Watching and Waiting
13 September 2012 | Portland, USA
Vicki - Sunny 23 deg C
In 1979, meteorologists for the Atlantic Ocean began using men’s names for hurricanes. A list of 21 names, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet was developed and arranged in alphabetical order. The first tropical storm of the year was given the letter ‘A’ and so on. During even-numbered years, men’s names were given to the odd-numbered storms and during odd-numbered years, women’s names were given to odd-numbered storms. So far this year in the US, we have had 14 Tropical Storms/Hurricanes as we are now watching Hurricane Nadine in the Atlantic. In an average year, there are 11 tropical storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes in the Atlantic. Maine has only had 6 hurricanes since 1869 with the last hurricane, Hurricane Gloria, a Category 1 hurricane occurring on 27th September, 1985. This is one of the main reasons we are still lollygagging around in Maine, trying to avoid the Atlantic hurricane activity while watching for Canadian geese flying south (yes they have started already) and watching the leaves turn colour (this is happening now as well).
My sister Jude’s holiday ended on Thursday. For a mere $10, she took the bus to Boston, a 2 hr 15 min ride, toured Boston then caught the train for a whopping $2 to the airport and flew back home to Australia feeling refreshed and re-invigorated after a thorough look at Maine’s lobster pot buoys, fog, lighthouses, Bar Harbor, Rockland and Portland shops, isolated islands, lobster boats of many kinds, meeting wonderful people and having an incredibly thorough inspection of every nook and cranny on Vanish. She loved driving Vanish and it was very hard to get her out of the Captain’s chair!! We can’t wait until we reach tropical waters as Jude has promised to come back and help us navigate the reefs.
As winter approaches, the weather systems up here are becoming more active and on Tuesday we have another cold front approaching with 30 + knot winds, 11 foot seas, and thunderstorms. I guess we have to expect it and it will all give us good practice for being in the trade winds further south and the higher winds we’ll be expecting as we head to South America. We’ve gained a lot of storm experience on our yacht Cruz Control over many years, but Vanish is much bigger with more windage so we just need to learn her idiosyncrasies to gain the same level of comfort we have had with our previous vessel. We’ll stay for a few more days before heading south after the front has passed as long as there is no late September activity heading our way.