So Florence may be old news now, but her memory lingers on… in the form of rising water.
We think of water moving to level pretty quickly, but where there is a LOT of water, it takes a while to move. If you pour honey on a plate, you can make it pile up in one spot, but it will then somewhat slowly spread out till it reaches level all over. The water seems to work like that – huge amounts of water upstream can take some days to reach the ICW and a bit longer to reach the coast. Hence our rising water.
We measured where the water hit the dock on Saturday, and have been checking it since then. We are up about 29 inches! The good news is the boat floats, so no real problem. A few minor logistical difficulties – the boarding door for our boat is now so high compared to the dock that we now board off the swim platform on the stern.
The road into the marina is in about 9 inches of water, so we moved the rental car to higher ground last night… which meant walking a half mile back to the boat, (in our waterproof boots) sometimes in 6 inches of water. If the water got too much deeper I would be afraid we couldn’t get the car out safely. (This morning those areas looked closer to 9 inches) Another concern is that we are told when the snakes get flushed out of their natural habitat they will be seen swimming along where we are trying to walk. I’m not big on snakes, and especially not in the water. So walking in the dark was somewhat spooky. We survived.
So here are a bunch of pictures of the area, taken yesterday and today.
This is all supposed to be dry land! In addition to the little boat, we’ve seen fish swimming across the work yard.
Not a lot of work is getting done on boats now. The yard workers are spending their time removing electric motors from power equipment, relocating stores and trying to protect the repair yard. And we have no traffic in the canal. The drawbridges south of us are closed due to high water, so nobody’s going anywhere. I’ve heard that several marinas in key locations south of us were not too badly damaged – but now without power. That’s good news for those headed south now. We are still planning on going north into the Chesapeake Bay for a while.
So the winds have shifted this afternoon, and it looks like the river may be dropping a bit. I guess the water on the roads and yard will take longer to dissipate.
I hope to put up more non-Florence stuff on Friday. See you then!
