I rode out Hurricane Isabel (2003) on my boat. I was living on her at the time and wasn't about leave her, she was my home. It sure was a 24 hours I will never forget.
By the time the storm hit where I was tied up at in the harbor of Baltimore, Maryland she had reduced from a Cat V to a Cat I but the winds were still intense. The sound of the ringing from the wind vibrating the rigging of dozens of sailboats in the area was incredible. High tide and the storm surge came at the same time. I was tied up in the slip of a fixed wooden pier and normally at hide tide the water was about seven or eight feet below the top of the pylons. At the peak of the storm the tops of the pylons were about five feet below the water. Everyone's lines were going straight down into the water, you couldn't see the pier at all.
My slip was only about 30 feet from shore and the shallow water was causing breaking waves 3 to 4 foot high right of my bow in the 100 feet of space between my pier and the pier to my east. As the tide/surge rose and the lines tightened up the pounding motion of the waves caused both of my forward starboard(windward) lines to snap. I was in serious risk of being holed and sunk as the wave motion was crashing her down on to the top of the pylon on the lee side of the boat. By the grace of the Gods the gentleman who owned the boat next to mine had come to ride out the storm on his powerboat that day. He made a loop on the end of a spare line and made the shot of a life time to get it around the last foot or so of pylon poking above the water. I crawled out onto the bow and and he threw me the end of the line. I was able to snug up the loop around the pylon and then ever so slowly, between waves, was able to pull the bow back into position in the center of the slip. The process took over an hour. Many thanks to Mr. Bill!
It was about 24 hours before the wind died down and the tide/surge ebbed out enough to walk back out on the pier. There was one boat sunk and a boat tied up on the very end of the pier with only lines on one side of the boat was holed, luckily just above the water line.
I'm glad I was there. Would have lost my home otherwise. Even though I saved my home, I did lose my car which was in the lot about 50 feet from shore. It was in water up to just below the roof. In my haste to prep for the storm I had never thought about the water rising so high. Mother Nature can be very humbling.
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