Due to work on the house’s electrical system, the BeachCams are experiencing a lot of outages. As work progresses, they may be down for a few hours each day during the month of November.

Thanks for your patience during this unavoidable electrical work.

As long as there is power, I’ll be tracking hurricane Irene, and adding updates to this post when possible…

Sat at 12:30: it’s sunny with fog and no rain yet. I think we have 24hrs until we’re in the thick of it.

Sat 2:30pm: Light rain is starting/stopping. And so it begins…

Sat 5:00pm: Last outdoor shower, and finally checklist run-through. Berm dug around part of the house to protect the new, and as yet unfinished, basement. Neighbor over soon for Dark and Stormys.

Sat 8:00pm: Sprinkles at best. No windows closed (yet). An umbrella is optional. Feels more like London Fog than a hurricane. 

Sat 10:00pm: More sprinkles. Closed the windows & door just in case. Hardly seems worth it, but since we face the Atlantic, I want to be on a cautious side.

Sun 8:00am: No rain. 0.00 inches recorded. Winds gusting to 34mph. Pretty minor stuff. So far, to Irene seems to be leaving the Cape alone.

Sun 10:00am: Same conditions and lights have blinked a few times.

Sun 11:15am: Bright sunshine and wind. I’m thinking of putting on some sunscreen.

Sun 11:45am: Lost power. This will be the last entry for a while. Updates will be intermittent.

Sun 8:45pm: Winds peaks at 51mph this afternoon. Blowing in the 40s now. Seems like the worst of the storm is on the tail end. Lots of branches and trees down in Orleans, MA. One fire started on the side of the road from the electrical lines.

Mon 9:40pm: Power back for a downtime of about one and a half days. While it was fun to have an evening lit by candle light, the start of the thaw of freezer foods was less than entertaining. This Fall we’re installing a generator.

 As of today, we have a fully functioning pourch again which is ready for Grayson’s party tomorrow.

Suspended high above the ground, at least from a kid’s point of view, a Magic Tree House is being built. This one may not travel in time, but is sure to provide the kids with years of adventures.

Anthony and Jason building the Magic Tree House

Who doesn’t love a tree house?

Digging out under the porch has started, and the forms for the cement foundation have been laid. Now all we need is some cement, five days for it to cure, and we might have our porch back to normal.

Catching up with old friends is one of the best parts about this house as it presents and excuse to visit. Old times remind us of good times, and present times make more old times. What a wonderful cycle…

We finally tried the mussels from the inside of the Spit, and they were great. Why didn’t we try these earlier? Of course, cardboard would taste great with wine, garlic and butter.

We’ve had a few house guests ask about our Ship’s Bell clock, and what the chimes mean. While the pattern is very simple once you see it laid out, it’s difficult to understand if you you have it explained.

Envision you are working as crew on a ship. Someone needs to be awake 24×7, watching the ship as it glides through the water. Laying out a duty roster, the clock is divided into eight sections, known as Watches, of four hours each (thus 24hrs in a day), so Watches start at midnight, 4am, 8am, noon, 4pm, and 8pm. You can’t tell the Watch, and thus the section of the day or night you are in from the chimes, but you can tell the part of each Watch you are in from the chart below.

Note that the start of each Watch has 8 bells (midnight, 4am, 8am, etc) which is really the end of one Watch and the start of another. In ship parlance, if your Watch started at midnight, your “first bell” would be at 12:30am, which would be 1 bell strike. Over the course of your Watch the bell count would increase, until 8 bells when your Watch was over.