It’s Wednesday morning, beginning to get light to the east and the rain has stopped, for now. After two seasons of fair winds to head north to CT, this year is certainly going to be tougher with a low centered off of Hatteras that is moving so slowly off to the north west that we won’t see favorable winds till the weekend, or perhaps early next week.
Ideally, I’d like to make a short offshore run to get a feel for the new boat as I have never even had the sails up, much less sail offshore with her in nasty weather. I think it is prudent to take it easy and wait for more ideal conditions to make the “first” jump out.
Yesterday, I called Chris Parker, the weather router, to see what his recommendations were and was surprised and here’s what he advocated. He thought that my best option was to leave Ft Pierce today and sail a few hundred miles east, to an area just north of the Abacos to take advantage of the northerlies for easting and then hang a left when the low gets further west and I hit SW winds behind the low to turn north to Cape Hatteras and home.
It was an interesting thought but my concerns are that I don’t have any experinece with this new boat and worse, I don’t have any long distance communication gear to stay in touch with him as the trip progresses for updates on the storm. This boat doesn’t have a SSB radio so after I am about 25 miles out I won’t be able to get weather updates. So, if the low persists I might run right into the backside of it and hit some really nasty weather, something that I really do not want to do.
I took another look at the weather gribs today and it seems that the low is moving faster to the NW than was forecast as recently as last evening. even yesterday so we could probably do what Chris is advocating. However, I am not going to take the chance with a new boat and limited communications. Besides, the current model seems to suggest that we might find favorable winds near shore as early as the weekend, a few days sooner than it appeared as recently as yesterday.
So, here’s the plan. We will head up the ICW for the next few days and jump out and run offshore as soon as the winds are favorable again which could be as soon as the weekend. One way or the other, we are going to leave and put some miles on.
Or, to put it another way, we are going to “ditch” the ocean part for now and just go up the “ditch” and be done with it. Get it? The “ditch” is the ICW. Pretty funny, yes? “No Bob, pretty lame joke but a fine idea.”
Thanks, wish us luck.
“Hey Bob, where are the pictures? There should at least be a sunrise. What gives?”
Sorry. Next time.