Hiding from the weather

So, we've been having some incredibly nice weather lately. It just seems that every day since the rain ended last week has seen a perfect blue sky with big puffy white clouds, comfortable day time temperatures, and cool night air. The late summer and early fall has always been my favorite time of year, largely due to the reliably nice weather. Even the shortening days are only momentary tragedies.

I was thinking about all of that this morning, when my Dad called me from somewhere off the coat of Rhode Island. He and my Mom are off on their annual sail around New England, currently on their way back to Long Island. The plan was to get home Saturday, but then Irene came along, changing theirs, and everyone's plans.

Like most people who live near the coast, we've been though our share of bad storms. The worst was Hurricane Bob, which hit Cape Cod while the family were there on vacation in 1991. The ensuing week, without electricity, was fairly memorable. Aside from some felled trees, though, that was a fairly minor hurricane. Another time, we were on a chartered boat in the Chesapeake Bay, when a fairly powerful, albeit brief, storm blew through. We were secure on our anchor, but the rolling, pitching boat was a less-than-fun place to be. In fact, although I'm not necessarily averse to it, I haven't slept on a boat since (except two nights on ferries while schlepping around the Mediterranean in 2006, but that was a different kind of thing).

I guess that Chesapeake storm didn't have as much of an effect on Dad, as he's spent countless nights on his boat since then. He did, however, decide to heed the weather service's warnings about Irene, so he and Mom will seeking safe harbor, in the literal sense, to ride out the storm this weekend. Although I love sailing, I can say with certainty that I hope to never be stuck on a boat in a big storm, and I'll be hoping the two of the are securely moored this weekend.

My weather-realted challenges are slightly easier to deal with, and certainly require fewer logistics: I was planning on racing Saturday evening, but it's increasingly looking like that race might get washed out. Having once raced in a monsoon, it's nothing that I'd like to ever do again.