We are relieved the tropical storm effects were fairly minor in our protected marina in Vero Beach, although amazed this was “only” a tropical storm passing over 300 miles away.  We were under a Tropical Storm Warning with 2 days of winds reaching 30 knots with gusts over 50.  Although the storm has now passed to the west end of Cuba, there are still significant winds, rain & squalls continuing all week.  While up to 5″ of rain was forecast, we only received an inch with another inch possible.  Further south towards Miami it was much worse with up to 14″ of rain resulting in major flooding.

Although the entire marina is well protected, we temporarily moved from our T-head slip to this regular slip in which we could completely cross-tie ourselves off the dock preventing our fenders from even touching.  Our only storm effect was a slight swell from the rough Indian River coming in thru the narrow marina entrance.

Eta will next head north into the Gulf of Mexico, hopefully weakening & dissipating.  That would be nice as at one point, the NHC thought it would likely strengthen into a  Cat 1 hurricane in the warm Gulf waters, curve in to hit the Tampa area, then heading inland towards us.  No thanks – once in enough!

I jinxed things by recently commenting that this was to be the first year out of 9 cruising years we didn’t have to detour, hide-out or change our plans due to a tropical storm or hurricane!  So now our record is intact 😦