Hurricane Sandy

[Ian McColgin]

Hurricane Sandy is a bit like a war - it's so big and there's such diversity of experience that you can't imagine how any two accounts came from the same event. Marmalade and I sailed from a good mooring in Vineyard Haven back to Hyannis Inner Harbor and our winter slip at the Ocean Street dock nice and early. The easterly gale gave us plenty of side loading and a two foot surge at the noon high, but the wind dropped and backed after dark and the midnight high was no threat. But just around the corner in Hyannis Port, the HPYC dock was swept away in the early afternoon.

Pictures I saw and reports from friends in Vineyard Haven indicated that the storm there was survivable albeit a bit exciting. Had I stayed there, perhaps I'd have gone into the Lagoon Pond.

The surge was higher as you look west, to the rather massive problems at the west end of Long Island Sound and NYC. Friends on the Island are still without power and we here but sporadically from the Port Jefferson-Mt Siani area on the north shore and any of the Great South Bay communities. Lots of coastal flooding on the Connecticut shore but folk in the harbors I know found shelter to ride it ok. Friends along the ICW indicate that things got manageable down past the Delaware Bay.

Aside from the loss of two in the sinking of Bounty, I'm not aware of any losses among folk protecting their boats. Sandy is causing more death and destruction along the shore line and up the west edge of the NE states.