[Carolyn Shearlock]

The first hurricane we were in, our insurance required us to be in a marina. The nearest one of the approved marinas was 100 miles TOWARDS the storm, whereas we were only a few miles from a great hurricane hole. Decision time: go to the marina and comply with insurance requirements, or anchor in the hurricane hole and potentially be uninsured? We opted for the nearby hurricane hole, knowing that if we lost the boat, it would most likely not be covered by insurance.

It just seemed nuts to head towards the storm — what if we had a mechanical problem on the way? While there were anchorages along the way, none offered particularly good storm protection. And the recommended marina? We’d been there before and knew that it was fairly exposed.

In the end, we had zero damage in the hurricane hole and the marina was virtually destroyed in the storm.

That happened just a year after we started cruising and was a huge wake-up call on two fronts: first, that location played a significant role in how boats fared during storms, and second, that we were right to conduct our own investigation and analyze the options.