Let's buy a boat in Miami he said ....

Tuesday 3rd September

By the morning I had had enough of spinning and bobbing around so we decided to go into the marina too. The boat had swung on the anchor round and round and round and rocked and swung I found it easier to not look out the window, the lights were swinging past like a carnival ride.
We decided to head into the marina as the weather was not forecast to improve until Thursday.

That's when Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas
Its devastating thinking about the people who live there and what they were going through and it brought home that there were people on boats like us losing everything.

That's when Craig showed me the windy app.... showing Hurricane Dorian, and we were right in its path, he had sat looking at the app most of the day, I had no idea why he was so obsessed as he tends to look at the weather app all day anyway - but this one was big.

The blue dot is us

"I don't think he quite knew how to tell me we were sitting in the path of a hurricane"
By the time we were tied up to the dock Kitt and Belinda had heard the news too.

Hurricanes rarely ever make it this far North, there is a hurricane season down south
Bahamas Florida etc its a sort of hurricane square that basically means you should not go below New York until November 1st. This one was hitting the Bahamas now and its path was due directly over Isles De La Madeline. The usual course of a hurricane takes it up the coast and as it hits cooler water it abates and looses its force, this was what everyone was hoping would happen.

We are now in deep panic !! there is no use heading South straight into its path, where we are sitting feels so open and exposed, no huge walls around us like previous marinas and we are feeling very uncomfortable.

One option is to go back to Gaspe or even further back around to Riviere Au Renaud where we know we would be sheltered and out of the eye of the storm. But we would have to get there and doing the calculations it would be a minimum 24 hour passage, motoring most of the way and what if the engine fails or something else stops working, that would be a 24 hour sail with a hurricane chasing you- no room for anything to breakdown or go wrong.

At this marina we are tied to a fixed wall not a floating dock the storm surge could lift us up and over the dock. The fenders can pop as you are pushed against the dock. This is the
strength of wind that can lift shipping containers and throw them around what could it do to a yacht. There is no where to get hauled out like they do here over winter. The harbours are busy pulling out their own boats. We really don't know what to do.
Also its still really windy the conditions are not allowing us to leave here even if we wanted to.
Club Nautique has a little bar so I sent Craig to the bar as he was pacing and fretting and needing to talk, but the locals all spoke French and very little English and seemed quite unconcerned about the hurricane.
I walked up to join Craig and he was sitting by himself so we went for a walk to check out the lay of the land. Havre Aubert is a pretty little tourist village where they have restored all the old fishermen's houses and turned them into shops and art galleries all set along the street on the waters edge. It all looked very nice but we were in no mood to look at shops or the local museum or little aquarium.
At 5pm we joined Kitt and Belinda for beers at the bar and still the locals did not seem too concerned, they were waiting to see if the hurricane would blow its self out and loose its ferocity or maybe divert from its predicted path. Also they deal with strong storm winds as a matter or course.

The weather was windy and stormy but you can see how bare and windswept Havre Aubert is

Wednesday 4th September

After a restless night we are still waiting to see if there are any changes to the predicted storm so we have a day out with Kitt and Belinda it was quite an adventure we caught a local bus to the IGA smkt then a taxi to the main town, Cap Aux Meules where we called in to a chandlery and I found a pair of wet weather sailing boots, commonly known as wellies. But even when I was buying them I was thinking what's the point the boat could sink and I'll never get to wear them. Craig spoke to the guys in the chandlery and we could tell they were starting to get concerned, we were trying to buy more fenders or ideally large round balloon type fenders but they had none in stock. The one girl there offered to contact a few fishing boats that were already hauled out to see if she could source some for us, we called back after lunch but I guess the locals needed to use them themselves.

We had lunch in a nice café then had to bolt up the road to catch the local bus back. Kitt had done all the research for the public transport, the locals kept telling us there was no bus and he did a grand job considering no one spoke English.

That night we had wind gusts up to 30kmh, this weather pattern has nothing to do with the hurricane these winds are coming from a different direction, these are normal winds for this area at this time of year.

Thursday 5th September

We were still unsure as what to do

The locals are lovely and truly helpful but no one would comment on our situation Craig persisted and spent the evening talking to a local, Bruno, who was starting to see the severity of the threat of the path of Hurricane Dorian as Craig showed him the weather apps on his phone.

We were having 5pm drinks in the bar with a lovely group of locals I think I could live there and I think I could take all my girlfriends with me, we would all fit in so well. One lady I was talking to was telling me they have three food collectives around the islands where they purchase food in bulk and then cook it up, this is for everyone not just poor or elderly it is a real community effort that everyone benefits from and it has been going for 20 years. Almost all the locals have a party piece that they can perform, such as a piece of poetry or song or they can play a musical instrument and they have music evenings all the time, they guaranteed me every home has a piano. We met so many lovely people that evening.

Chislam the Harbour Master from Etang Du Nord called in to pick up the money we owed him from our last day there and as I was chatting to him he quietly leaned forward and said "you should come back to Etang Du Nord it will be better for you, I will put you on the floating dock and we have balloons for you"

This was the solution we had been looking for !!

When we were back on Adriana I told Craig about what Chislam had said and it clicked, it just seemed right - what a relief - we had a plan. We texted Chislam straight away to confirm we were going to take his advice. We rang Kitt and Belinda to see if they wanted to come with us in the morning. Kitt and Belinda decided to sit it out and stay at Havre Aubert.

Friday 6th September

There was still no change in the hurricane prediction she was heading straight for us and there was only a slight drop in ferocity. Time to move back to Etang Du Nord. we paid our bill and said our goodbyes and left the lovely little village.
The weather was a lot calmer the winds had died down and the seas were slightly smaller for our sail back around the bottom of the island the same course we had taken just a few days before. The seas were still choppy and there was a big swell but nothing like what we had gone through a few days earlier. It was a 5 hour sail back around and we rang Chislam as we neared the harbour he had been watching our progress from his loungeroom. He met us at the dock and there were two huge balloons already tied to the dock ready for us and 2 more if we wanted to use them.
The sense of relief was enormous, we felt so much better being on a floating dock and behind the protection of the huge rock walls, this is a different side of the harbour to where we were earlier in the week. The floating dock is only a few years old and the most solidly built docks Craig had ever seen.
We still had to find somewhere for us to spend the night there was no way I was staying on Adriana and I felt I had to get Craig off too so that he wasn't tempted to get out in the middle of a hurricane to save her if things went bad.

We arrived back around 4pm and had time to start taking off the dodger and all the lifesaving devises, the BBQ, the Canadian and Fleur De Lise and our Australian flag, we worked until dark putting everything below deck.