I had occasion to visit Galveston for a day earlier this week. Except for heaps of wallboard and other such trash from inside homes, the streets are clear, and no large scale heaps of debris were seen. Wow, what a lot of work the recovery forces got done. There are still a few boats washed right up next to the road on both sides as you cross into Galveston. One big blue steel hull had "Good hull for sail, 10K" spray painted on it. Hope his financial acuity is better than his spelling. A large fishing trawler and one old power cruiser were washed up in a parking lot downtown. We had to visit several different auto/battery shops to find all the 4D batteries we needed, but they were open, even if not all had working phones. Ate lunch at a place called Mario's overlooking the beach, and I would have bet anything it had storm water in it. Hostess said no. Many businesses, like the restaurant of some friends of Jim's, are out of bidness indefinitely. Traffic was light, but did pick up a bit as the day progressed. The large hospital (UMB?) near the Galveston Yacht Basin (GYB) marina had numerous large teams of Hispanic-appearing workers clad in protective clothing trooping in lead by supervisors, but it may not be reopening all of its services. The marina is owned by a foundation which contributes heavily to this hospital. The large blue boat dry storage building at GYB many of us saw burning on national news is gone - not a sign of it or its contents remains. The piers and slips seem to be sound but battered condition with most dock cabinets piled in a dock box graveyard. Most slips are now empty, and I saw only three sunken vessels remaining. There were a few places where the sheet metal overhead had obviously been impacted by taller boats - the boats lost these encounters. There is no power to the piers, and slip rental is waived until there is. Work is proceeding apace, but no date is known for restoration of power. Finger piers used to stick out between every other boat, and two or three 2X8 boards were placed vertically along them as fenders. Unfortunately, these boards only topped out 4-5 feet above the finger and probably contributed to boat damage. Several boats, including an otherwise good looking GB 36, had rub rails ripped off by these fender boards as they bounced around. Failure to secure the boats properly caused this kind of trouble - some boats remain poorly moored as if nobody has been down to check on them since the storm. One of these fingers, including pilings, had been lying in the water between Jim's GB42 and a Clorox bottle boat with its pilings and fender board apparently touching or just inches away from the GB's hull. How they did not end up punched through the boat, I'll never know. Note to self; stand close to Jim in lightening storms. Jim had a veritable spider web of lines securing the Seminole, some being lighter stuff designed to break as she rose on the storm surge. He had been worried about what might happen as the boat settled on heavier lines tied high up with the exit of the floods, but all was well. He'll have to answer detailed questions on that issue, as all I saw during my visit were normal mooring lines he had reset after the storm, before he had to go halfway around the world for a few months of work. The fact that some boats ended up with their sterns resting on the concrete pier (virtually all back into these slips) tells you all you need to know about how well they were secured spring line-wise and what doubtless caused many sinkings. The piers run generally east-west, and Jim's pier was the last one before the seawall and combined uncovered pier to the north. The surge topped that seawall and sank virtually all the sailboats moored there and caused a lot of motion in the rest of the marina. Before the storm struck, there was access to several webcams trained on the harbor, and one showed a sizeable sailboat secured between two shipping piers with long warps and sheltered from most winds by the surrounding buildings. That's how I would prefer to have my boat moored for a hurricane, but not everybody knows somebody with a spot like that or had the time to come to Galveston to do so. I think most of the boats in GYB are owned by out-of-towners. Anyway, it was an interesting time to survey the marina and cogitate on things hurricane-related. Rich Gano CALYPSO (GB-42 #295) Southport, FL