Resurrection
Well, I got knocked on my ass by Hurricane Ian, lost my place, my car and bike all flooded underwater. I spent the night of the Hurricane outside in 100 mph gusts, that was fun.
I have to admit, mistakes were made! Luckily I put all of my tools and stuff in my storage before the Storm but didn’t get my bike or car or myself to higher ground…as I said mistakes were made.
if you’ve never experienced a cat 5 hurricane and up close and personal, I don’t recommend it.
I’ve been sideswiped a few times, Katrina, Irma and this last one I can’t recall the name of, but getting the direct hit is something else.
As bad as I had it, many of my friends had it worse, one of my friends who I shared a drink with right before the storm, spent the night swimming… in his house on Fort Meyers Beach, the hardest hit area. He called me right as the storm surge came in, I was miles up river from him right on the Imperial river.
“Holy sh#$ Motherf#$*er get ready ! it’s coming your way…“
Then the phone went dead. What was coming my way was all of Tampa bay, sucked out by the rotor and shoved right into Ft Meyers beach. Fifity foot waves offshore, twenty foot storm surge in some areas, entire houses in my friends neighborhood were ripped of the foundations and floated away, a whole trailer park down the road, gone along with all the residents.
The official death count given is low, way low in my opinion. I‘ve been through and seen the aftermath of so many huge natural disasters in the last decades it’s stupid, massive wildfires, the boulder flood of 2013 was of the charts crazy, but this was right up there and hit me right in the solar plexus, and had me in full survival mode, pushed me closer to the edge than I was prepared for, to be honest.
I’ve been in a few jams in my life I thought I might not make it out of, mainly of my own doing,
stuck on alpine faces in full conditions where you cant even hear your partner right next to you, blowing like a flag in the wind…the difference is, I chose those situations, climbed my dumb ass into them and climbed out of them, there was still a measure of feeling in control to a degree.
Here I felt fully at the mercy of the elements, completely exposed with no recourse but to wait it out and hang on .
Theres always an upside though, and in a way Im thankful for the experience and the humbling. I’m thankful to be alive, thankful for the little things that aren’t so little really, a glass of water, a place to rest my head, work…always the work to do.
So my bike was fully submerged in brackish water, mostly fresh where I was right near the transition zone. (Brackish is deadly here, avoid at all costs, Vibrio epidemic after the Hurrican, nightmarish)
I’ve managed to resurrect her and thats one of the best Christmas presents ever for me.
The Crankcase was full of water as were the headlight buckets. Ive gone through the whole wiring harness, every connector and grounding block, pulled the injectors and plugs, the water killed the Stator, so that’s new.
It’s taken six oil changes so far to chase out all the water from the case, but she seems all good, pulls like a train and sounds as good as ever. Those dash lights and tach coming to life were a huge victory, she’s alive I’m alive…we live to ride another day.
Merry Christmas to all and prayers for those in the midst of the cold and storm!
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1 - 11 of 11 Posts
