Monday August 28th, 2006
Me llamo Ernesto,
How is an Alabama divorce and a tornado similar? Somehow, Someway, someone is losing a mobile home:)
I've always said if you're thinking of buying a home in "Tornado Alley", Don't! If you're thinking of buying that cheap property in a flood plain, it's a bad idea. If you just've got to have that multi-million dollar house on a cliff prone to mud slides, you're asking for trouble. Sam Kinison joked about the Ethiopian's living in a desert and dealing with starvation offering his answer "MOVE! You live in a F**king Desert!!!" A bit harsh considering the circumstances. More closer to home though: If you've bought a multi-million dollar piece of property on a coastline which is inevitably going to be reclaimed "buy" the sea, sucks to be you! A fool and his money will soon be parted. So today, on the anniversary of Category 5 Hurricaine Katrina, I find myself contemplating my hypocrisy as Tropical Depression Ernesto threatens to gather strength after passing over Cuba and is projected to do anything but miss the limp phaleus on the U.S. map and my current place of residence that we like to call Florida.
Growing up as a surfer in NJ, my breatheren and I would begin salivating when we got word of an impending laison with one of Mother Natures awesome displays of power. After all, we really had nothing to lose. No ownership in property to worry about, no actual threat to our lives or limbs. We just looked forward to the aftermath; an eery quiet stillness and fantastically groomed mountainous swells to ride until we could paddle no more, assuming we didn't drown in the effort. But then, living on the edge is really living. At least that's one way to look at it.
Here in Florida notwithstanding the pauper surf community, the outlook is not the same. As the "U.S. welcome mat" for incoming storms, most people here are not quite as enthusiastic as we were in our carefree adolescent days. Personally, I still feel I'm on the safe side of hypocrisy because realistically I still have nothing much to lose. Sure the boat could sink, but we are in about 7 ft of water and have a 6 ft. draft so at worst my clothes would get wet. I'm pretty sure I can find high enough ground to save my Mp3 player which isn't really of any significant monetary value, relatively speaking it's completely negligible to what others stand to lose, but the weeks worth of time it took me to load up my music collection would cause a sting if lost. And that's about all I have to lose. Granted a tree could get blown down and crush my car and I don't want to belittle a much appreciated gift, but it was a gift and in the end "easy come, easy go" as they say. But then I'm not typical of most Floridians. Nearly everyone here has, at least to their way of thinking, everything to lose. So I won't make light of their situation. I'll just be thankful for mine and hope the best for everyone else. However, it does beg a moment of pause to contemplate our actions with regard to aquisitions and what we hold dear.
So Ernesto is slated to hit Florida Wednesday morning. Everyone at the Weather Channel is ecstatic and everone in Florida is tense while scrambling to the grocery stores and waiting hours in line to fill up their tanks with gas. Where they are all planning to go I don't know as in all likelyhood it will do more damage on it's track up the coast. My car's gas light is glowing with a "Low Fuel" orange amber, but that just means if it does get crushed by a tree I won't have lost as much. After all, I'm not going anywhere and I'd feel terrible if that presumptuous tree where to puncture the gas tank and send gallons of the harmful "America's addiction of choice" juices into our watershed even if that's the direction they originally came from.
So what does it all mean in the end. Well, not much to me really. We had one day charter scheduled for Wednesday, but barring a miracle that is going to be cancelled. It will be rescheduled and I'll get to gander at all sexy waitresses and dancers that were coming for the party at a another time. Looking at the predicitons of our infamous "weatherologists" (God save us from ourselves for relying on the only group of professionals who can be wrong more often than not and still keep their jobs) things look as though they'll be pretty mild. It may not even brew up to hurricaine strength by the time it hits Lauderdale although it may strengthen for it's rendevous with all you in the Mid Atlantic. We will undoubably get our fair share of wind and rain which will rock the boat, but it is unlikely to get up past a Category 1/2 which we can handle we we are now. BTW: don't come a-knockin while the boat is a-rocking cause we will be full. The owner will come on board with an entourage when the power inevitably goes out and we will start digging into our stock pile of water and any food we can procure, that is if all the food isn't gone by the time we get to the market. But all in all we are in a pretty good place. We have plenty of fuel on board. Enough to get us to the Bahamas if we had to make a run for it. But seeing that it's just as likely to affect the Bahamas as Florida our plan is to stay put and use up the fuel by running the generator to keep the AC running and the ice pumping for the drinks. And the watermaker (turns sea water into drinking water) isn't taken for granted in times like these.
So although I don't really believe that this is going to much of anything, you never know. No worries here, but just in case I hope everyone out there is comfortably prepared and fares well. And in the worst case scenerio, we will always have FEMA to save us! I hope Jeb didn't piss off George the last time they spoke......
So for anyone concerned, don't be. Unless it gets to Cat 3 or higher, in which case I'll probably have a very interesting story to tell. In any case I'll survive. No pics with this blog and hopefully there won't be any forthecoming, but if there is some interesting destruction I'll belatedly post some evidence of the aftermath. To all those worried about losing something; keep in mind what really counts. To all the surfering grommets and elders with nothing to lose, I hope this brings us all a few freight train barrels where all you hear is the hollow vacuum of suction as that enveloping wall of liquid bliss enfolds you in a solitary room of awesome yet oddly peaceful power before a birthing baptism spits you back into our time-space reality leaving you renewed and refueled after siphoning off a bit of its pure-natural energy.
I'm planning on being in NJ Sept. 15 or 16th for M.T's wedding. Can't wait........
From the Weather Channel this is psuedo-meteorologist Doug Wolinsky awaiting Ernesto from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, back to you Jeanette.
