Isaac

Forgive me for saying so, but it was a pretty good hurricane, so far as those things go. For me, anyhow.

That's the status I posted on Facebook earlier today.

When I was younger, I took a guilty pleasure in tropical weather. As I grew older and began to understand better the utter devastation these storms often cause, my feelings changed. My complicated relationship with cyclones is chronicled here.

So, by virtue of not having family in harm's way of this storm, by the good fortune of not being stuck in Port Fourchon or -- God forbid -- offshore, I stand by my midday statement.

Turns out a boat is not a bad place to be during a hurricane, provided you have a good hurricane hole. The dock we chose on the ICW in Morgan City was a pretty good spot.

Double-up the lines, lash down the life rafts, stow the life rings, bind the cargo and make sure the hatches are dogged tight. Then, throw a peach cobbler in the oven. That's the routine, apparently.

We didn't have to worry about the electricity going out (it's always provided by our generators), we had plenty of good food on board, and when the water rose we rose with it.

The idle time gave our crew a chance to get to know each other better; normally, we are all awake at the same time only a couple of hours a day and then we're likely pretty busy.

The eye of Isaac, still a hurricane, passed about 40 miles east of us, which meant we never saw the calm in the center of the storm.

We got some serious wind, quite a bit of horizontal rain, and in fact as late as this afternoon we're still getting some bands that make us wonder if the storm really passed. Inconveniently, one of those squalls slammed into us just as I was about to put our boat on the fuel dock.

Morgan City is hosting more work boats than usual; eight of Seacor's pretty, orange and black crewboats are rafted-up down at the Halliburton dock, and a variety of utility boats and offshore supply vessels we don't normally see are in port.

The Coast Guard did not allow any of us to move until after 1400 today, when it began reopening waterways section by section.

The bulkhead at the dock where we usually load has caved-in, and the word is that we'll be offloading and backloading at a different location tomorrow morning.

Seas are still a bit steep out there, if the National Weather Service is to be believed, so I'm happy to wait.

Don't Forget to Turn Out the Lights

Monday

It's 0500 Monday and the latest forecast from our Navtex is headed: "Hurricane Warning."

Isaac is on his way, pushing across the northern Gulf of Mexico, bulking up on a steady diet of warm water.

AIS shows just two other boats in our field and only six within range (usually a little more than 20 miles). That's a stark contrast with yesterday morning when there were more than 30 boats on the display.

It's a little lonely out here.

The radios, usually at least sporadically alive overnight with chatter between boats and platforms, have been eerily silent.

Except for some wit, who just blasted a stanza from the Scorpions' mixed-metaphor megahit: "Here I am, rock you like a hurricane ..."

Ensco Rig 75 has gone dark, the derrick now lit only by a few flashing red lights. Many of our platforms are shut-in, and only a skeleton crew remains in the field.

There are three helicopters overnighting out here, and the word is that as soon as they are loaded up with the last of the production operators, we'll be released to head in sometime after dawn.*

*Update: Our early morning release got stretched to "a couple more hours" and finally 1400. We were the very last boat out of our field, though we crossed paths with a jumbled fleet of crewboats, OSVs and ROV/dive vessels once we got close to shore -- they were all evacuating Grand Isle and Port Fourchon, headed for safe(r) harbor.