Rain, Wind, Lightning and Thunder

Rain, Wind, Lightning and Thunder

Monday November 30, 2020

When the rain started sometime during the night, I heard Mike get up and close the hatch above the V-berth.  I went back to sleep but kept thinking that there was a lot boat of wake for the middle of the night.  Duh! All that motion was the waves kicked up by the storm.  At about 5:30 am Mike got up and I could hear what sounded like hail on the boat (wind-driven rain).  Then there was an almighty clang.  I started pulling on clothes.  Eventually, Mike re-appeared to say that he had removed the bimini top to reduce the windage.  The bang was the bimini arch support hitting a winch - Mike forgot it would fall down if the canvas is removed! Whilst up I did see readings of 35 knots on our wind instrument so we weren’t imaging the ferocity of the storm. We both tried to go back to sleep with mixed success.  The sound of thunder followed by a few flashes of lightning finished off the night’s sleep for us.

We read on line that this is the first winter storm of the season.  All I can think is that hardly any time has elapsed since we had the remnants of the last hurricane....

Some time after ten a.m., we went to shore in the dinghy.  It was mostly a down wind trip so we didn’t get too wet ... It was much warmer on shore, not to mention the ground under our feet seemed pretty stable.  Beaufort is a very pretty town with great views over the marshes and lovely old homes.  The most astonishing things we saw today had to have been the massive live oak trees.  Looking up into the branches you behold a mini forest of ferns, vines and Spanish moss (which I’d like to re-name—Merlin’s beard).  Many of the branches were as large as full-grown trees.  A single tree would occupy the entire front yard of a house.  

We returned to the boat to find that the combination of wind and opposing current had resulted in the mooring ball being halfway along the side of the boat.  The lines to the mooring were passing underneath the hull.  I’m not sure if that was why the boat was leaning to starboard but it was unsettling.  As we were eating our lunch there were several loud booming noises –the mooring ball went under the hull! The tide has turned now and the mooring ball has taken up a position in front of the boat.  Who know what awaits us in the middle of the night?

Gloria

32 25.749 N, 80 40.818 W

The calm before the storm - we were just about to go to bed when I looked out and saw how still and misty the anchorage looked

Beaufort marina. Even though it was slack current and zero wind the boat still moves enough that you have to use reasonably fast shutter speeds to get a sharp image even with a tripod. As dark as it was this then means using high ISO values (1600 in this case)

One of our neighbors in the mooring field

You can get some cool abstract photos if you use longer shutter speeds (still with a tripod)

The house "Tidalholm" - used as a filming location for the "Great Santini" and "The Big Chill"