Irene Pictures

The first six slides are pictures I took on the weekend, we were spared a lot of this storm. The rest are from the local paper. The Delaware coast got clobbered, the storm triggered two tornadoes, that destroyed or damaged more than fifty houses in Lewes and Wilmington Delaware. Beautiful day today warm and sunny, I am at the office pretending to work.

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Irene, Goodnight Irene.

I’ll see you in my nightmares more like.
Looks like we creek dwellers are in the path of Hurricane Irene, the storm may just graze the Delaware beaches on it’s(her?) way north. The beach areas are under compulsory evacuation. Current predictions here on the eastern shore are for 70 MPH winds, 10 inches of rain and an eight foot tidal storm surge. Depending on the state of the tide late on Saturday that may put water three or four feet over my dock and could completely submerge my pilings. Right now we have no water at all in the creek, it went out like water down a drain today and will probably come roaring back almost as fast late tomorrow with the wind.

I am well down my checklist

Doubled up the mooring lines on the big boat (a delicate calculation required for length, the slip is 50′ by 20′ the boat is 44′ by 15′ what length of line is required to accommodate an 8′ rise in water level without allowing the boat to touch the pilings?)
The floating dock is secured.
Power and water to the dock are turned off
Dockboxes are empty (they always fill with water)
Furniture either removed from the dock or chained down.
Generator is checked out and fueled.
Spare fuel tanks are filled
Cars are in the garage
Dinghy (inflatable rescue boat) is on the trailer in the garage with the checked and fueled motor on it, and yes the life jackets are in there.

On a lighter note, I am told the local Walmart has run out of milk, bread, flashlight batteries and snow shovels(joke).

More tomorrow, must go and checkout the chainsaw (and the camera).

We’re Talking Crabs –Part 1

It’s the peak of crabbing season here and this is all about crabs and crabbing. I am told that when get on a subject that interests me I often have to be brought up sharply with a loud “Shut up man! You’re boring people”. So don’t say you were not warned.
The crabs in question are the Atlantic Blue Crab, more specifically those that thrive in what H. L. Mencken (one of my favorite drunks) called “that great protein factory, Chesapeake Bay”

Here’s a bushel basket of fresh blues just by way of introduction.

The French Government Response to the Euro Crisis.

From my local paper this morning.