Last week ended strongly for us. Susan’s property in NY finally closed and there’s been a lot of activity on her house in CT as well. I put my house on the market last Wednesday, had the first showing that afternoon and received a full price offer the next day. Four showings were scheduled for the following day and I was hoping for a bidding war. Friday afternoon Susan drove to my house and then we traveled together down to the marina that afternoon anticipating another full weekend of boat work. What we didn’t realize was that a class one tornado would hit my town (and my street) within an hour of our departure.
We were on the boat when we heard that strong thunderstorms were moving across the sound. We could see the sky darkening to the west of us and then cloud to cloud lighting. We rigged for heavy weather but it passed us by. We thought all was well until I got a call from my realtor later that evening. She said that Wethersfield had been hit by what appeared to be a tornado. Large trees and power lines were down all over town and some homes were totally destroyed. She had checked my house and found a lot of water on the 1st story floors, an inch of water in my basement and a tree had glanced my garage. She cleaned up the water and other than that said my house seemed ok. I’m very grateful for her concern and action in protecting my house. The power was out all over town and wouldn’t be restored til the following evening. Even though it was 10:30pm when we got the call we were so wired from the news that Susan suggested we leave immediately for my place to assess the damage first hand. When we arrived the town looked like a war zone. It was eerily dark; the only light around was from the flashing lights of police and emergency crews hard at work.It was tragedy and a miracle rolled into one. Wethersfield is one or the oldest towns in the state. Founded in 1633 it prides itself on its historic homes and majestic trees. The tragedy was that many of the great old trees and some historic homes were damaged. It was a miracle that no life was lost and relativity few homes were destroyed.
Jim Funk had installed our dodger earlier in the week and we were delighted to see it installed. He’s an amazing craftsman and I am very grateful to be the recipient of his art.
Susan hoisted me up the mast and I was able to properly secure the mast head light. Right about then friends 
Elaine & Tom showed up and helped with the arduous chore of scraping varnish. We took a brief break in the afternoon and dinghyed over to the Mystic Seaport where they were having a wooden boat show that we were able to enjoy from the water.
The Amistad (one of my favorites) was there along with dozens of other wooden beauties. On Sunday we did more boat work. I managed to get the solar array on line on Saturday and that seemed to be working great. It was a magical experience for me to disconnect the boat from shore power and while we ran all kinds of power tools, the batteries remained topped off. I’m hopeful that the system will be able to support refrigeration without running a generator. It will truly be wonderful if we can supply all our electrical needs from the sun, fingers crossed.
125 days
