By the time Hurricane Lee reached Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, it had petered out and was no longer a hurricane. We had taken steps to safeguard ourselves by going into The Basin Friday night and staying there until Sunday morning. The Basin was very calm, with gusts of wind ruffling the flat water. We had intentionally anchored "at the head of the class" at the northernmost edge of the harbor. This way, if boats started to drag their anchors in a stiff north wind, they'd hit someone else and not us!
You can get a sense of how close we are to the north shore of the Basin. No one is going to anchor between us and this shore. Also, look at the gentle slope of the mud flats coming down to the water. That slope continues, it appears, out to us. At low, the water depth is only about 6 feet. We need 4 1/2 feet to be afloat.
Off to the side, looking east, there are trees that tell an interesting story.
The Basin is a few miles from the ocean. The tops of these trees are bent northward by the winds blowing from the south and southwest. During the storm, the winds were blowing from the north. But they are not so dominant as to cause the trees to bend in the other direction.
So, we waited and waited for the storm to pass almost 300 miles to our east. The track of the storm went over the tip of Nova Scotia near Yarmouth. Then into the Bay of Fundy and northward to the St. John River where we spent a week at the Kennebecasis Yacht Club. But that was last summer and this is now.
We reflected on the claims of alarm and impending doom, especially in Boothbay Harbor at the Carousel Marina. There, the pump-out boat operator was certain Lee would turn west and pass directly over Boothbay. He wanted to show us his latest storm plot on his phone. Who knows? Anything is possible a few days in advance of Lee's landfall. But this seemed outlandish. And it proved to be so.
Sunday turned out to be a sparkler of a day, a good time to move on to our next port of call at the Great Island Marina in Orr's Cove. Their services allow us to wash up, clean up and begin to prepare for our trip south to the Cape and home.
Cheers!
Brio
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