Dodging Hurricane Nicole

The rain is pelting down on the deck of S/V ILEANA as it woke me up in the forward cabin. Paul and I had driven from Toronto last night hoping that we could finally leave from our slip in Hampton VA and head South to Antigua on Saturday, November 12. S/V ILEANA has been sitting at the slip for the past two weeks waiting for weather window to head South. There are about 100 boats waiting. All of us are going out of our minds with the wait…… The weather pattern in the Caribbean has been very unusual this year. The latest event is hurricane Nicole which has torn up the East Coast of Florida causing power outages and floods. The plan is to wait until this hurricane passes and then slip in underneath and head South before other bad weather catches up to us……. whether this a good idea or not, we are leaving up to our weather router guru Chris Parker.

I had my boat shipped to Annapolis by truck from Toronto at the end of October. We had a rough sail up through Chesapeake Bay to arrive in Hampton for November 1, 2022 departure to Antigua. However, the unusual weather pattern in the Caribbean prevented us from leaving. The best prediction was that sometime in the middle of November, the weather pattern would normalize and we would be able to depart. There are three of us on S/V ILEANA waiting for a weather window to take her south. As we were waiting and had nothing else to do, we visited many of the museums in the surrounding area Hampton.

Civil War Museum in Richmond Sailors doing what they do best while waiting….drinking and eating

The weather was spectacular and it was warm. I went for a run on Virginia Beach one lovely afternoon and people were swimming in the water. There were scantily clad men and women basking in the warm sun on the beautiful beach, and I had to keep on reminding myself that this was November. When it appeared that we would not be getting a weather window for some time, Paul and I rented a car and drove back to Toronto. It took 11 hours. The uncertainty as to when we could leave was making it difficult to plan whether we would even be able to go. I started to prepare the crew for perhaps an early December departure but this would not have been possible for them to stay that long. I would have to find new crew. Many of the sailboats were in the same predicament. They had lost their crew who could not commit to stay to wait for a weather window. There were a flurry of emails asking for new crew on the Salty Dawg website. Neil, one of my crew stayed on the boat for the week that Paul and I went to Toronto. He was a lot more optimistic and felt that at some point, a weather window would open. If it didn’t, perhaps we could find him another boat that would be sailing South anyways. He had lots of offers from some beautiful sailboats……

There have many zoom calls with our weather router, Chris Parker. He is amazing and is very careful when he gives his advice about when it is safe to leave the harbor. He takes great pride in his predictions and he will follow us all the way down to Antigua to make sure that we are safe. Although weather prediction follows a very scientific process and there have been huge advances in weather prediction over the last 10 years, it is not possible to give an accurate prediction more than five days out, and can it even be tricky for a few days out. Last night, Chris Parker gave us predictions hot off the press. I could tell he was analyzing the weather patterns as he was speaking to us. He made reference to an area as “an impulse of energy” but would not saw whether this meant another hurricane, tornado or whether even an earthquake was ruled out. He would point to some squiggly lines and say “look the waves are 9 feet tall here”, but he would point to another area in the Atlantic and say “hey look these waves are only 6 feet tall so we’ll send you there instead”. I have to admit it all look the same to me….. It reminded me of a time when my wife went to get her future read by someone who looks at the pattern of coffee grounds. In the Balkans and Turkey, a favorite pass time is drinking Turkish coffee followed by having your fortune told from the leftover coffee grounds in the cup. Tasseography is a fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, and even wine sediments. The interpretation is as follows:

1. The area around the handle represents love and relationships
2. Across from the cup’s handle is the section related to money and wealth
3. Left of the handle symbolizes the present situation of the person who drank the coffee
4. The section right of the handle predicts future events
5. The bottom of the cup advises things related to the home and family

There is not too much information available in these coffee patern as to when a weather window will open, so for now I will rely on Chris’ advice…

The good news is that it really does appear we will be departing tomorrow morning at the break of dawn. The prediction is that it will be a bit rough crossing the Gulf Stream because of the Hurricanes and rough weather over the past few weeks, but once we are past that, there may be a period where there is no wind and will have to motor. In preparation of this, I filled up with extra fuel.

We have another zoom meeting with Chris Parker at 7:00 PM tonight. The expectation is that he’s going to tell us that it is OK to leave in the morning. It will take us about 10 days to get there. I am sure that there are going to be some interesting stories to share with you once I get there. There is no Internet 700 miles at sea But you will be able to follow me on the Salty Dawg website https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/rally/2022-sdsa-caribbean-rally/, and my PredictWind tracking page.

https://predictwind.intercom-clicks.com/via/e?ob=8SIMwQPmlteyNYF1EfmMN%2BNP7%2BkZJiinWcj%2BftXVnZwIydOpHuWAflj9FxOtGJLYsgSLG4LTXAVkI9FljcHbEQ%3D%3D&h=1dee5ca76422de311120cd9fa1e2f8a309b3a5a3-smve6uws_130546612885824