Storm Isaac creates havoc in Road Harbour, Tortola

Here we are … so far all seems to be fine with Impi … there are winds raging outside, the sea state is chopped up by wind and wave and although this is difficult to capture, the seas are worse than they appear from our relative platform of safety.

We have waves crashing over the wall just astern of us on the odd occasion, but apart from that all seems fine!

We heard several calls go out over the VHF radio indicating some ships were dragging anchor not far from us … in fact just ‘up weather’ from our location … by the tone in voice we determined the situation was pretty severe.

I looked out through the back doors on board Impi and observed a number of ships which had clearly moved from their original position … I could see their anchor lines were entwined.

With this, and as the weather cleared momentarily, I grabbed my camera and started taking a few photographs of the situation which revealed 4 ships trying to manoeuvre about each other … 3 were in a particularly bad position in that there was serious potential for collision and in fact I was pretty sure that ships were hitting against each other!

I had also observed an orange distress flare had been deployed as can be seen in one of the photo's below

Having spoken with Andrew in Nanny Cay where his boat is safely tied down, one realised the significance of being tied into a decent cove since he was totally oblivious of the ocean and wind state outside of that bay.

I must admit that we too are in a very fortunate situation as Impi is ‘calm’ whilst from her position one can see the storm passing by.

The United States Coast Guard is issuing distress calls to be on the look out for missing kayakers who are washed out at sea … I cannot believe what I am hearing as people have been well warned in advance of this storm!