On pins & needles 2.10.10

We've had such crazy weather this season and, of course, some crazy weather just as soon as we prepare to head North. There are several boats that are all planning to head north together - Slacker, Outrider, Pacific Jade, and others - but this crazy 'maybe' weather has kept us stuck in one place waiting for a weather window.

We get weather from several sources - Magic Seaweed www.magicseaweed.com, Passage Weather www.passageweather.com, Weather Underground www.wunderground.com, & Sol Mate Santiago www.solmatesantiago.com are our online weather sites. We also listen intently via the SSB radio to Don on Summer Passage, who is an amateur meteorologist who broadcasts the weather on the SSB & HAM nets all during the day. We usually listen to the Amigo net and the Southbound net - one in the morning and one in the evening - and pick up any weather he gives. And last but not least, we can pull down GRIB files - computer simulation files showing the wind, highs & lows, & swells surrounding an area of our choice. It's a lot of information to process most times - especially when the reports don't match!

So here we are - hanging out in Tenacatita - while reports of a high pressure system that is building and is pretty much barring our way to make the jump north. What everyone agrees is that there's weather out there..what we just don't know is exactly what it will bring! High winds? Swells? Rain? Are we enough South that we'll miss it entirely? Or are we just south enough that we'll get hit? Aargh! Haha. Who knows. And while we're in Tenacatita, we're without internet so we rely on those that are either in the anchorage or in the marina to check and relay the morsels of good info our way.

So Michael and I are in Tenacatita along with about 18 other boats. Everyone is pretty much 'staying put' right now, not coming and going until this weather passes. Slacker was with us but left yesterday and headed back to Barra and went into the marina. The last storm is fresh enough on everyone's minds that lots of folks went into the marina. On last count, there were only 4 slips available! Outrider and Pacific Jade have stayed in the lagoon and they reported about 30 boats in there.

So..well..we're just waiting! You know the old Army saying - hurry up and wait! Though this isn't a bad place to wait. We've been swimming every day and today as soon as we're all juiced up (the sun hasn't been providing us with enough solar so we must run the generator to catch up) we're heading off to do some snorkeling. The anchorage is full of the 'kid boats' - there are about 6 boats in the anchorage with kids under the age of 12 (or so) and they have been providing us with entertainment while playing around the boat. We also ran into a boat - Eoney - who we first met in Catalina Island, about 2 days after taking off on our grand adventure! We both remember each other, as well as the conversations we had that first meeting. We're looking forward to catching up with them tonight, weather permitting. :-)

So keep your fingers crossed that we don't have a repeat of last week's storms! We can do without 70 knot gusts, thank you very much. Until the storm hits we'll enjoy it here!

More to follow.
Rene