{"id":1334,"date":"2012-01-03T23:39:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-03T23:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janinajacobs.com\/?p=1334"},"modified":"2012-01-03T23:39:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-03T23:39:00","slug":"weather-or-notbest-laid-plans-laid-to-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/golf\/1334\/weather-or-notbest-laid-plans-laid-to-rest","title":{"rendered":"Weather or Not…Best Laid Plans Laid to Rest"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Wild mustang checks out the beach in Outer Banks, NC.<\/p><\/div>\n

With mid-October back-to-back trips planned to two great locales, the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Big Pine Key, home of the tiny Key deer in\u00a0the magnificent Lower Keys of Florida, I planned about 10 days worth of superb golf, fishing, sunshine and sport.\u00a0 Michigan’s summer often comes to an abrupt close and\u00a0eeking out a ‘last-hurrah’\u00a0trip before harsh north winds blow seems to stretch the summer out a skosh longer.<\/p>\n

The Outer Banks, land formations spread out across North Carolina’s coast, offer spectacular scenery and very enjoyable golf.\u00a0 An\u00a0itinerary featuring Kilmarlic, The Pointe Golf Club, Currituck Club, and the Carolina Club was on the menu;\u00a0 Nags Head Golf Club, was too but with a number of holes bordering Currituck Sound, the wrath of Hurricane Irene took its toll by blowing damaging salt water up and onto fairways and greens; only 9 inland holes were open.\u00a0 But that storm was long past except for clean-up, mosquitoes, and annoying bugs left behind.<\/p>\n

Advance looks at the weather were not promising, but those weather guys are never right, are they?\u00a0 With rain chances pegged at 60-70% each day, rain gear was in the golf bag.\u00a0 When playing golf in the Outer Banks, weather can be hit or miss depending on which side of Currituck Sound you may be on.\u00a0 In this case, our hosts correctly guessed which course to play when\u00a0and we bypassed rain all around us save for a few sprinkles.\u00a0 Skies were gray and courses were damp, but at least we dodged the brunt of it.\u00a0 Probably the worst weather hit when we visited the wild mustangs (the horses, not the cars) on the beach, courtesy of County Commissioner Butch Petrey, who managed to get us up close and personal in his four-wheel drive SUV.\u00a0\u00a0 The rain and wind never bothered these magnificent creatures, especially this one who was more than happy to pose against the roiling surf.<\/p>\n

But no matter the soggy skies, the bright, sunny, and glorious Keys were up next for 7 days of lobstering, stone-crabbing, and deep-sea dolphin (mahi-mahi, not Flipper) fishing.\u00a0\u00a0 The Keys always provide ample opportunity for sunburns or tanning out in the\u00a0elements.<\/p>\n

Wrong again.\u00a0 Arriving last Thursday night via a kitschy 10-person Cape Air plane complete with multi-colored shark and Ernest Hemingway artwork, as I watched the sun set I had no idea that it would be the only sun \u00a0I’d see\u00a0for the next week.\u00a0 The next day, our group did get out into bumpy seas for my first ever dolphin bite and catch, but we came through a nasty storm returning to the dock.\u00a0 A few hours later, the rains began to fall<\/p>\n

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Last of the sunset....and the sun, headed for 5 days of torrential rain in Key West and Big Pine Key. <\/p><\/div>\n

harder\u00a0and did not let up on Saturday, Sunday, and\u00a0Monday, dumping about 6 inches daily<\/em> on Big Pine Key.\u00a0 Plans to go to Key West were thwarted when many of those streets were flooded by even higher rain totals.\u00a0 On Tuesday, the skies were again dark and dank, though we did make it out to a few lobster and stone crab spots for about two hours managing to just get back in when the thunder, lightning, and rain erupted again.\u00a0 That night, tornado watches were out….tornadoes?\u00a0 In the Keys?\u00a0 The weather for Wednesday also looked awful – and was.\u00a0 Raging storms woke me up about 5am and the weather map on TV was actually white with lightning strikes.\u00a0 Forecasts for clearing skies did not appear until Thursday…….the day I began the drive home.\u00a0 Here is what the National Weather Service had to say:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DURING THIS FIVE-DAY SPAN(Fri-Tue), SEVERAL ORGANIZED BANDS OF SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS DEVELOPED ACROSS THE FLORIDA KEYS, OFTEN WITH STORM MOTIONS THAT INUNDATED THE SAME AREAS PERSISTENTLY FOR HOURS AT A TIME. THERE WERE ACCUMULATIONS TO OVER 20\u201d IN PORTIONS OF THE LOWER KEYS. KEY WEST AIRPORT RECORDED 6.91 INCHES OF RAINFALL ON OCTOBER 17TH<\/sup>, WHICH STOOD SINCE 1910. THIS WAS THE 5th WETTEST 5-DAY RAINFALL SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1871 AND THE WETTEST 5-DAY PERIOD SINCE JANUARY 1983.<\/p>\n

Thanks Cuba…..paybacks are no fun.<\/p>\n

Sigh.\u00a0 I would have never dreamed that out of 10 days in areas of normally abundant sunshine and warm temps that ol’ Mr. Sol would be a no-show, save for a few precious hours.\u00a0 There\u00a0are a couple of lessons to be learned here:\u00a0 1) never take anything for granted and 2) just when you think things can’t get any worse…..they can.<\/p>\n

Life throws a lot at you, just like golf.\u00a0 A sure thing might not always be so sure.\u00a0 Sometimes you have to be willing to wait for the good to come.\u00a0 Every so often, it never comes and you need to move on with Plan B.\u00a0 In this case, there was no Plan B, other than to head back to Michigan and dream of sunnier skies on the next adventure.\u00a0 There was good news though:\u00a0 the weekend in Michigan brought sunny skies and temps in the mid- 60’s.\u00a0 I caught a few rays and people remarked on how tan I got on my ‘vacation’.\u00a0\u00a0 Who knew I’d have to arrive back in the Winter Wonderland to actually bask in the sun?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With mid-October back-to-back trips planned to two great locales, the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Big Pine Key, home… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":1338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18,17],"tags":[221148,221425,221606,221837,222323,222717,223027,223205,94915,3505],"class_list":["post-1334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-lifestyle","category-courses-and-travel","tag-currituck-sound","tag-currituck-gckilmarlic","tag-the-pointe-gc","tag-carolina-club","tag-wild-mustangs","tag-lower-keys","tag-big-pine-key","tag-nags-head-gc","tag-golf-2","tag-outer-banks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2011\/10\/OBX-Mustang-on-beach.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1334"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1472,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions\/1472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}