Friday, May 29, 2009

Plans Update

Chris here... boy oh boy, when rainy season starts here, it sure does start! There's been squalls or the threat of squalls every day for the past couple of weeks. Right now we're sitting off of Harbor Island, and when I look at our Sirius weather I see major rain, wind and lightning to the east of us, the west of us and the south of us. The squalls aren't supposed to be ridiculous (i.e. under 30mph winds) today, but tomorrow they are supposed to be big and widespread, carrying winds in excess of 50mph.

Our original plan was to head to Royal Island, just south of Spanish Wells, tomorrow afternoon, and then run to Nassau on Sunday. With the wind and squall forecast right now, we're going to hire a pilot again tomorrow so we can leave Harbor Island early. At low tide, which it will be tomorrow morning, there are some pretty shallow spots we have to watch out for, and I'd rather be safe than sorry. If it was high tide, I'd definitely traverse Devil's Backbone with just our GPS and our track from coming across the other day. I spoke to Woody, the same pilot we used the other day, and mentioned my concern about the water level. His response was "You just leave that up to me."

Anyway, we're going to leave here tomorrow morning, hopefully ahead of the major squalls, and tie up at Spanish Wells for the night. Then, if the squalls go away on Sunday, which they may or may not, we'll do a long day's run direct to Nassau. Unfortunately, the wind is supposed to be right on our nose on Sunday, but it's supposed to be fairly light so hopefully it won't be too uncomfortable. Otherwise, we'll go to Nassau on Monday when the weather is definitely supposed to be clear (yeah right).

As always, follow along on the SPOT by clicking on the link to the right.

2 comments:

Tom Ray said...

Watch for sv Charley K, and Irwin 38 center cockpit, in Nassau area and say hi to my wife and friends if seen!

Tom Ray said...

Why is "and" such a frequent typo for "an"? Anyway, Charley K is in Nassau waiting for weather to head for the FL Keys. I told them to watch for you.