The Aftermath of the Wind

March 14th (Saturday)

  

Over the course of yesterday evening, and overnight, the wind continued to increase, and the temperature dropped to -5. As our boat pulled on her lines and then sprang back against her fenders the noises were constant yet ever-changing between squeaking, creaking, and howling. Needless to say neither of us slept that well. 

From the marine weather records, while we were experiencing the worst of the wind here overnight, Cathedral Point, which is in Burke Channel not far from here, received gusts of 131 km/hr, and had a wind chill of -20. 

In the morning the spray-covered breakwater was white with a thick layer of ice, and anything with its back to the wind and spray was equally covered in ice. Unfortunately this included Kiki. 

The back of both pontoons were covered in a thick layer of ice, and there were icicles hanging off of the outboard. Poor, cold Kiki.  

Although the wind had decreased somewhat by morning, it was still quite windy, and it was a very chilly walk to work. We made very good progress on our prep work, with a combination of scraping, sanding, and patching. 

It was amazing how much of the paint would almost literally fall off of the ceiling and some of the areas of the walls. We just had to slide the scraper along, and large flakes would come crumbling down. It was also amazing how many holes, dings, scratches, and cracks there were in the walls. When we sanded, we kept a pencil with us, and each time that we found an area that needed repair we would circle it. By the time we were done sanding the walls, they looked like some weird art project; a mural, with different colours from the different layers of paint, and different pencilled shapes, from our marking the repair areas.  

At home, in the evening, the wind had almost completely died off. Only the odd, lighter gust would make its presence known by a distant howl. We were hopeful that it would remain that way, and that we would be able to get a good night’s sleep.