Hmmmm....Matthew

[tbnolin]

Living on the St. Lucie South Fork, the ICW East /West across Florida in Martin County, today was nothing but a parade of fishing vessels, yachts, mega yachts and mega mega yachts heading to the West coast of Florida fleeing from Matthew. These boats are the ones that are docked in Ft.Lauderdale, Palm Beach and everywhere in between......the ones with the unlimited budget!! What a site to see.... boats from 28' to 175' cruising by. And then they all come back through after all is done for another showing!!

I guess I'm looking at the bright side of whats to come!!!

[DougSea]

You always need to look at the bright side! Nice that you got a parade out of it!

When Hermine was headed for New England the Old Saybrook big boys head just up the river to EIM. Can you spot the Albin 35 in the picture below?

M/V Honey on the end of C dock.

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And a few more near the ferry...

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[DesertAlbin736]

I'm very worried about my brother in Fort Pierce. Got a text from him saying he & his family plan to shelter in place with windows boarded up, stocked up with food, fuel, generator etc. But now NOAA is talking about a Cat 2 that may pass right over them, 115 MPH winds gusting to 130, 5 to 8 inches of rain, 2 to 4 ft storm surge, possible tornadoes. His house is 1.2 miles from the beach on totally flat ground. He's lived in Florida since 2000 & he's never gone through anything like this. Could be worse, latest forecast is that it will make landfall near West Palm Beach as a Cat 4. West Palm is not far from Fort Pierce. I advised he should evacuate, and I hope he does. He has two young boys. This one may reach Sandy level damages in Florida.

[DougSea]

Hey DesetAlbin - I hope he and his family come through ok. This isn't one to mess with. Looks like a Cat 4 when it hits, and the surge would worry me. The damage to Florida is likely to be extensive.

[drbob]

Take it from a Coastie, it is not a good idea to hang around for this storm. This is a bad one. We're in SW Florida where the hotels are full. But, we may be evacuating to the east coast if Matt loops back around as projected and cuts across the state to exit near Naples or Everglades city.

[Russell]

We returned to Stuart just in time for the hurricane which I lost track of while visiting family on the way down from Pennsylvania. A direct hit by a category 4 storm sounded scary so we evacuated to a motel in Kissimee and had a peaceful night. Drove back down this morning and everything is fine in our condo. Even the electricity is on! We have metal hurricane shutters and they may have prevented a blown out window. We are within walking distance from the intercoastal waterway and I was very worried that it would get flooded in the storm surge. Luckily the eye stayed off the coast until north of here, so the surge was less than it could have been. Honey Girl was in the Hinckley yard for the summer as usual and they strapped all the boats down for the hurricane. The yard manager sent an email informing everyone that all the boats are fine. So we were lucky once again.

[tbnolin]

Welcome Back Russ!!

Well, this was our first hurricane that we weathered. We left our mobile home that's on the river and headed east....yes east.... about 3 miles to a condo we have for situations like this. Second story and all shuttered up. My wife packed enough for a week but only needed one overnights worth. We lost power around 10:30 so we called it a day. Oh how the winds did howl! I got a text around 5 am from someone who stuck it out in our clubhouse. The were a few there that ventured out to assess the damage and to much of everyones surprise there was no property damage to anyones home with exception of some trim pieces that were blown off. 2 palm trees out of about 350 that we have on our grounds came down....and mine was one of them!! Did not care!! And to top it off....our community never lost power! So we came back home and started the clean up. Lots and lots of branches and palm fronds were down but felt very fortunate that was all. I guess the 11:00 pm news stated how the eye shifted just a bit towards the east which was enough to spare us here in Stuart.

Can't wait to see the yachts to come back through!!!

[DesertAlbin736]

I had been in touch via texts with my brother in Ft Pierce during the storm. They were hunkered down in their house on Ixoria Ave, all boarded up and prepped to the nines. Their power went out during the night, but I haven't heard any news from them since. From your description it sounded like they probably came through fine too since Stuart is right next door to Ft Pierce. I'm sure he's anxious to get back to work at the Pursuit factory next week.

[Chuckatuck Ray]

Russell,
Glad to hear that you and your family evacuated the area and are fine. Good news that your condo and boat made it through the storm without any damage.

Best regards,
Ray

[Russell]

Thanks Ray and everyone concerned about us down here in Florida. We lucked out this time and I feel sorry for the people north of here that got the worst of it. Even Norfolk got plenty of wind and rain. Now we can relax and start preparing Honey Girl for launching.

[DesertAlbin736]

Spoke to my brother in Ft. Pierce today by phone. Lots of wind, lots of rain, power out for a few hours, but no flooding or damage to their house. Just some repairs to a gate fence post that worked loose & needed to be re-set in concrete, plus a little yard clean up. It's back to work for him at the Pursuit Boats factory tomorrow.

[Chris & Dale]

We prayed for everyone in harms way from Matthew and all our Albin mates especially. A very destructive storm, but it could have been a lot worse. The eye literally passed right over us which was a blessing as it powered down to a Cat 1.

Moved Steel Hers from the Old Yacht Basin in Southport to St. James Marina (safest harbor around here), prepped the house & generator, and honkered down. When the eye passed over us I went and saw that our boat slip was occupied by a commercial grease trap (about the size of 2 big dockboxes) from a local waterfront restaurant. Sure glad we moved. Lots of dock damage in the Old Yacht Basin, including the city dock having to be closed for safety. Extensive flooding along the waterfront in Southport during the storm surge, some of which made its way onto facebook. Anyway, the winds are dying down and we're going to move our boat back today. North Carolina now faces the worst flooding since Floyd back in 1999 (was here for that one also), so we're not done yet.

Again, our prayers are with everyone.