I suffer through bad weather ashore in little bits and pieces. It’s 1:30 Monday afternoon and Wilma is out in the Atlantic off Palm Beach. The eastern edge must be playing havoc with the Gulf Stream. A little bit of me wants to be out there in the stink of it. Instead, I have been up all night on hurricane watch. We had gusts in Orlando in the 50’s I guess. Mostly I sipped hot coffee while everyone slept and watched the wind and rain fly down the lake outside. A little bit of me wants to be out there on a Laser flying. Instead, I turn to the weather channel between power outages and watch sailboats at the Naples city marina jumping in their slips, straining dock lines, heeling to the wind. The boats are alive and I have tended plenty of dock lines on the Bristol as she jumped and heeled in her slip. A bit of me wishes I was there, tending my boat. This hurricane she’s at home in the side yard: safe, steady on jack stands, waiting patiently for me to get her floating so she too can come alive again. Instead, I fuss with the tarps covering her, and wander into the garage to fiddle with one of the dozen or so projects I have underway.

The barrel of wind brings cold weather behind the rain. Winter is coming to Florida and epoxy will take forever to cure. This refit is taking forever to finish.