Cay Caulker: Geoff (The Weather Guy)

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

017-44.700 N
088-2.760 W

Ahoy from civilization...at least Cay Caulker Style!

We're in Cay Caulker, Belize which is a big tourist hang-out.  This is the land of lots of tiny hotels, hostels and back-packers.  It's a place where you chill.  Miles of white sand beaches, little restaurants and dive companies.  It's a nice change from the atolls, but I must admit that it doesn't seem to hold a lot for us here.  If there were nearby diving or snorkeling (like San Andres), this would be great.  It's surprising how one's desires or needs change after you spend weeks away from civilization.

We had a great time in our last week at Lighthouse Reef.  We really enjoyed our time with Doug, Linda and Pip the Wonder Dog from Que Linda and Tom and Julie from Kiwi.  It was so nice hanging out with people our own age and who are fun!  We hosted a birthday party for Doug where we consumed large quantities of beer batter Grouper and other delectables.  The next day we had a "fish rodeo" (tournament) aboard Kiwi which went late into the night.  Sue caught a Bone fish, Linda caught the most fish, and once the sun set, we reeled in lots of BIG Mahogany Snappers.  The next morning we served up a waffle breakfast and then headed out to Turneffe and Que Linda headed to Belize..

We had light winds from behind and ended up motoring most of the way.  This wasn't a bad thing as I managed to drain our water tank by failing to fully shut off the water on the swim platform.  There are 2 shut-offs & I only used the one on the shower head and that ended up leaking.  We had headed over to Kiwi right after washing off and didn't hear the pump running.  We lost 90 gallons of water, but made up 75% of that the next day.

The sail from Turneffe to Cay Caulker was a dream.  We ran along Turneffe in flat seas with 14 kts on the beam and were doing 7-8 kts.  Man, it was wonderful!  The winds lightened and backed, so we still had good apparent winds, and the rest of the sail was nice.  Crossing the reef was quite "interesting" as the cut only had about 7.5' of water above the coral heads!  I sure wouldn't want to cross there in a big swell!  Luckily we had little swell and made it over with 2' to spare!  YIKES!

Oh, I've become a morning SSB radio personality delivering weather to several hundred cruising boats.  Dave (S/V Victoria) has been doing it for years and had to go to the States to take care of his mother, so Doug from Que Linda and I decided to take it over while he was away.  I deliver it every other day.  It's a lot of work as the forecast that I deliver covers from the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico down to Panama and goes from the Mexican coast to the Bahamas.  That's 1500 miles x 1500 miles, or 22,500 square miles!  In reality I "only" concentrate on an area that goes from Cancun to the Bahamas to the Honduras coast, or about 3,600 square miles.  The forecast that I deliver covers each day for 3 days.  This is a lot of work, and I really have learned to appreciate all of the work that the forecasters put in!  But, I enjoy it and I've learned a lot about weather forecasting.  The down side is that I regularly get asked "When should I leave for location xyz" which is really a captain's decision, not mine.

Tomorrow is my weather day, so I need to get to bed as I have to be up by 6 AM to prepare the forecast.  Then its on to San Pedro to clear out and then on Friday we'll head to Mexico.  Goodnight until my next report!

-- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 358