Captain’s Log – Fri 10/10/25
A year ago yesterday, Hurricane Milton followed shortly after Helene for a one two punch that destroyed the area. Helene flooded the entire island, about 3-4’ under water. Hula Girl survived, but was beat up pretty good. Fourteen dock lines were no match for Milton’s 110mph wind sideways to the boat. She was pushed against the pilings, rubbing the sacrificial 2” x 8” fender board down to 3/4” thick. The solar panel was folded in half like a taco. The boat healed over so much in the slip, the stantions that hold the life lines up vertically hit the dock and bent. The forestay link that holds up the mast cracked under the stress. Something caught and nicked two of the halyards. The XM satellite weather and radio antenna was ripped off. And despite all the fenders, fender boards and 14 dock lines, she still rubbed against the pilings causing some cosmetic damage to our near perfect Hula Girl. Post storm, it was a constant battle to keep the boat from molding in the steamy, sweltering heat with no electricity.
All this just as we were preparing the boat for our retirement trip to the Bahamas. We had planned upgrades for additional electrical power and a water maker. As if that in itself wasn’t daunting enough! I still had a very busy day job. My dream trip was starting to fade, as if waking up early from a nightmare.
At this point it took a small navy to get back on track. I went to work on the boat every day after work and every weekend. The Yacht Rigger supplied a new solar panel next day, followed shortly by halyards and life lines. They worked me into their boat yard for a replacement forestay at a time they must have been overwhelmed with damaged boats to fix. Catalina Direct quickly supplied a new stantion. Several of the Hula Ohana showed up on their weekends to help rebuild everything. Mahalo to all!
I finally got a fiberglass guy to fix all the cosmetic damage just a few weeks ago. It was nearly impossible to get anyone immediately after the storms and other than looking a bit rough, it wasn’t going to prevent us from leaving so I left it for this summer.
This summer we prepped for the Hurricane season and didn’t sail. We had expected to spend the summer in the mountains of Colorado and the Pacific NW coast. Our VW hippie bus has been in the shop all summer getting a heart transplant. As each month ticked by, we expected the bus to be ready. So we never put the boat back together. Late season storms were brewing and we were loathe to tempt Mother Nature by putting sails back up and jinxing the relatively mild hurricane season.
Hurricane Jerry is turning out to sea, Karen is harassing fish in the middle of the Atlantic. We’ve got Hula Girl ready to go. Well, almost… the roller furling for the jib is broken. That’s new. It’s always something. But we’re heading up to Clearwater Beach tomorrow anyway. We have concert tickets for Tedeschi Trucks this weekend and Jazzfest next weekend, both in Clearwater. We’re so excited to get back out on the water!
In other news, the VW shop called. Our hippie bus is running and will be ready for pickup Halloween weekend!!!
✌️❤️⛵️
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