The Wait for Weather

We are now in St. Lucia, Rodney Bay. We had decided to stay in Bequia through Jake's birthday and at the time (Monday) had a favorable weather forecast for the passage to St. Lucia which is 70 miles, but very much to windward at about 35 degrees. Jake's birthday was a hit with too many presents for him to even play with them all. His favorite are the legos now that he can build with them more easily. We had a nice pizza party with some cake back on the boat.

Then Wednesday morning the weather forecast, due to a slow moving tropical wave, went pear shaped. With our morning weather guy admitting Thursday morning he had no confidence in the forecast beyond 12 hours. Anyway we were patient (trying to apply those lessons from last year) waiting first for the seas to decline, then ideally a ESE wind, and finally a low chance of strong squalls. We waited until Friday night then took a chance leaving at 5 pm for an overnighter. The seas had settled, which was the only real known, but the wind initially was ENE, which was fine to go across to St. Vincent from Bequia. However, as we came around the north end of St. Vincent we got an ESE wind at 12 knots.... 4 foot seas.... a near full moon and one of the best sails we have had. I was reluctant to give up my watch, making coffee and giving Rae Ann an extra couple of hours of sleep. The squalls even stayed away moving around us but never over us.

Our insurance company says hurricane season is over on November 1. Some say December 1. Though what seems to be the most important is that we were blessed with a very light season this year. So we cross our fingers as we move north that we do not get any late season blows.

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