A wild night at Isle of Hope.

Our last post was at the Isle of Hope shortly after arriving. The day got more exciting as it went on. We had the crews from Little Wing and Mistress over for cocktail hour so the could enjoy the rainstorm in the comfort of our enclosure. There had been a tornado watch on all afternoon and just before we sat down, I checked the weather radar on the Accuweather site. The storms seemed to be tracking to the west of us probably pushed inland be the sea breeze. About 45 minutes into our party the local fire siren went off and we began discussing the best place to be during a tornado. Some were inclined to be inside their boat and some thought the concrete block laundry and shower building would be the best place. Anyhow after a very few minutes we reconvened with wine bottles in the shower building. No tornado in view but lots of rain and all the boats got deck leak tests big time.

Carol and I were getting ready to head for the bunks around 9:15 and we saw a very bright pair of lights which I thought were car head lights and Carol thought was a boat. They swept through the boat and then went away. Our next sensation was the sound of a very powerful diesel engine followed within seconds by the sound of fiberglass being crushed. It took a few minutes for us to get on deck just in time to see lights from the tug Miss Sarah out of Jacksonville Fla and it's barge pulling away from the marina and heading back out into the channel. In it's wake lay a badly crushed Lagoon catamaran Sabbatical which was tied to the outside floating dock. The crew of Sabbatical was unable to reach the tug by radio but we did learn the boat name and hailing port as he called for a bridge opening up stream. The story we heard the next morning is that the Coast Guard did board the tug that night and the captain claimed he didn't know he hit anything. Supposedly he was tested for controlled substances.

We are now to days north of the Isle of Hope in Dataw Island South Carolina. Tomorrow is Charleston for a couple of days.