Dave from Dark Woods writes "hey old man, what's the Fishing the Vineyard kids modus operandi in the face of impending doom courtesy of the first hurricane to pummel the rock in like 20 years?" While my first instinct is to say "none of your goddamn business, now get back in that bunker and wait for a national guardsmen to tell you what to do", in the spirit of full disclosure, I'll show you...
Before the blow we spend a couple of days with a guy from Connecticut trying to dispel the myth that bananas are bad luck in a boat. Sadly for us, and despite our strongest efforts, that theory still seems to hold a great deal of verisimilitude. Robert-Douglas from Ocean Heights usually just brings a pineapple or some huckleberries when he covets a fruit fix while afloat.
The first step of hurricane preparation is to pull everything from the skiff into the basement. In the event that a Wizard of Oz type scenario were to play out I'd still need my fishing poles and such.
Mister from Pensyl-Hio decided to spend the hours before Earl in the lapstrake skiff with Karl from OB teaching the greenfish one last lesson in the event that the storm were to swallow him up and they could never play again.
A stroll down to the Village for some window shopping is always a good time killer.
Before the streets are shut down to non-emergency vehicles it's fun to take a ride and contemplate the heard mentality and the manifestations of mass hysteria.
What, you thought I was gonna let the hoarders get it all?
As it turns out you can actually measure approximate wind speed with this sucka; kind of like a flag at a ballpark. We had some decent gusts on the lead edge of the storm, but nothing that would make it stand at attention for any prolonged period of time.
I've always been terrible at shopping under pressure. They said get canned goods and the essential non-perishables. This is what I came up with.
Once the hatches are battened down and all supplies have been inventoried/re inventoried it's time for a libation.
Eventually, all that's left to do is don the riot gear and guard the expensive shit from looters.
I think we'll always remember Earl as the most prepared we ever were for a 3 hour rainstorm that came in the middle of the night when we were all asleep anyway. Can we go fishing again now?
WBC
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