Grenada - Tropical Storm Felix part II

[Kevin's Post]Felix announced his arrival around 4AM with howling wind and torrential rain. We both got up since it was impossible to sleep. We sat around listening to conditions deteriorate outside and downloading weather updates. The 5AM advisory from the National Hurricane Center stated that it had strengthened to a tropical storm as predicted and the center had passed and was located about 30 miles NW of us. Shortly after 5am the power went out and the marina was pitch black. Since we couldn't see anything from inside the boat, we put on our foul weather gear and went out to the cockpit to check on things. The wind speed indicator was showing a sustained 45 knots (52mph) with higher gusts. There was a steady chatter on the VHF of anchored boats dragging in the various harbors around southern Grenada. We could see that the two boats on the opposite side of the dock (the windward side) were having trouble with the wind and waves pushing them back into the dock. Amanda turned on the deck lights to light up the docks so they could see and I put on a pfd and went over to help. Both of the boats' transoms were slamming into the dock under the force of the wind and the waves. That can be pretty serious, a lot of boats sank because of this during Ivan. I helped one of the boats adjust their docklines to hold them off the dock and the other boat managed to get situated on their own. The rain hitting me at 50 mph was actually kind of painful and I had to lean into the wind to maintain my balance. I think everyone was a little surprised by this storm since we only had about 16 hours warning versus 4 days like we had with Dean. One of our neighbors clocked the max wind at 53 knots (61 mph). These were the strongest winds we have seen since we have been on the boat. At least the boat got a good rinse.

The small white circle in the middle of the red is Grenada.