To ensure we don't step off the dock, we have to stay visually aligned with the pilings and shuffle along so that we can continue to feel the boards under our feet. We make several stops to hang onto anything within reach, as the 45 knot gusts roll across the mouth of the James River and into our creek. Each gust causes Senara's dock lines to stretch and sing as she heaves hard against them, heeling and pitching up and down, just inches away from the lee pilings. Before we reach her I notice the sail cover, with the attractively stitched sail number on each side, has been shredded to tatters - hurricane style. I am barely able to reach the swim ladder at the stern, stretch my foot up to the low rung, and pull myself up to clamber aboard. After adding two more lines to the bow, re-securing the spring line, and lashing the sail cover, I check below to make sure the cabin sole boards aren't floating. Everything looks OK so far.
HA and I shuffle down the pier and lash a large chunk of a broken off finger-pier to a piling, secure an electrical pedestal that has somehow been sheared off at the base, and gawk at our neighbor's fishing boat that now floats upside down, completely capsized.
As we make our way homeward up the pier, I feel a familiar sense of sadness and helplessness, even sympathy. It is the same feeling I had last night as I lay awake envisioning the conditions down on the water. I have to tell myself again - Senara is just a boat; just a pile of fiberglass, wire, and teak crafted together to sail on the water. So why do I feel like I just visited an ailing family member? Why does it physically hurt in my gut when she gets injured, or is in some kind of danger? Inexplicable, but there it is. She has to hang in there for 24 more hours. I just hope I did my part and set the lines well, as high tide will arrive in four more slow, painful hours.
