Well, we're sportin' our new Doyle sails, the hull's all spiffy, and the brightwork is glistening...but here we still sit in Bonaire waiting for a good "weather window" to make our 4+ day crossing. Weather windows are one of the more common topics among cruisers, although in popularity they still rank well after sailing stories, boat systems, and mechanical problems. In the Caribbean, this magical window describes a short period of time when the steady trades and seas are predicted to mellow a bit, allowing sailors to make their journey to the next island without (ideally) getting trashed in the process. But unlike the hearty sailors of years' past, we don't just look out our "window" to check the weather. We, like many cruisers in the Caribbean, regularly listen to the "Weather God", Chris Parker, on our single sideband (SSB) radio. Chris gathers data from a myriad of sources: satellite imagry, weather models, grib files, etc., combines that with a healthy dose of weather-witchcraft, and usually comes up with an amazingly-accurate forecast, 3 to 5 days out. If you pay a couple hundred bucks a year, you can even call him on your SSB, tell him your starting point and destination, and he'll give you specific wind forecasts and sea conditions for your trip. We're pretty spoiled out here!

So every morning at 8:30am we tune into Chris' weather report, and then listen to boats calling him from as far north as the Bahamas and as far south as Columbia. Yesterday we asked him for "wind and sea states" from Bonaire to the island of St Croix or St Martin - about 450 miles directly upwind from us. Chris wisely suggested we change our destination to the south coast of Puerto Rico, allowing us a better point of sail (it's a bit further west) and giving us shelter from the predicted "North Swell" that's due to arrive in these parts on Thursday. Sounds good, except that we really don't want to "get stuck" in Puerto Rico with tons of civilization around as we wait for the next weather window to continue on our way. We're really ready for some peace and solitude right now! So we've decided to instead head to Los Aves, a beautiful set of desolate Venezuelan islands about a 10-hour trip east (yes, upwind and against the current), where we can really have some R&R! So now we're waiting for that weather window to arrive...

p.s. The photo above is from Carnival in Curacao...looks like we missed that one in our blog! What a spectacular event - hundreds of elaborately costumed people paraded down the main street accompanied by local marching bands and intricately decorated floats. It took them 4 to 5 hours to walk then length of the parade route. We heard that the average participant spends an average of one month's salary on their Carnival costume each year! Needless to say, it's a pretty big deal on the islands.