The Dance of the Gribs…

Grib: Gridded information in binary

Ever thought your life would be ruled by a Grib? No, nor did we. But it has been these last few weeks. In the Canaries at this time of year, a settled Azores high is supposed to be firmly in place, with nice NE winds and relatively gentle seas carrying you all the way down to the Cape Verde islands, some 950NM away. Alas, not so this year! Nope, no sign of a settled Azores high and no sign of the trade winds that emanate from it. Instead we’ve had winds from most directions, some serious blows and some pretty big seas. Not what we expect and certainly not what we want!

So, what’s the answer: Mmm, there’s no doubt that we have had a couple of weather windows that, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have taken, and now we are faced with conditions that aren’t as good as those windows that went before. OK, so, with lowered expectations we are looking to find a slot or two where we can be away with conditions that we at least understand and hopefully within the next 10 days or so.

With a lot to do, and being unsure of when we can actually leave with at least a half suitable weather window we’ll keep this blog a short one. However, we must mention a surprise email that we got from the mate’s cousin, well second cousin (they are such a big family that it’s easy to get confused). She and her husband were in Lanzarote on a quick post-Christmas holiday and would you believe that they hired a car and came to see us! Not only that, but they were great company and even took us halfway across the island to top up our gas bottle. In fact we were sorry to see them leave, but I think the lure of an all-inclusive hotel was a bit more than we could match on Stargazer. I hope they read this and I hope they’ll take this as the invite that it is: come and see us in the Caribbean. We’ll make the forepeak as nice as possible so you’ll have no accommodation costs…

Before I hand over to the mate, I’d just like to say that whilst we are en route to Cape Verde and beyond, our comms will be very limited. We will do our best to upload via satellite phone at least our position from time to time, so you’ll be able to track us on this blog. When we arrive in Cape Verde, if anyone wants to get hold us, email or WhatsApp text is the best bet…

Over to the mate:

Gosh, hindsight is a wonderful thing! I have been trying to hone my sixth sense for some time but still have a way to go. I did feel a great sense of foreboding the day we were due to head off for an overnight passage south along the Portuguese coast – we didn’t go and the water pump hose burst draining most of the tank and leaving the bilge full of fresh water. It was fortuitous that we didn’t leave but at the time I didn’t know why! Reading about lovely trade wind passages from here down to the Cape Verdes doesn’t really match up with the weather we are experiencing or seeing on the forecast at the moment. The forecasts using several models seem to change several times a day. Whilst we are used to this in the UK, it is rather a surprise in this part of the world where the Azores high and the trades should have set in by now…

Last week we waved off a couple of boats rowing across the Atlantic. One was a three man crew of London cabbies with no rowing experience - they are making really great progress. We’ve also waved off a rally to the Cape Verdes from Rubicón and seen the big guns of the RORC Transatlantic Race (trimarans with average speeds of 20+kts) hoofing past westwards. So why haven’t we left?? Well, we aren’t on a tight schedule to make an Atlantic circuit in a year, and we don’t have a set in stone departure date. We both love sailing and the plan was (and still is) to enjoy the journey as much as the adventure on reaching a new place.

The surprise visit from family was a lovely diversion from poring over gribs (there is an emoji with an exploding head that pretty much sums up our mental weather state). It was lovely to see them and so refreshing to be able to chat in our native language about all sorts of things.

I’ll sign off for now as it is time to download another Grib…