CURRENT LOCATION: Anchored in Ensenada Honda, near town on Culebra
18 18.301' N, 065 18.007' W

With all the recent activity signaling the start of the sailing season, one might think that hurricane season is behind us. We wish that were the case, alas it is not. Just last week, hurricane Paloma charged across the Caribbean Sea and reached category 4 status before crashing into Cuba.

So, we continue with our thrice daily checks of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) website. Our 8PM check last night resulted in a bit of a surprise. A system of interest, Invest 95L, was sitting directly to our northeast. Even more alarming, it was orange.



The orange color-coding indicates up to a 50% chance of development into a tropical cyclone. Sitting to my left, Sheryl said, "This is why we are not here," pointing her finger at a random spot further down the island chain. With the fantastic anchor-holding bottom and relative protection of Ensenada Honda, we wouldn't want to ride out the potentially squally weather to come anywhere else. Conditions in the harbor were calm as we went to bed, as though the system were gathering energy from its surroundings.

Winds have picked up here and woke me in the middle of the night. Since it was time for an NHC update, I thought I would do a bleary-eyed weather check. I was pleased to see that the 1AM update showed the system of interest down to a yellow circle, with less organization than was seen several hours previously.

In these wee hours of the morning, scattered squalls batter us about here in the anchorage; however, radar images show that the bulk of the weather remains to our north.



I suppose, on some levels, this beats watching weather reports for 'frost advisories' or 'snowfall expected' (my mother, in Indiana, has already experienced some of the white stuff this year); however, I hope to be looking at this squally-storm-producing-could-become-a-cyclone system in the proverbial rear view mirror when I really wake up a few short hours from now.