CURRENT LOCATION: Anchored in Ensenada Honda, near town on Culebra
18 18.326' N, 065 17.979' W
Occasionally, we get calm conditions here in Culebra. A brief lull where the ever-present tradewinds are actually absent. This week, the tradewinds have abandoned us entirely. It has been dead calm for five days.
Dead calm means that the August heat has finally had the opportunity to exert itself upon us aboard
Prudence. Sheryl and I can usually handle these higher temperatures and humidity, but we need air movement in order to do so. Therefore, we have finally freed our 12-volt fans from their storage spaces. We have three of them.
I mounted one in the v-berth, at the foot of our bed, and experimentation this week suggests that we can keep it running all night long without putting too much strain on our battery bank. During the daylight hours plenty of power is provided by the sun, so we can each sit with one of the remaining two fans pointing right at us. If one of us is off the boat, two fans can keep one person fairly comfortable even at the peak of the day's heat.
Air conditioned locations in town are beginning to look a little more appealing, as well. The library trailer has air conditioning (as long as the generator keeps running), and the bakery in town, Pandeli, is always like an icebox. In fact, I had lunch at the bakery the other day and took an extended amount of time at my table enjoying my chicken sandwich and ice-cold diet coke while I graded the Algebra quiz I had given to my students that morning.
Although the tradewinds are known to be at their weakest during the months of August and September here in Culebra, I think that this is a more extreme sort of weather event. I suspect that the calm conditions are due to the two major weather systems, one to our east and one to our west. You may recall from the end of my post on
Sunday that we were closely watching Invest 94L and Invest 95L. Well, both have become tropical storms and it is my opinion that they are pulling all available energy from the atmosphere in our vicinity, leaving us right here in the middle - becalmed.
This morning's satellite image of Tropical Storm HANNA shows the outer bands of rain growing close to our location. Uncomfortably close, if you ask me. As of 5:00 this morning, though, the center is still 300 miles away from our anchorage and tropical storm force winds are reported to extend out only 50 miles. Adding direct observational support to the notion that we are O.K. for the moment, our favorite NOAA weather buoy (Station 41043) is showing only 15 knots of wind with gusts to 20. As you can see from the diagram below, 41043 is closer to HANNA than we are and should serve as a good early warning system. Especially considering HANNA's current movement to the northwest.
All indications are that we should be just fine relative to HANNA. Her northwest track should continue to keep her well north of our location before an anticipated southwesterly turn way up in the waters off of the Bahamas. GUSTAV is already in our rear-view mirror, as he works his way toward the gulf. Other than the potential for some rain off the outer bands of HANNA, logic dictates that we focus our attention further to the east. Two new circles have appeared over tropical waves headed in our direction. I suppose that there is no rest for the weary when we are sitting smack dab in the middle of all the action at the peak of hurricane season.