Sunsets

Sunsets. We get some nice ones here in Southwest Florida.

Yesterday Carolyn and Cody and I went out into the Gulf of Mexico for a first-ever sunset cruise on Rambler II. Carolyn and I tried to do the same thing Saturday but the conditions in the Gulf were not conducive to a comfortable sunset cruise.

The conditions in the Gulf on Monday were much better. We dropped an anchor in shallow water, knowing that the tide was coming while we were on the beach. We had some cocktails and waited for sunset.

We took Mabel The Rescue too, who has proven to be a first rate Boat Dog and adequate crew member.

So, here is what we experienced yesterday evening.

John P. Needham

November 21, 2023

Naples, FL

Hurricane Ian

On September 28th, hurricane Ian blew through the southwest Florida coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ian followed the path of a devastating storm in 2004, hurricane Charlie. There were two big differences between Ian and Charlie:

• Charlie came past Naples heading north and made landfall around Punta Gorda, and the storm last around five hours; in contrast, Ian passed Naples and also made landfall around Punta Gorda, but it lasted for roughly 12 hours. Ian was offshore of Naples from low tide all the way through high tide, which dramatically increased the size of the storm surge.

• Ian also was a monster-sized storm: the entire wind field from Charlie would have fit into just the eye of hurricane Ian. When I woke up on Wednesday morning, the eye of Ian was just off the coast of Naples, but the wind field extended all the way from Key West to Sarasota.

We lost power at 10:15AM Wednesday and it did not come back until overnight on Friday. Of course, all the cell towers in SWFL also were blown down so we had extremely limited cellular service too. We still don't have good drinking water a week later.

Below are some images I took during and after the storm. Just posting them for posterity's sake.

John P. Needham

October 4th, 2022

5:25PM

Naples, FL