Hurricane Irma Recovery Update: It’s October Already?!?!

It seems like the month of September was one big blur, and suddenly we wake up and it’s October.

A month ago, we were watching the weather forecasts and Irma was just this tropical threat that might give us some outer bands to contend with.

And then wham, the next morning the forecasts shifted and our gamble to stay in Florida for this hurricane season was called. It started a several day long scramble of having to make successive big decisions based on best guesses.

The emotional rollercoaster has been intense – from potentially saying good-bye to our new-to us boat and returning to find Y-Not relatively unscathed.

We’ve now been back almost 2 weeks, and things are coming together – both aboard and around us.

Last evening we hosted a live video cast giving an update, if you care to catch up:

Quick Recap on Y-Not and Us

Y-Not continues to look good with just some small damage here and there.

We had a diver go under yesterday for a cleaning and first inspection – and nothing of big concern noted (just some rubbed bottom paint and gel coat). Props, rudders and anodes all look good. We seem seaworthy, and can leave as soon as we feel the debris out of here is navigable and we’re ready.

We’ve been busily fixing things, tracking down new leaks and performing inspections before our insurance adjustor shows up.

And upon receiving a distressed call from our cat sitter back in Melbourne, we rented a car and brought Kiki home. While it was 600 miles of driving we really didn’t have in us, it’s good to have our little family back together again.

We’ve decided to keep the rental car for now, as it give us flexibility to help out around the area.

Including taking some volunteer shifts at local Disaster Recovery Centers. Because our lack of damage is definitely an exception to the rule. The locals in the area are exhausted with clean-up efforts and trying to pick up the pieces.

We’ve also been catching up on our work over at RV Mobile Internet – with huge gratitude to our members for their patience during this time, and our staff for filling in for us.

The Keys Recovery in General

Since our return, every day gets a little better, but it’s hard to realize unless you look back and compare. The devastation numbs you to these conditions being the new normal.

But trash piles are moving along, the smells are shifting to less putrid, and green buds are returning to stripped vegetation.

Restaurants are re-opening, albeit with limited menus as staffing, supplies and resources are still ramping back up.

There’s something weird about enjoying a decadent sushi dinner, knowing your waiter may be sleeping in their car tonight (tip BIG!). But yet, supporting local businesses is one way we can contribute.

At our own Burdines Waterfront – the staff is kicking butt to get this place recovered. Last week, the fuel dock re-opened to boats – and the restaurant is on track to reopen late next week. And the staff has been incredibly supportive in assisting us slip holders in being comfortable (every single boat in our little marina is livable.. amazing!). Making sure we have power, water and clean restrooms. And since their pump out service is still offline, they even arranged a pump out boat to come around once a week.

This past Sunday, the Keys officially re-opened for tourism and a huge ad-campaign is beginning to encourage visitors returning – while many locals are still rendered homeless and receiving minimal aid.

Tourism is the lifeblood of the area, and if the dollars don’t return – long term recovery will be stalled. It’s a tough call – we understand the angst of the locals who are not ready, but also see the big picture. It would be a huge missed opportunity for the upcoming Fantasy Fest to be canceled.

We decided on Sunday to take a break and a drive down to Key West – passing through the harder hit areas just to our south. But once you reach Key West, you have to look much harder to see signs that a hurricane passed through. The area was not as hard hit, and recovery efforts have been swift.

It was a nice break to spend a couple hours wandering around Duval Street and able to just walk in relative normalcy.

Want a Look at the Area?

We’ve been hesitant to take too many photos & videos to share of things around us.

But here is an arial drone interactive 360 image we took with the Hanger.com app and our DJI Mavic Pro upon our return, centered on Y-Not’s location:

Us nomads skirt the lines between being locals and being visitors – and we’re very sensitive that locals are feeling like outsiders are coming down to gawk at their misfortune.

We’re working with them one-on-one in our volunteer work – and feel their stories are theirs to tell, not ours. Our role here is not a journalistic one. So sharing too many street level views outside of our perspective from Y-Not just hasn’t felt right.

However, at the same time – there are still locals, seasonal residents and regular visitors who haven’t returned who are hungry for current images. And of course, the media is shifting focus to other developing tragedies – so the story of Irma’s impact in the Keys is becoming a distant memory.

So we were met with mixed emotions last night when a video driving tour by Traveling Robert was brought to our attention – which includes a visit to Burdines and Y-Not. It’s all footage we could have shared too (minus the sexy voice overs) and is a very authentic look at the current state of things around us.

So, we’ve landed on being content that someone has captured what we couldn’t bring ourselves to share. So if you want a sense of what we, and those around us, are experiencing day-to-day, we’ll direct you there.

Helping Out

With so much destruction around us, it’s hard to feel your individual impact making a positive influence. But every little bit counts – we see it adding up around us.  The community helping each other has been amazing and heart warming.

Last month, our YouTube views saw quite an increase as folks followed our personal journey (thank you!). We’ve decided to contribute our YouTube proceeds (which isn’t a huge amount, our long time followers know darn well our sharing isn’t motivated by financial gain) and use them to help local organizations and people we encounter.

We’re doing the same with the Patreon proceeds, our new community we just launched before Irma. Having a safe positive space to share more of the raw and in-the-moment experiences has been such a gift to us. Again, it’s not about the funding for us, but a foundation for building a community. We’re glad we caved in to give it a try.

We’ve also decided to bring back our ‘serenDIPity’ magnet.

This magnet has a story that is relevant to current events.

When we moved to the island of St. John in the USVI in 2010, we found all of the ‘DIP’ road signs had been modified. Some said things like ‘Clam DIP’ or ‘Skinny DIP’. But the sign at the base of our winter home said ‘serenDIPity’ – and we’ve always considered serendipity to be our compass. We knew we were at the right place in the right time.

For a limited time, you can pick up the magnet we based on this sign over at our Zazzle Shop.

We have it listed at three different price points (all the same magnet – it’s more a ‘pay as you wish’ sort of thing), plus some other square products if you prefer.

All proceeds from these sales we’ll be donating to organizations helping out in the USVI and Puerto Rico.

Our experience on St. John was life changing, and now the hurricanes have impacted the lives of so many there.

What’s Next?

We honestly don’t know. We’re taking things day-by-day, and there is still almost two months of hurricane season left to keep hyper aware of.

We don’t feel comfortable leaving the Keys quite yet. For one, the waterways are blocked with sunken boats and aids to navigation are still in disarray. But we will have minor repairs to attend to eventually, and boat yard availability will be more abundant up the ICW.

In general, we need to head north up the east coast of Florida to continue our Great Loop adventure. But the storms will drastically impact marina availability, which are typically scarce in season anyway. So we still need to seek out where we might winter and what our options are. Ideally, we’d like to be central coast to be near family for the holidays.

In February, we’re committed to speaking at the RV Entrepreneur Summit in Fredericksburg, TX – so we have a winter bus trip planned (likely leaving the bus stored in the area).

And then we plan to return to the boat and high tail it as far north as we can get before next hurricane season ramps up – we’re definitely not gambling again.