It’s always good to be open to new ideas and places, even when they are not highly recommended.
Our options getting to Columbus Marina when storms were predicted for the evening were...
- Go all the way to Columbus in 1 day: 59 miles and 4 locks, hopefully get there before the storms
- Go to Smithville (a fixer-upper type marina) only 18 miles and 1 lock, take the storms there, then on the next day with predicted beautiful weather, go to Columbus through 3 locks and 41 miles.
We chose option 2 to play it safe. Then the storms arrival kept being moved back, and back, and finally the arrival time was 11PM! ARGH! We could have gone with option 1!
Oh well, we were able to experience the Smithville Marina instead. Let’s see, how can we describe this marina? Worn-out, tired, rickety, unkempt, the list could go on and on. BUT! The marina manager was really nice! Two local dogs (Charlie, who looks like Bo without white markings, and Mullen, an Australian Shepherd mix with one blue and one brown eye, the marina owner’s dog) welcomed us along-side Captain Jim. He was very friendly, a real talker and quite informative about the dogs and not tying up to the dock too tightly because the cleats could break off, and we saw numerous places where cleats had been pulled off. WAIT! WHAT! A storm on its way and we should tie up loosely to the dock? The cleats break off? OMG, what’s next? The other boats in the marina looked … um … messy, untidy, weathered … yet some of them were live aboard boats. Capt. Jim told us they had city water so it was good, but we had no interest in connecting our hose to the water spicket for our dock – eeuuwww – it just didn’t seem … appealing. The office was in a rustic little red one-room “house” with a desk, 3 cushy yet well-worn chairs and very interesting (and some very nice) nautical artwork. We didn’t ask about facilities and could only find one garbage can - on the porch of the little red house … hate to put the dog poop bag in there but where else? While walking Bo, I met a very nice woman (Charlie’s owner) who was very pleasant. She and her husband had lived on a boat at the marina for a year before buying their trailer that they lived in near the entrance to the marina. She tried to get Charlie to come home, coaxing him with a ride in the truck, but once she saw he was with Mullen, she gave up saying he wouldn’t come home until Mullen went home. Capt. Jim claims that one or the other stays with him most nights.
We cooked out burgers on the grill and had a quiet evening waiting for the storms to arrive. Around 9:30 (past midnight for loopers!) we hit the sack. 11:22PM: ALERT Sue’s phone next to the bed was blaring a warning signal stating that there was a tornado in the area and to take cover immediately; the tornado warning was issued until 12:15 AM. Brian was up in a second and then his computer in the galley issued the same emergency tones and announcement. Within another instant, the same alert was broadcast from Brian’s phone next to the bed!!! By the time Sue’s heart rate came back down to a reasonable pace, Brian was at his computer tracking the tornado location and watching the sky from the flybridge. Thankfully the tornado was about 30 miles north, but there were other cells in the area capable of spawning evil tornados. His plan, should we have needed to use it, was to put on life jackets and go into the engine room – the sturdiest place on the boat and safest from all the potential debris around the marina. Sue didn’t know this until the next morning. Instead she lay awake trying to ignore the wind and waves pounding against the boat, hoping that the dock cleats would hold and it would all go away soon. Brian stayed up watching the weather on his computer and the dock lines until it was safe. One great thing about the Smithville Marina is that they have fantastic WiFi service! Bo was able to sleep right through all of it. He was the happiest of the 3 of us in the morning because he had gotten a good night’s rest!
So, it is true that it’s good to be open to new ideas and places. Even at Smithville Marina, we met nice people and dogs, had a quiet evening and knew that the emergency broadcast system was successfully in place.