Magnolia has been extremely blessed when it comes to Hurricanes! Last year Magnolia and I weathered Irene together but this year with Sandy things were different. Sandy was expected to be much worse and with the Irene experience I learned once the storm showed up, well there is little you can do. THE HURRICANE GAME IS WON OR LOST BEFORE THE STORM SHOWS UP! It is clearly all in the preparations. My parents were in town to visit my niece on Friday night so first thing on Saturday Annette and I got right to work by removing the head-sail, top side canvas and stowing the dinghy on the forward deck lashed down.  I returned to Magnolia on Sunday to take one more look around and double checking all was secure. Even a day and half before Sandy’s arrival the atmosphere was turbulent!

Sandy thankfully came ashore (Cape May, NJ) well north of our location at Galesville, MD. This meant that rather than having water pushed into the Chesapeake Bay at the same time we had the strongest winds the water would actually be “sucked” out. Notes: It’s a WHOLE lot easier to deal with too little than too much water, particularly when the wind is blowing 80-100mph! Once the storm had passed that’s when our high water conditions came to be with the water being “pushed in” by the strong southerly winds. We left the mooring lines a little long and Magnolia rode through just fine. Our friend Wes went to check on the boats and was kind enough to send us some “proof of life” photos. Over night the water was somewhere between 18-24 inches ABOVE the dock deck.