So, we are here for another day. The wind warning ended last night and we thought that we would be able to leave but a new wind warning was posted this morning, so here we are. We may be staying tomorrow too!

I will explain the pictures below. In the top picture, the coast guard, which is right beside the marina, spent quite a bit of time on a safety/rescue drill. We watched them for a while and got to talking to some other people on the dock. Then, I noticed that something was burning and when we looked at our stove, the eggs had been left on and they boiled dry. That was a bit of a mess!

The bottom picture is of John. He is on the boat in front of us and has been here for eight days. His wife left to go to Newfoundland so that she could look after her ailing mother and he has had a variety of other crew members who have also left. One lasted nine days and the other lasted eleven. So, now he is kind of stuck. He’s waiting for his wife to return and just bought a membership to the yacht club! His original plan was to sail south but it looks like he might be putting the boat up here in Port Hawkesbury.

John bought his boat in Louisiana, near New Orleans, shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit. He and his wife were at home in Belleville and after a lengthy delay, finally got to go down to down to assess the damage. His boat was in a marina all tangled up with all the other boats, docks and debris. He said that the water level went up 22 feet. There was (is?) a condominium at the marina and the first two floors were underwater. It took him two days to get the boat secured and he left it tied up to the remnants of a dock. He said the smell of everything rotting in the humidity and heat was terrible. He went back home to start straightening out the insurance and found out that the salvage company came along and took all the boats away – just hauled them to a variety of fields. He then went back down to New Orleans and spent a good long time looking for the boat and finally found it in a field with hundreds of other boats. In addition to the damaged boat, somebody had taken everything they could off the boat – cutlery, binoculars – anything that was of some value.

He managed to get it trucked up to Belleville and then fixed it up and is sailing it now. Here are some pictures that he took of the damage. Yikes!

So, that is all the news for today. We are keeping our eye out for the weather and hopefully be able to leave soon.