Poseidon Claims Another One

Ah! Poseidon – the god of the seas and waterways, creator of storms, and bringer of destruction. For now, we’ll forget that he’s also considered the god of horses and earthquakes. Living in Florida, I can only imagine him with his trident in hand, wreaking havoc with the seas. Every time we experience a severe storm, I think of him and his anger – what caused it this time?

I live in Southwest Florida, Punta Gorda to be exact and I’ve seen my share of violent storms – hurricanes Charley and Irma to name a few. However, this isn’t about the violence of each storm, but the unpredictable waves ordinary, everyday storms produce. What I’ve noticed about Charlotte Harbor is that it isn’t so much the size of the waves that roll through the water – it’s the continuation of them. A never-ending rise and fall of the water that does its damage.

While I’m lucky enough to live on the water, my waterway is a canal. I’m fairly safe from the waves that pound into the boats moored in the harbor or the docks and seawalls that abut it. I’ve seen water rise over my dock and shrink well below. You just never know what each day will bring.

In order to get from Punta Gorda to Port Charlotte, we need to travel over a bridge. The closest to me out of Punta Gorda is the Barron Collier Bridge which travels northbound into Port Charlotte and the Gilchrist is what we use southbound back into Punta Gorda. Going further away is the I-75 highway bridge.

Collier and Gilchrist bridges sit between two main mooring sites: Laishley Marina and Punta Gorda Marina. The Laishley Marina is more protected from horrific waves since it’s narrower and shrinks even further as it flows into the Myakka River. That is not the case with the Punta Gorda Marina. While it’s bordered on the south and east by Punta Gorda and the north by Port Charlotte, on the west is nothing but open water that leads to the Gulf of Mexico. That area is more vulnerable to higher and more frequent waves.

The steady pounding of the water on the boats moored there often causes mooring lines to snap and push the boats into shallower waters only to have them crash against the rocks and often sink! We have seen many boats whose mooring lines have come loose.

Summer is the worst season for the kind of storms that produce these destructive waves. The waves, or as I call them Poseidon’s toys, aren’t fussy about what boats they’ll grab to play with and once Poseidon is done playing, he doesn’t care where he tosses his toys. We can see them in the shallows close to shore, against a seawall, or smashed against one of the bridge’s pylons. Either way, the boat is now considered to be a sunken vessel.

Not completely understanding the mooring system, I can’t explain why this happens. Does the mooring line snap? Does it just come lose? Is it faulty? Or is it the way the boat’s owner ties it down? I really have no idea all I know for sure is that when it happens, I blame Poseidon. Something made him angry enough to smash another boat.

Maybe he had a beautiful yacht in his younger years that for whatever reason sunk and now he’s angry enough to do the same thing each year to a few he doesn’t own.

Having lost our boat to hurricane Charley, I empathize with those who lose their boats due to a problem with mooring.

I have no answers how to solve this problem and no ideas how to appease Poseidon so he’ll leave alone the toys that belong to others. All I know for sure is that each month, at least one or two boats will be grabbed by the god of the waterways and damaged beyond repair.

The first day of each June begins our hurricane season which will last until the first day of each November. I can’t even imagine how many boats will be lost this year.

Our area isn’t that huge and yet, we see so many boats lost to Poseidon.

As I cross the bridge into Port Charlotte to run my errands, I’m always on the lookout for another boat that Poseidon has chosen to play with and eventually tire of.

Each time I see one, my first thought is “Oops! Poseidon claimed another one.”