florida check in

[Pascal]

Glad to hear your boat made it. So the floating dock survived too?

 

[jmooney]

Great to hear that you and your family are safe .

 

[Captain Ralph]

Any word yet on Marco Island and Ft Jefferson?
Trying to salvage my Dry Tortuga trip next year.

 

[JuiceClark]

Glad to hear your boat made it. So the floating dock survived too?

Thanks everyone for the well wishes.The floating dock is great...love that thing for 21 years. I have 2 very high pilings in the middle so she can't get away.When we're back to normal, I'll share a few pics of my only predicament. When the surge receded, it landed on the ramp from the seawall just right to be propped up 5 feet on one end. So, it took about 4 hours and a bunch of redneck ingenuity to get the pins out of the hinges and let it all crash down without disaster. That is for another time I guess.BTW, I knew I'd have $3,999 in damages because the named storm deductible on my pathetic policy is $4k.

 

[Dan Mapes]

Satellite imagery of the damage sort of like google maps etc..

https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/ian/index.html#9/26.4200/-81.9700

 

[Fish Tales]

My Hatt received some good hanger rash, I can fix it.
Friends had a Burger at Legacy marina. Found it 2 days later in a parking lot. Looted.

They think it is toast. Know more when I can talk to them.

Tim

 

[rsmith]

A friend and fellow Hatt owner posted from StJames city on pine island that there have been shootouts with looters there. His 53 is laying on its side.

 

[Pascal]

A friend and fellow Hatt owner posted from StJames city on pine island that there have been shootouts with looters there. His 53 is laying on its side.

Pine island isn’t where even the dumbest criminals should want to loot… we have friends there. 2nd amendment rules.

4 looters were arrested in Ft Myers beach…. Shocker: all 4 are illegals

 

[rsmith]

Pretty sad. Most boats survive until the tide goes down then get hung up and flip.

 

[cww]

My Hatt received some good hanger rash, I can fix it.
Friends had a Burger at Legacy marina. Found it 2 days later in a parking lot. Looted.

They think it is toast. Know more when I can talk to them.

Tim

Is that the one that was for sale for $600k? That was a gorgeous boat. I'm sorry to hear they lost her.

 

[SeaEric]

My Hatt received some good hanger rash, I can fix it.
Friends had a Burger at Legacy marina. Found it 2 days later in a parking lot. Looted.

They think it is toast. Know more when I can talk to them.

Tim

I spotted that Burger in one of the photos. She was pretty well buried among others but still upright. They're tough boats.

 

[JuiceClark]

Satellite imagery of the damage sort of like google maps etc..

https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/ian/index.html#9/26.4200/-81.9700

Wife showed me that and I almost puked when I zeroed in on my 52C. It looks like she's laying on her side, but is not and never was. It must be an effect of sat pics. Only after a moment, I realized this was after the storm and I had already been there.



After Charlie, Irma, Wilma, Andrew, etc etc, this one was so much worse. As the eye approached, it seemed like the rest. When the East side of the eye arrived, it was the same as the rest...awesome and terrifying power. But then, it just kept going hour after hour after hour. All the flooding from the back side of the storm was so bad because it was seemingly stronger than the top side. Sometimes storms feel like kind of a dud compared to predictions, while one like Ian seem angry and accelerating. The gusts were stronger in the 4th hour than the first, just relentless. Damn it was awful.

Two pilings were pulled-over and a 1" rope snapped right in the middle. My dinghy is gone somewhere, despite 3 stainless cables on it. Otherwise, it only ripped that flybridge cover that I just painted and scratched the stripe back by the transom.

 

[madhatter1]

Juice, Great news. Sorry about the house though.

 

[Fish Tales]

The Burger they had was a live aboard. Not for sale.

It probably is now.

Tim

 

[wpc691]

Blue Bayou took the eyewall twice; radar showed us dead center in the eye when it passed over. I didn’t have time to get my canvas off, so I lost that, but not a scratch on anything else. The Key West rode it out unstrapped on the lift. My neighbor’s lift collapsed and sunk his boat; the guy next to him had his boat up in the yard. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a garage at our evacuation spot, so the car got sandblasted. I expect an interesting conversation with Safeco on that one. We have a little structural damage to the pool cage, but otherwise the house is untouched. We feel very fortunate.

 

[rwaldrop13]

I am calmer than my family and friends think I should be, but I am sorry to say that 2 years and 1 month to the week that we moved aboard Pau Hana and moved her to Fort Myers, our boat is gone. When the back side of the eyewall came up the Caloosahatchie River, it broke Legacy Harbor Marina apart. While Pau Hana's moorings held, the docks did not, and she was carried into a concrete pier across the entrance fairway. She was pinned there by the storm, and the rest of the marina dock sections shattered her into multiple pieces. My wife and I had evacuated to the marina hotel, and were on the second floor when she went down. The storm surge actually was up to the hood on my Chevy pickup in the marina parking lot, which was higher elevation than the hotel parking lot.

I have truly enjoyed being part of this group, and will continue to periodically log on, but right now I can't begin to even comprehend our loss. We lost everything except 3 changes of clothes, and while we have moved to a rented house 3 blocks from the marina, I still have a hard time driving by.

We are still awaiting action from our insurance company, who is stalling pending "assessment" of the damages. I've sent them pictures of the remains, to no avail. Currently we have no plan beyond the next year or so, and are deeply grateful to our friends and family who've reached out to help us with clothes, accommodations until we found a place, and a vehicle. Anyone reading this who thinks Enterprise Car Rental is a solid, reputable company, I am sorry for your delusion. Their conduct over the past 3 weeks was shameful at best, criminal at worst, and the storm does not justify the way I was treated by their Fort Myers/Boy Scout Road location.

Thank you for the advice, and camaraderie over the last 2 years. We were finally in a position mechanically and otherwise to start short cruises on Pau Hana, and in 12 short hours our dream was destroyed. The cherry on top was that this was my 57th birthday. Cruel irony that!

Rob Waldrop

 

[rwaldrop13]

I spotted that Burger in one of the photos. She was pretty well buried among others but still upright. They're tough boats.

Latitude Adjustment - The Burger- Came thru in better shape than others.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Rob,
Sorry to hear about the loss of your boat, vehicle, and belongings, but at least you were safe and not aboard.

I was curious as to what boat owners were thinking when this storm was on the way. Did anyone from your marina leave? Head across the OWW? Or were most of the old timers just feeling like "we've been through this before", why move? My friend out at Ft. Myers beach lost his car and boat, but his second floor condo was spared (mostly).

 

[Bugsy]

Rob.....
Very saddened to read of your reaction to the loss of your "home". My wife and I were living aboard our 48 MY with ALL of our belongings when we "experienced" Hurricane Lennie in St.Maarten ( Simpson Bay). Lennie was a Cat 4 and after securing as best we could, we took refuge in a nearby apartment. Mid-storm, there was no doubt in my mind that our boat was lost and we spent a tearful night contemplating the difficulty of recovery. The relief was palpable when the next day we found our vessel still afloat.....damaged but afloat.

 

[Bugsy]

Sky....I know your question was addressed to Rob and focussed on Legacy Marina but this same question has been asked by many. There is an assumption that there is somewhere to go! Where? Yes....one could head east upstream of Franklin Lock but then? There are essentially no facilities and those few had no slips. So what is a liveaboard to do....drop anchor and pray the storm remains on a NE path and that the winds aren't too strong?
A day before, the storm surge map didn't seem to suggest Fort Myers would be inundated keeping in mind the City ( and Legacy Marina) are about 10 miles (+/-) upstream from the Gulf. Our boat was seasonally docked at a well-protected marina closer to the Gulf. That marina was also extensively damaged but I think only 4 boats were lost. Oft times, it's a "damned if you do; damned if you don't scenario".