With plenty of time on my hands, I thought I would try to better present to you what I am seeing regarding the upcoming weather patterns of the North Atlantic which are delaying our passage to the Azores. To do this, I created a video that paces through the nine day period between June 2 and June 10, showing Grib files on a successive 12 hour basis. I found that it really drives home the point that some pretty nasty weather is coming our way and it is best to just hunker down, snug as a bug in a rug, here in Sint Maarten until it all passes by.

When you watch the video, note that the black blobs represent areas of major weather disturbance. The darker the blob, the nastier the storm. Very black blobs usually represent storms with lots of rain and lightning. For example, a few days ago we had one of these very black blobs pass over us here in Sint Maarten and we had 16 inches of rain within 24 hours, gusts up to 40 knots, and lots and lots of lightning. It is just not very much fun sailing through one of these nasty storms.

In the video, I have drawn a red line that roughly represents the predicted course we would take during our passage from Sint Maarten to the Azores. Our actual course may vary from this red line as we sail to the wind, not an actual line. However, it gives you an idea of the impact of the line of storms that would have if we tried sailing to the Azores during this period.

Click Here For The Video

I hope this video gives you some insight as to why we have decided to sit tight until some better weather comes around.