sneak peek

August 19, 2007

Hurricane Dean passed south of the Dominican Republic last night roughly between 10 PM and 4 AM. We were fine on Whisper and had no problems at all. Since Luperon is on the north coast the hurricane passed well south of us and the mountains blocked the strong winds from traveling further north. It was a little windier than usual throughout the night and it has been raining on and off since yesterday afternoon. A squall came through the harbor around 5:30 last night and a few boats dragged their anchors when the wind gusted up to 55 knots. We were fine on Whisper so Hans dinghied around and helped the boats that were dragging and helped people set second anchors. It seemed that a lot of people in the harbor were not adequately prepared for the possibility of strong winds and many people were setting more anchors after the squall passed. We are going to do a little research in the dinghy to find a different place to anchor for the next storm. We are confident in our ground tackle (anchors and chain) and our methods for using them, so our main concern is all the other boats in the harbor. We're going to try to find a different location for the next storm that is a little less congested.

And without further ado, below is a picture of the fridge! The fridge is turned on and stocked with cheese, bacon, orange juice, champagne and butter! We still have a little more work to do (of course), but it is mostly all finishing work: varnishing and putting everything back together. Stay tuned for a more comprehensive blog posting of the whole process. At this point, I think we've invested about 130 hours of work on our cold drinks!