I've been caught in dozens of bad storms in my lifetime, the worst Hurricane Hazel when I was a kid in the US Navy and aboard the USS Newport News in the North Atlantic as part of a presidential guard-ship fleet. 70-foot waves, crashing over the deck with enough force to rip the 3-inch 50 antiaircraft mount off the bow. That gun weighs a couple tons at the very least. We had live ammo bouncing down the deck for about 30 minutes after that until the waves washed the shells overboard. Thought I was gonna die that day.

This year has been a nasty year for sailing, with more rain and storms that I can ever recall. On my week-long trip last month I got caught in 4 horrendous thunderstorms, one of which had winds topping 70 MPH, and I was dead in the middle of Chesapeake Bay when it hit. The storm was moving at about 45 MPH from west to east and there was no way of taking shelter. I dropped the sails, lashed everything down, fired up the engine and pointed the bow into the approaching storm. At one point the boat was heeled nearly 30 degrees with no sails up and the waves were about 8 to 10 feet high. The boat did just fine, but I think the captain might have had some unexpected urinary problems. Couldn't tell, though because I was soaking wet from the driving rain that blew into the folds of my rain suit.

Gotta love Al Gore, though. He has made a bundle on the global warming BS, over $1-billion at last count. According to the predictions in his book, both Smith and Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay should be under 10 feet of water by now - whoops. The sea level there is the same as it was 50 years ago. Tangier Island is eroding away, but not because of rising sea level, but because pollution and other factors have destroyed the fragile bay grasses, which held the land in place for centuries. Amazing how this stuff works.

All the best,

Gary