Maria hit the boat. I have been to PR about 4 times this fall. I head down there again on Wednesday. I was there for both Irma and Maria. Maria was a vicious storm. One for the record books. 4 days after the storm I hitch hiked back to the San Juan airport to get the heck out of Dodge as food, water, gas,diesel, electricity, cell phone comm was all lost in that storm island wide. It is still a mess down there especially on the south side of the island.
The boat didn't sink but settled into the mangrove mess and took quite a bit of damage. A lot of bright work (stainless steel pipes that support the dodger and bimini) got smashed and crumpled, as well as a bend in a pipe which is part of a NZ arch on the transom, a couple of broken stays on the port side (one lower and one mid to upper). But the worst damage was done by looters who swept in and stole several items from inside the boat. A few pieces I was happy to see go, but a few will be expensive to replace. The also fired off my life raft, not sure why, probably looking for things to sell. In short its a mess but salvageable.
The grapes had a bad year. The rains and flooding from last winter was good, but we didn't fertilize properly and then the fruit was sunburnt due to early summer heat in May. Then our one customer didn't renew our contract and eventually our fruit just hung and rotted on the vine. Some issues with our neighbor and partner in that regard too.
Not a great year. We did make our usual 30 gallons of wine to drench our souls in, so all was not lost. |
