RUSKIN – Lenny Lopez has lived on boats for 46 years. His current home for 26 years is a 42-foot sailboat named Velella.

Both Velella and Lopez have weathered several major storms, including Hurricane Helene just two weeks ago and others offshore while traveling to Mexico and Grenada.

That’s why Lopez said he saw no reason not to settle in the cabin of the boat, which was docked at Little Harbor Marina in Ruskin, because of Hurricane Milton.

But he said it was one of the worst storms he had ever experienced.

The first few hours of Milton were surprisingly quiet, with only the roar of the wind heard, he said. But around 11 p.m., the wind direction changed as the storm moved across the Florida peninsula.

The boat was being tossed back and forth by gusts and his boat was leaning 10 degrees to one side, he said, making him fear his mast would become tangled with the boat next to him.

A 70-pound freezer that wasn’t screwed down nearly fell out of the boat. His cat Roscoe was nervous, and so was Lopez.

His unease grew when one of the cleats holding a neighboring boat to the mooring broke off and he heard a scraping noise.

It was too dark to see any damage clearly. He had no choice but to sit and listen to every creak and bump and hope it wasn’t anything serious. He knew he could swim but was afraid of losing his home.

“For about 45 minutes I thought it was going to be really bad,” he said. “It was cruel, I tell you, it was cruel.”

Eventually the wind died down and Lopez was able to sleep for about an hour before getting up at dawn to inspect his boat. (There was no damage.)

There was no damage to his boat. The antenna on the luxury boat next to him had cracks in the concrete dock.

Lopez said he learned from Helene and Milton and will not dock in a marina in the future if there is a risk of storm surge. But the next big storm, he and Roscoe will still take their chances in Velella.

“I am a sailor; I will always be on this boat,” he said.

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