Weather weather weather

Weather weather weather

Who do you believe? What place do you believe and how do you decide what to do?

 Well there is no answer. I wish there was someone that just tells you what to do.  I wish there was someone who knew. But how do we know???  Eeek

 This winter I set out to understand weather but nope.  I still use my iphone and internet when available.  There is also a community of boaters that are going here and there and they too will give you opposite advice.  Some will scare you and say, “Oh I would’nt do that.” Well they might be a motor boat that is made for calm water and does not have a way big keel like we have.  We like winds 15-20k.

 So here are all the website I have used to give me info:

Wunderground.com

Windfinder.com

Sailflow.com

NOAA you have to google that it is set on my iphone under NOAA

 I like pictures way better than a text narrative.

 What is the difference between a high pressure and warm front? Cold front and low pressure? Etc…

 So here is the Bahamas secret… Chris Parker. Everyone talks about him.  He is on SSB (single side band) I have tried and tried to tune him in to no avail! So last night Barbara from “goosebumps” another sailing vessel.  She said he doesn’t always come on at the exact time. AND you have to get up for the 6:30am.  Well I have never wanted to wake up Ben even though he tells me to just go ahead and do it.  I have waited for his 8:30am report.  But I only listen for 5 minutes and if I hear nothing I think… I must have missed it.  She also said to wait up to 10 minutes.

 So today I woke up at 6:30am. I made coffee and tuned in just like in the olds days listening to the radio.  I had my coffee in one hand my pencil to take notes in my other. He started ten minutes late… But then here came a flood of numbers. Like wind 070 at 20. (Wind ENE – 70 degress and 20 knot winds) You will hear things like a trough is stalling out the high pressure. Etc. oh my … I had my chart infront with the whole bahama birds-eye view so when he says… South of 27 and west of 77… I know where he is talking. 

 I was taking notes and getting mixed up.  Then someone called in from Green Turtle Cay (Hey I’m here too!! I thought.) I leaned in, scrunched up my face, held my pen ready for writing… He said, “We are at GTC and are wanting to make it to Florida, can we leave today?” then came back a voice from the heavens as Chris Parker (God of weather) said, “today you will have NE winds 15-20, over night NE winds with squalls and some rain, winds 20-30 in any squall but those are short lived. Then Sunday the NE should clock round to East then to south east. If you can wait for the NE to past then tuck out and you can get up to south Carolina if time permits.”

 Halleluiah… I wrote all those notes down… waited for any others to talk and I ran to Ben, “Ben, Ben, we should leave now while the tide is high enough to get out of this harbor, then we can go slow… batten down once we get out of here.” He woke up in complete support of all the work that I had been doing trying to understand the fine art of weather.  OK I cheated and used Chris Parker but until I know what to do… I’ll use all my resources.

 We tucked out nose out into the shallow bank.  The weather was so perfect! 15-18k NE. We sailed like how Cricket was born to do. We had a nice beam all day.  The only frustrating thing is that… (well you now know boats one is always fixing something) our auto helm (electric) is acting funny.  We use the auto helm to help us like…

 When you need to go up front and tighten the main halyard, you click on the auto helm and it keeps you on the same heading. If you want to pee… just click the auto helm… if you want to take the sail down, put the boat into wind and click on the auto helm.  Some people use the auto helm all the time… like motor boats you can see them coming and they are not wavering at all.  They are on a straight line. That happened to me today, twice! Today I wanted to run and get my long sleeve shirt cuz I had had too much sun. But I could not cuz the auto helm would not stay true. Grrrr

 I waited 2 hours till Ben came up. Then him and I set the non electric cape horn – auto helm.  I love that cape horn! BUT today it was so fussy! To make it work you first make sure the lines under the helm are not fowled or twisted.  Check. Then you put up a wind kite thingie. Then you pull the lines under your seat and it locks the rudder inplace.  The kite thing is connected to an oar that is in the water.  The two work in complete harmony to keep the boat to an angle to the wind. It would not keep us straight.  Grrrrr.  We looked and again the lines were twisted.  Ben crawled under the cockpit. (which is no easy or spacious thing) to untwist for the second time.

 TADA! The cape horn worked! Ahhh then you can get a break from steering! So nice. So sweet!

 That made my day.  Ben sailed most all the day while I fussed here and there to clean up and make dinner.

 We moved so much faster than we thought so we are now anchored waiting for the NE winds to move along this evening.  We don’t want to be in the gulf stream during any NE wind.  So I hope when we wake up they will have moved to East!

 Ok this is long enough! Phew! What A beautiful day!