1998

WEATHER FORECASTING

So it’s ’98, Ulla, my wonderful crew for 6 yrs, Thalia, and I are heading back to the San Blas is, Panama, after a 6 mth work stint in S Fl. We weren’t rich, but a rich boat bum is an oxymoron, unless there’s a trust fund involved, in our case there isn’t. So we were taking the scenic route, through the Bahamas, which I’d sailed in ’93, Ulla had heard lots about the islands and we were both looking forward to a leisurely cruise south. The Bahamas were just gorgeous and all to soon we were looking at jumping off from Great Inagua and heading through the Windward Passage to Cartagena, Colombia, which we’d missed the 1st time through, then on to the San Blas Is.

We had an interesting experience on the Bahama Banks which I’ve written about earlier and yet another in Great inagua, also previously transcribed. We were a bit confused by the weather, the course we wanted was pretty much dead south, so we were not hoping for a SE wind. Despite the excellence of NOAAs weather coverage in the Caribbean we couldn’t resolve it. I decided to contact Herb “Southbound 2” for the answer. This was my 1st exposure to his infamous registration process, basically a radio free for all, we got him on the 2nd day and he said he’d have to do a weather chart for us as he didn’t have anyone currently transiting the whole Caribbean. The next day he advised we’d have 15 – 20 from the east for the passage of +/- 1,000 mi. “Cool, a beam reach, everyone’s favorite point of sail.” we enthused and went to clear out in Mathewtown .

We headed out in the morning and as we got through the Windward Passage, there hadn’t been a scrap of wind and we’d had to motor all the way. “Odd, that’s not what the charts show.” Was Herb’s comment in our 1st afternoon check in. As we cleared the coast of Haiti the wind filled in, 30 – 35 kts from, yeah, you guessed it, the SE. We were hard on the wind, but making our course, the wind must have been blowing for a while, the seas had built up pretty well and we were taking green water right over the boat. Kind of pretty when the hatches and port turn bright green. That afternoon at the start of our check in Herb said “And Thalia, you should have 15 – 20 from the E. Over.” Just as I keyed the mike to respond a particularly large wave crashed over Thalia. I reflexively got of the mic and Herb asked “Was that a wave that just hit you?” “Yeah Herb, its blowing 30 – 35 from the SE, the seas are 10+’ , that was just a bit bigger.” I explained. “Well, sorry about that, I’ll update my charts, talk to you tomorrow.” Replied Herb, it went on like that for the next 4 days until we closed the Colombian coast and got a bit of protection from the cape where we’d been knocked down a year previously.

Our arrival in Cartagena was no problem. That was one of my worst passages, but the beauty of Cartagena easily made up for it. Speaking to people, in our awful Spanish, who were living in beautiful houses 500 yrs old is a trip. And we still had the San Blas is to look forward to. Life is sweet. George and Thalia.

“If I’m lyin’…