeing sustained winds in the low 30kts with gusts in the low 40kts. The wind direction had also changed from northeast to east / southeast. This new wind direction pushed our boat into the wooded wall. Thank goodness our boat has rub rails – these rails (along with the fenders) took all the force and weight of our boat. Several times during the day we had to move our fenders around to protect the side of the boat. The water level was rising and as we moved up the wall, some of our fenders got squished backwards. At one point, we had Steve, Jane and a guy we don’t know, help push the boat off the wall so I could move fenders into better positions. We also had some help from Holland Marine – they brought over another fender to help us out. By the end of the day, we had 7 fenders out!!
It was a long day with some crazy rain and wind but in the light of Friday morning, I can tell you that Crimson Kathryn and her crew rode out the storm well with only one casualty – our really big fender got squished and it popped!! Well we found that fender many years ago and it didn’t owe us anything!! Time to buy 2 new fenders!!
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 
Rob and I were thinking about you over the course of the storm. We are so grateful that you received great advice and were able to safely ride out this storm. I really admire how some wonderful Americans step in to help when they find tourists who are in a pickle. We have also experienced their kindness and wise advice while visiting the States. I hope that they always keep this generosity.
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