Hurricaneaster Ida

I took this picture from my deck on Thursday, the worst day of Hurricane Ida, aka that pesky little nor'easter that blew through here. You read it here first, and probably won't read it anywhere else, but that was a small hurricane, not a huge nor'easter. There's a difference. I'll get back to you on what that difference is as soon as I look it up. Or make it up.

This is not a very good picture, but it does show how strong the wind was during Hurricaneaster Ida. In between those two pine trees is a hammock blown sideways. It stayed like that for a long time before finally snapping. The wind was just relentless.

Today, now that the worst of the storm has passed, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank a very generous, brave, selfless individual for saving my boat house and my dilapidated boat (which has four thousand years of loan payments still due).

Mathews Native Mark is Mathews Mountain Man's brother and Pookie's son.

Mathews Mountain Man was my track coach in high school; now he lives on the opposite side of the state with his lovely wife and children. Pookie, their mother, once made a hamburger which later exploded behind Gwynn's Island Baptist Church. She also caught me trespassing on her family's property on the coldest day of the year.

(If you haven't read that story, please click on the link above. It's a good 'un. There's a link within that post to the exploding hamburger incident. You just can't make this stuff up, folks.)

Mark waded through knee-high waters on a dock he could not see, braving horizontal rain and high winds to pull my boat out before it hit the roof. (Take a look at the boat house/dock pictures from the past two posts for an idea of what he waded through.)

Here's a shot from Thursday of the front yard, the tide and the rain. Merely opening the door to take this shot nearly knocked me over - and I was standing indoors. This was not even high tide, but for point of reference, that pine tree farthest away is normally well above and away from the water.




Did I mention how cold it was even without being submerged in water up past your knees? Somehow or another in all that wind and rain, Mark pulled the boat out of the boathouse and secured it to whatever dock posts were still visible. As he put it, "I'm from four generations of people who know the water, I ought to know how to tie up a boat."

Yes, but it's one thing to know how to do it and quite another thing to do it in horizontal rain and 50+ mph winds while wading knee-deep in rising waters on a dock you can't see.

There's nothing I can say or do to convey how much I appreciate his help in this disastrous shituation. Without his help, the boat would have sunk and/or the roof to the boathouse would be floating down the flooded ditches alongside Route 198.

Mark did say that if I had any single friends to please mention that he was available. So, lady readers, if you or someone you know is looking for a very kind man who will go to great lengths to help a friend by wading in 50 m.p.h. winds to save a boat, he's your man.

Thank you, Mark, for all your help. You saved the day. And the boathouse. And the boat. And my sanity - at least for the time being.

p.s. Can you hang shutters? Fix garage doors? Just kidding. Sort of.