Greetings,

This will probably be my last update that is strictly Hurricane Ike related. I did not get my pictures of Dream Away and Watergate Yachting Center up on the web page as yet, but I will get it done very soon. In the meantime, here is link to some other pictures of Hurricane Ike. Ike Pictures

We are doing very well. We have a friend who lives in Dickinson, which is a bit south of our Marina. He got all of his power and water restored last Monday. He left for a ten day trip to Sweden this past Thursday. He offered to have us come down and stay in his home as long as we needed to. He even offered us the use of his spare car until we can sort out the problems with our Nissan. This man has been our savior on more than one occasion. Needless to say he will be blessed for all of the kindness he has given us.

Any way this past Wednesday we left our refuge and home of the famous "Ike Eleven" in Spring, Texas, and came down to Dickinson and moved in. He showed us around his home and all of the tricks of living in a house instead of a boat. The next day, Thursday, I drove him to Bush airport in Houston, and he took off in the great iron bird for Sweden.

In the meantime the Marina was making great strides in getting our area of Pier 4/18 cleaned up so it was not so dangerous to even walk around. I was also helping other friends getting their boats moved and settled into safer places within the Marina.

I continued to get supports made for the masts. I got those completed on Saturday, and went to where my masts were stored. I had to move and clean up a lot of junk that had been washed up on them. There was no damage to the masts. I moved all of the pallets and other junk from the area. I got the supports set up and the masts up off the ground. Now I can get started on those to get ready to go back on the boat.

We could move back aboard Dream Away if we wanted to. The sewerage problem is fixed, because the service we hire is back at work. I would have to carry water back to the boat as we still do not have water and electricity in our part of the Marina. Most of Watergate that had undamaged docks, has power and water to these docks. Our area is such a mess, I am not sure when we will have power and water. We did find out from the Marina management that they are going to replace all of our docks and not repair them. That is very good news in the long run, but for the short term, it will be a major hardship.

Kitty went back to work this past Thursday, and will be really into it starting tomorrow. Because she has a really hard schedule ahead of her, we are going to be staying with our friend at least for the next week. The project Kitty was working on was behind schedule before Ike, but now it is really behind.

Our Nissan was towed to our mechanic yesterday, Saturday. The Nissan still will not start, and the rear wheels are locked. We are hoping the mechanic can tell me if the vehicle is worth fixing, or if we will have to junk it and get another vehicle.

Most of the live-aboards that live on Pier 4/18 and the regular weekender's decided to have a cook out last night at our pavilion. The area had most of the junk removed and was generally cleaned up. We had a great gathering of the "old crew", cooked out hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob and brats. Of course beer and adult beverages were in evidence also. We started early so we could finish before sundown, as we do not have power. It felt like we were taking back our lives and marina from Hurricane Ike. It was wonderful!

We are all so fortunate, as so many people in the area have lost everything. I also want to say that the FEMA POD that was set up near us, worked just like clockwork. We were provided with ice, water and MRE's every time we went there to get them. It really took some of the weight of all of the problems off of us.

Hope this email finds you well. We will be in touch, and when I get the photos up I will let you know.

regards,

jimk

Member Seven Seas Cruising Association

WEB page http://www.dreamaway.net