Hurricane Watch

The new stainless steel bimini is now completed and the canvas almost finished. It will provide us with the much needed shade that we will encounter on our travels. This summer we used tarps hung with lines. It worked and helped us determine how we wanted the new bimini engineered.
What can I say, boating is similar to writing a message on a sandy beach and watching the waves erase the message. Here we will stay for awhile longer.
Tuesday WAS the day planned to depart and head south. However Hurricane Rick has changed our plans.
THE SATELLITE PRESENTATION OF HURRICANE RICK CAN BE EXPRESSED IN ONE WORD...SPECTACULAR. THE EYE IS QUITE DISTINCT AND IS SURROUNDED BY VERY DEEP CONVECTION. ON THE LAST AVAILABLE VISIBLE IMAGES ONE COULD SEE THE SUNLIGHT REFLECTING OFF THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE EYEWALL AND THE STADIUM EFFECT THAT IS TYPICAL OF INTENSE HURRICANES. MORE IMPORTANTLY...SUBJECTIVE T-NUMBERS ARE 7.0 AND 7.5 ON THE DVORAK SCALE FROM TAFB AND SAB RESPECTIVELY...AND THE OBJECTIVE T-NUMBERS HAVE REACHED 7.7 AND A 3-HOUR AVERAGE OF 7.4 DURING THE PAST HOUR OR SO. BASED ON THESE DATA..THE INITIAL INTENSITY HAS BEEN INCREASED TO 155 KNOTS. THIS MAKES RICK THE SECOND STRONGEST HURRICANE ON RECORD IN THE EASTERN PACIFIC AFTER LINDA IN 1997(Information put out by the Hurricane Centre)

If we departed on Tues. we would be smack in a Hurricane Category 3 or 4 by Thursday, the way it currently is being reported. Soooooooo, we stay. We have made a decision to be taken out of the water and put on the travel lift. They will keep us on the lift with blocks under us. It is as stable as we could be on land. We will then strip her down totally and wait for the winds and rains and hope for nothing at all. There are many boaters currently returning to their boats after a summer hiatus. It will be a very crowded yard as I believe all of us in the water have made the decision to be hauled out.
This hurricane is expected to pack a punch even harder than Jimena. When Jimena hit here, it had been down graded to a Tropical Depression. They expect Rick to hit as a hurricane 3 or possibly 4 arriving on this side of the Sea of Cortez on Thursday. It is too early to tell as hurricanes are very unpredictable at this time of year.
Currently, the storm was generating waves up to 50 feet (15 meters) high near its core, with reports of 16-foot (5-meter) seas off the Mexican coast and "large and dangerous surf" along the coast.
Mexico, lying between two warm oceans, has been battered throughout its history by the storms that form as the oceans heat in summer, sending humid air up like a hot-air balloon, gulping more humid air to generate high pressure and screaming winds. These tempests are categorized according to wind strength, from Category 1 (73 mph) to Category 5 (155 mph or more)
1959
Mexico (Named Mexico) Oct. 27: Hurricanes are less common, and Category 5 storms extremely rare, on Mexico's Pacific Coast, making the Mexico hurricane one for the record books. Hitting western Mexico with 162 mph winds, it took at least 1,000 lives and possibly twice that many, while destroying one-fourth of the homes in Cihuatlan (Jalisco state). A massive landslide near Minatitlan (Colima) alone killed 800. Venomous snakes and scorpions uncovered by the slide killed still more in the aftermath. It remains Mexico's deadliest Pacific hurricane. 1,000-2,000 dead, $45 million damage.
Rick is expected to be worse.
Again you can track the storm at http://www.eebmike.com/
We will keep our heads down and try and stay dry. We will be safe and I hope I have NO pictures of the storm to share.
Until next week.
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