Tropical Storm or Hurricane Isaac

I was so hoping hurricane season would end this year without us becoming directly involved with one. But I guess that's not going to happen. We were surprised at the force Tropical Storm Debby exerted and I have a  funny feeling that Isaac scored himself some steroids and intends on showing us exactly how a proper storm should behave. Poor old future storm Joyce started forming right behind Isaac but when he started roaring and pounding his chest Joyce grew depressed, lost her momentum, and headed north out to sea.

Today we were kept busy readying our Knotty Cat for what's sure to be a hell of a blow.  We took down the Home Depot patio curtains that we had draped over the boat in order to provide a bit more sun protection, re-secured our dinghy which is currently upside down on our bow, and bought some washing machine hose to put on our dock lines for chafe protection. Tomorrow we'll take down the bimini and dodger (which we did not do during Debby because we didn't know she'd hang around so long), lug our air condition down below before tons of rain sneak around its horribly inefficient tarp, and move our car to higher ground.  Oh yeah, I also emptied our dock box. You might recall that during Debby our dock box was flooded and all of Hans' hockey gear got soaked.  His gear is now in plastic bags and stacked in the car.

Since we're relatively new to this whole live aboard life (it's been just one year this month) I found myself Kravitzing around a bit more than usual as I was curious to see how other people in the marina were preparing for Isaac. I expected to find everyone in a panic and braced myself for the most dire of predictions (kind of like the cruiser's forum in real time) and I was almost disappointed to find that everyone was pretty calm.
Today we all looked like a bunch of worker ants; tarps, biminis, dodgers, jibs, a lot of main sails, cushions, potted plants, dinghies, etc... have been removed.  We didn't remove our jib but wrapped the jib sheets around it a couple of more times and we have an in-boom furled main so it too was left alone.
By coincidence our marina's palm trees got trimmed this week and now with everyone's boats getting stripped down we resemble a poor depression kid with bad summer buzz cut.  Hans thinks everything looks clean and neat.

During my ice run/Kravitz trip this morning I came upon a sight that both horrified and delighted me, and I knew I had to go get my camera. I immediately made a pit stop at The Blue Moose and told Sally (the better half of that live aboard team {sorry Brian}) what I'd seen. Of course she wanted to go with me and after dumping the ice in our cooler I informed a pouting Hans that he could most certainly start taking down our many layers of curtains without me since a photo-op was awaiting me.

Look at this (and while I took tons of pictures these ones turned out best).

Hmmmm. Hurricane ready?

Honest to God the owner of this boat showed up yesterday, declared it 'Hurricane Safe', and then left.

While I was taking pictures of it a puff of wind (that I didn't even feel) billowed the tarps out in an alarming fashion.  

Check out the frayed fringe on that back pole. The rest of the tarp is held in place with a couple of small bungee cords.

Wilbur loves going to 'the front' (that's what we call the bow when we talk to him).   Hans is removing our Home Depot Curtains.

Wilbur is not looking forward to having his schedule upset and as far as he's concerned Isaac can kiss his very cute butt.