The Safe Return of Chuckie

It seems like it has been almost a year since I last put digits to keyboard for my BLOG. Probably because it HAS been almost a year. I know I know, a keen grasp of the obvious I possess.

The reason is mostly that I have been writing my novel about our vacation and subsequent entrapment in Tortola during Hurricane IRMA. The therapist we were seeing suggested I write down our adventures as a method to come to grips with the PTSD I was suffering from. I was having trouble sleeping and when I did fall asleep I was plagued by horrendous dreams. Things like our boat sinking and my crew and friends getting killed and worse by the hurricane.

Sure I know what you must be thinking, Big tough adventurer Chuckie suffering from PTSD over a little old wind storm?

You bet your sweet ass I was.

Hurricane Irma was the most powerful hurricane ever seen or recorded in the Atlantic basin. The winds that hit the Moorings Marina, where we were hunkering down, were clocked at 208 miles per hour sustained. That was recorded before the eye of the storm came over. The winds may have been higher but the wind instruments were torn off of the building. In the eyewall, the most dangerous part of the storm, there were two tornados swirling about. The National Weather Service doppler RADAR in San Juan Puerto Rico measured those winds at over 385 miles per hour. Two 58 foot catamarans were picked up and thrown around like toys. They each weigh in excess of 40,000 pounds.

After the roof of our shelter/hotel room blew off where we were now looking at the sky, we made our way (crawled over 150 feet) to our safe spot as designated by the marina staff. It was the reinforced classroom where the chart briefings were held. There were about 20 of us hiding in there when the eye of the storm arrived.

It was then the water started to rise.

We evacuated the classroom when the water was knee deep and still rising and fled upstairs to a newer section of the hotel which was oriented more favorably towards the coming backside of the hurricane.

I will spare you the horrific details of some of the uncontrollable panic and reprehensible behavior that occurred while we were fighting for our lives. Needless to say it was pretty ugly.

We lived through the storm and made it home after we were trapped in the marina complex for a week. The Moorings did an amazing job of feeding us and protecting us from the terrifying situation that was taking place on the island. The Moorings fed us, sheltered us, liquored us up and kept us informed constantly, they even chartered a plane from Jamaica to fly in and evacuate us to Puerto Rico.

When we arrived home we found that Sunsail (The Moorings) had even credited us for the sailing time we missed because of the storm!

And yes, it was so horrific of an experience that it has taken me almost a year to get over it.

We went back to Tortola  about a month and a half ago.

The island is still in serious disrepair. The people are doing everything they can to try and return their lives to normal. Imagine your house being destroyed to the point that you couldn't find it. Some of these peoples houses were so damaged that the concrete slabs the buildings sat on were torn from the ground and blown away. Sounds crazy and like bullshit doesn't it? Trust me it wasn't. I was there. I saw it.

So I will be Blogging more now. The political season is upon us and there is so much insane shit going on that I could type for days about it all.

As for my novel? Well, it will never be published. No one will ever see it. There is a lot of personal stuff written in there. Lots of dark and nasty things about people I thought I once knew and cared for. Their unforgivable behavior and actions are documented in their entirety and there is no need to bring those incidents to light again. I am sure they have, and are, suffering as much as I have.

Just get me drunk sometime. I'm pretty sure I will freely spew all that ugly nonsense then!