"It's only a tropical storm" I said as we were preparing our boat in advance of Fay's arrival. I guess she showed me. The storm sat just about on top of our marina for three days and rained, rained, rained. The official start day of Fay's impact in our area was Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday came and went with Fay nearly stationary over Brevard county. We watched her on the Channel 6 dopler radar - her rain bands swirled over the gulf stream, filled up, and dumped onshore. It was a vicious cycle and wondered if it would ever end. Saturday and Sunday, with Fay
finally moved north west of us, she was still dumping rain over central Florida as her massive bands spun into the Gulf of Mexico.
I was ever so relieved that we had "over prepared" our boat for Fay. We stripped LaLeLu's canvas and tied the sails up. We removed the dorades and solar vents and put in the plugs. We took everything off the deck and out of the cockpit. Only thing we miscalculated was leaving the dingy on the davits (with the drain plug out of course). When the water started rising, the dingy was level with the dock and started rubbing on it and the dock box. Our friends kept a watch on it - they lowered it into the water, and kept pumping it out. Before the storm was said and done, a very clever friend had turned the dingy upside down to keep it from over-filling with the massive quantities of rain water. Thanks guys!
At the height of the storm the water in our marina was near level with the docks, and covered many of the finger piers. It was so Erie to see the boats sitting level with the docks, more than three feet higher than they normally sit. They all looked so big! LaLeLu was sitting so high that you could not get on or off of her w/o help. I don't know what the exact rain fall was there, but some parts of the county received nearly 3'. I was very pleased and relieved that LaLeLu stayed bone dry in the cabin - if we had any leaks, they definitely would have been brought to light in this monster storm.
