Murphy, Meet Norbert

The Captain's Club will hold a two-day Hurricane Party for all the liveaboards and anyone else needing a safe place to wait out Norbert

The Capt has decided Hurricane Norbert is enough of a threat to move our boat "Bliss" from her mooring in the anchorage to a slip the marina, for at least a couple of nights. So this morning we tucked her into "F" Dock.

Norbert, at last report, touched land at Magdalena Bay on the Pacific side of Baja, a large, pleasant bay I remember from our trip south in 1997 when we sailed with a flotilla of 120 sailboats out of San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. I'm wondering what Mag Bay look like when Norbert (now a Category 2 or 3 depending on whose report you believe) has passed through.

Magdalena Bay (light green marker at left), largest bay and one of the most populated areas on Baja's west coast, is directly beneath Norbert at this moment. Let's all put in a good word with our higher authorities for the safety of everyone living there

The best guesses place Norbert's landing on the mainland coast, sometime this evening, at Topolobampo, a major shipping and fishing port for northwestern Mexico.

Google hybrid map of Topolobampo (blue marker) and surrounding towns, where Norbert is expected to make landfall on the mainland. The city is several miles up a shipping channel and surrounded by wetlands, which should offer some protection from the worst of the storm.

Down at the Captain's Club they're getting ready for a two-day Hurricane Party. This may sound frivolous, but many people who are living on their boats will want to come ashore to wait out the storm, and the CC is a good, sturdy, centrally-located building on higher ground only a block from the marina. And then there are all of us housebound people who might get cabin fever.

At our house, I'm removing books and pictures from the walls where we had leakage in the last storm, even though the Capt was on the roof patching cracks with a recommended white cement substance yesterday. If I put everything away safe, we'll have no leaks, in accordance with Murphy's Law. We'll set up our little Honda generator in case the power fails, check our water supplies, gather up our candles and battery-powered lanterns, clear off the front and back patios of small objects that might take off in a blow, and make sure we have enough minutes on our cell phones to check in with our friends. Have we thought of everything, Murphy? I guess we'll know soon enough.

Fred on S/V "Sojourn," our weather guru, says we're in line for the effects of full-blown hurricane, with winds up to 50 knots and a gully-washer of a rainstorm. Meanwhile it's breezy outside but very humid, and we're all a little tense with anticipation. I'd rather Norbert came visiting in the daytime, as nighttime storms add a measure of fear of the unknown, but so be it.

Time to practice some songs. How about:
"Here's That Rainy Day"
"Who'll Stop the Rain?"
"Shelter From the Storm"
"A Hard Rain's A'Gonna Fall"
"Riders of the Storm"
"Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain"

Any more suggestions?