I started writing this post in November 2018, approximately two months after Irma struck the FL Keys. I dropped it for a number of reasons — we were still busy working on the boat, but also, it was depressing to think about all the damage to the area and its impact on residents. Now, over a year later, things have improved. Damages are 95% repaired and Irma is becoming a distant memory. I am publishing the post as originally written, but with updates.

Irma was a category 4 hurricane that caused major damage to the state of Florida, especially the keys. (Click here to see details.) We were vacationing in Taos New Mexico, on September 10, when it hit Marathon. See post Hurricane Irma, for more information.

Questeria was hauled out, and on the hard when the storm hit. We lost the solar panels and had some water damage and mold. We also lost two vehicles that were parked at the marina and were flooded. Our two dock boxes floated away and were later recovered, but some of the contents were missing. Overall, we feel very fortunate that we didn’t lose more.

We get back to Questeria on September 24. (See page Tennessee to Florida.) She is waiting for us in the slip, but we need to clean leaves and debris from the deck and cockpit before we can unload the RV.

Refrigerator

Questeria has an Isotherm marine refrigerator that runs on either 12-volts DC or 110-volts AC. There wasn’t much in it when we left in June, but we left it shut and running. When Questeria was unplugged from shore power, the refrigerator switched to 12-volts. Bruce shut off all the breakers when he left it at the boat yard. It sat there, unpowered, until after Irma. When George brought it back to the marina, we asked him to turn it on.

We check the refrigerator. It has some water, beer and a few non-perishables in it. They are cold, but there is some mold starting to grow, from when it was off. We thoroughly clean it out and wash it with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide.

Watermaker

We have a 12-volt Spectra watermaker. It is set to flush the membrane every five days. This works fine as long as the batteries are charged, the water pump is on, working, and there is water in the tank. The pump was turned off in the boat yard.

We turn on the water pump. The water in the lines is stagnant and the tank is almost empty. We put some water in the tank and flush the lines. Once all the lines are flushed, we flush the watermaker. We see brown water coming out. That can’t be good. We flush it a few more times. We aren’t sure about the water quality in the basin, so we will wait a while before trying it.

We take Questeria out in May, 2018, and anchor in Newfound Harbor — see Sailing, Anchoring and Apparent Wind. One of the reasons for this cruise is to check things out. We try out the watermaker, and it works just fine. When we left the boat for the summer last time, we pickled the watermaker so we didn’t worry about losing power or running out of water.

Solar Panels

In 2003 we installed three 135 watt solar panels. They were mounted on an aluminum frame, which was bolted to the top of the dinghy davits. The entire frame came off and landed in the boat yard.

Parts of the aluminum frame are attached to the dinghy davits. One piece is okay, but the other is severely bent. The rest of the frame and the panels are still at the boatyard.

We go to dinner at Lazy Days, which is next to the boat yard where Questeria sat for the storm. We see Jules, and ask if we can look for the solar panels. We find them right where Questeria was. It looks like two of the three are undamaged.

Bruce retrieves them the next day. I remove the broken panel and cleanup the rest. I open up the junction boxes on the other two panels, clean out the mud, and clean the contacts. I check them with a meter and they are still generating electricity.

Our plan is to temporarily mount the two panels and wire them to the controller to keep our batteries charged. Eventually we will buy another panel and mount them permanently. I go to Home Depot and buy some aluminum to replace the bent and broken pieces. I also buy some C-clamps to hold the frame in place.

We put the frame on the dinghy davits and try to line up the bolt holes at the front. It is clear that the stainless-steel dinghy davits are bent. I jury rig it for now, with more C-clamps and a piece of aluminum. I wire them to the controller. The batteries will now keep charged.

Like many things, the temporary fix is still in place — fifteen months later, the two panels are keeping the batteries charged. Originally, we looked at replacing the broken panel with the same kind, but they are no longer available. Also, solar panel technology has come a long way, and there are better solutions available now. We are reluctant to buy one more panel, because when wiring multiple wattage solar panels together, you are limiting them all to the lowest wattage panel. So, we are considering buying all new solar panels. We put this decision on the back-burner for now since we have something that works.

Dock Boxes

We have two dock boxes in front of our slip. We use these as storage for things like acetone, cleaning supplies, painting stuff and spare parts. The most valuable item we left in the dock box was our Honda 2000 generator. When the hurricane was approaching, we called George and asked him to screw down our dock boxes and move our generator to Robert’s shed. One of the dock boxes appeared to be locked, so it didn’t get screwed down. It didn’t really matter because most of the dock boxes that were screwed down came loose in the 1½ feet of water over the top of the docks. George located our dock boxes and put them back where they were.

One of our dock boxes is filled with stagnant, smelly water. The other dock box is dry, because the holes left from screwing it down allowed water to drain off, but it is full of sand and gravel. Some of the stuff is missing and some is ruined. We salvage what we can, and clean out the water, sand and gravel. The jerry cans are okay, but most of the rest is trash. We are missing two unopened cans of paint, at $85 a piece.

Flooded Vehicles

We left two vehicles parked in front of the marina, a 2004 Chrysler Town & Country and a 1997 Honda Accord. They both were flooded by storm surge. After two weeks, they are still wet inside. We left items in both vehicles. There is a cooler in the minivan that is okay, but the rest, like a suitcase full of clothes, is ruined.

Both vehicles were insured for liability only. Next time if we drop collision, we’ll keep comprehensive.

We look online for someone who will tow flooded cars. We find a couple of places, but they don’t want to deal with older, flooded cars. Someone leaves a card that says “Tow Away Flooded Cars for Free”. We call him.

He shows up, we sign the titles over to him, and he tows them away. One less thing to worry about. I did forget to deactivate the Sun Passes, so we get charged for tolls on the turnpike.

Water Damage and Mold

Questeria leaked from the day we got her. We have been fighting deck leaks for 12 years. We stop a leak, but then things bend and flex, and start leaking again. We usually leave the air conditioner running and Damp-Rid on board, to help with the humidity. But with the stress of being hauled out, and the massive rains, some wood has started to rot and mold has started to grow. The areas of concern are on the starboard side — the head, galley and laundry room.

Our friend Joe, got back to Marathon before us. He was staying on his boat and thought he was having a heart attack. It turned out he had black mold growing in his lungs — We take mold seriously.

We start in the head. Everything comes out of the cabinet. We throw away the plywood panel and insulation and clean the shelf and walls with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. We paint the plywood wall between the galley and head with Kilz. We put in new insulation and replace the plywood with FRP board.

We see that most of the water in the head came from the galley. Now we take everything out of the galley cabinets and clean with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. The water is leaking in through the stanchions.  We must stop the leaks before we put the cabinets back.

We find a procedure for fixing leaking stanchions on the Irwin website. I order some balsam dowels online and follow the procedure. The wood screws are stripped on one of them, so I drill out the hole and fill it with West System Six10 thickened epoxy. (I discover that Six10 doesn’t store forever. It has hardened in the tube, and I have to buy more.) When the epoxy sets, I drill and tap the holes and use machine screws in place of wood screws. When done, I bed the stanchions with butyl tape. I also remove and rebed the sail track.

The front head was converted to a laundry room before we owned Questeria. It has a washer/dryer combo. We also use it for storage. The door is usually closed and it doesn’t leak, so we have not done a lot with it. With all the dampness, it’s time to clean it out.

First, we remove everything from the cabinet and take out the wall and insulation. We take out the washer/dryer and remove the original, ugly, wall paper. We wash everything with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. We paint the walls with Kilz and the interior paint and caulk the joints. We put everything back. It looks great and smells better.

Bimini Cover

Our bimini cover is damaged. It was in bad shape before Irma, but Irma finished the job. A few years earlier we had a new dodger made that zipped to the bimini. We call the guy that did the dodger, to see about getting a whole new enclosure, minus the dodger. We can’t get him, or anyone else to return our calls. In the meantime, we pin some canvas to cover the larger holes.

Months later, the bimini still is torn, and offers no protection from rain. We are thinking of replacing it with a hard top, but we are still researching how to do this. We decide to take down the torn bimini and patch it until we replace it with something better.

Fifteen Months Later

We spent a lot of time in the RV from November of 2017 to January of 2019. Most of our time on the boat was spent fixing things. We spent a lot of time fixing leaking stanchions, using the balsa dowel method, mentioned earlier in this post. Some of them had to be done more than once to get the leaks stopped. We’ve made some progress with leaks, but we haven’t stopped them all. Our bimini is patched and we are using an old sail cover in place of our damaged Mack Pack. We also replaced leaking port lights and hatches. Sometimes it feels like we take one step forward and two steps back, but in reality, we have made a lot of progress.

It is now 2019, and we are planning to take the RV to Phoenix, AZ, in April, for our son’s wedding. And after than we are planning an Alaska RV trip. This time we will haul the boat while we are away and work on it in the boatyard when we return, in the Fall.

Most of the Keys has recovered from Irma. (However, Winn Dixie has a sign that says “Opening Soon”.) Some of our friends, who had more damage than us, are still working on their boats, others have given up boating. Life continues…

GRIB Files

It’s been a while since I did a weather post. I thought I had covered everything, but when I wrote Dry Tortugas – Day 6, I wanted to reference a post about GRIB files and realized that I never wrote that post. So here it is.

Cruisers have used GRIB files for a while. GRIB stands for Gridded Binary file, which describes the format, not the content. But most cruisers accept it as weather data, in particular, raw data from the Global Forecast System (GFS) model.

GRIB files are raw data from a computer model and have their advantages and disadvantages. Unlike Radio FAX weather maps they are not interpreted by a human, but a GRIB file has data for multiple locations over periods of time. GRIB files are more complex than weather FAX files and need a program to interpret them.

There are many ways to work with GRIB files. We use AirMail for it all.

Getting GRIB Files

We get GRIB files by sending an email to SailDocs. A minimum request message specifies the model and area of forecast. There are other optional parameters such as grid spacing and Valid Times (VT). The AirMail program has a GRIB-Request window to help format a request.

There is a trade-off between the amount of data needed and the file size. We tried out different parameters before we started our cruise to Dry Tortugas. Here is what we ended up with.

Subscribe GFS:26N,21N,084W,072W|1,1|0,12..120|PRMSL,WIND TIME=00:00

The above message is a single line. It has the following meaning:

• Subscribe asks to get a new file daily. Use Send for a one-time request.
• GFS is the model.
• 26N,21N,084W,072W are latitudes and longitudes of the area the file will cover. We get a big area because we like to see weather from Dry Tortugas to Bahamas.
• 1,1 defines the grid spacing in degrees (Lat,Lon).
• 0,12..120 define the Valid Times (VT). In this case it is requesting the current forecast, followed by the 12 hour forecast, and 12 hours thereafter until 120 hours. We like these times because they correlate to the NWS 5-day zone forecast.
• PRMSL requests Mean Sea-Level Pressure.
• WIND requests gradient surface Wind.
• TIME=00:00 specifies the UTC time that the file is sent. This time works best for us when we are cruising because we get our emails in the evening when the SSB propagation is good.

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More information about requesting GRIB files is available at  www.saildocs.com/gribinfo.

Viewing GRIB Files

There are many options or viewing GRIB files. We use the viewer that comes with AirMail.

This viewer shows wind barbs and isobars for the area covered. It shows wind speed/direction and pressure wherever you place the mouse cursor and wind speed/direction at your current location, as set in AirMail. Select a Valid Time (VT) or scroll through them using up or down arrows to see the forecast for that time period. We usually set our location and scroll through Valid Times to see wind for our location for the next five days.

In Summary

GRIB files play an important role in cruising. Especially when combined with other available weather resources. A GRIB file might even be the most important weather resource when in remote areas, without cell phone or internet access.

Marine Forecasts

Previously in this BLOG, I talked about weather services we use while cruising. The most basic service is the marine weather forecasts from NOAA’s National Weather Service. The marine forecasts are categorized as Coastal/Great Lakes, Offshore and High Seas. These are further subdivided into areas and zones. Each zone has a unique Zone ID. Coastal/Great Lakes forecasts are broadcast on VHF radio and Offshore and High Seas forecasts are broadcast on HF radio. All of them are also available from the internet and email as well.

In The Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South: The Thornless Path to Windward , by Bruce Van Sant, he talks about using the NWS offshore report exclusively to watch and plan for weather. He recommends a shorthand notation for copying the HF broadcasts, but we find it easier to have them emailed to us. The NOAA website explains how to get the email, but we have found an easier way using SailMail.

Finding the marine forecast when connected to the internet is pretty straight forward. You just enter a location or click on a map. When you are planning to cruise offshore, you need to know which zones you will be cruising in. It’s a good idea to start looking at the forecasts before leaving so you are familiar with the conditions.

Marine Forecast Zone IDs

I will explain how we used marine forecasts for our recent Bahamas cruise. We started by finding the zone IDs for the Bahamas by going to NWS Offshore Marine Forecasts page and clicking on the Tropical Atlantic link to get a clickable map.

Tropical Atlantic Zones

Zone IDs are six characters; two letters, the letter “z” and three digits. The numbers for each area are closely grouped. In this case 111 to 127. Each area has a synopsis, which is not shown. The synopsis is the lowest number in the group. In this case it is amz101.

The Bahamas zone ID is amz117. Clicking on it will give you page forecast.weather.gov/shmrn.php?mz=amz117&syn=amz101. It has a synopsis for the Tropical Atlantic area and a five-day forecast for the Bahamas including Cay Sal Bank.

You might notice that the offshore zones don’t cover the Gulf Stream crossing that we need to cross from Molasses Reef to Gun Cay. In this case we go to the Coastal/Great Lakes forecast by Zone page and click on South, followed by Miami to get the following clickable map.

Miami Forecast Zones

Click on AMZ671 Waters from Deerfield Beach to Ocean Reef FL from 20 to 60 NM excluding the territorial waters of the Bahamas and you will get to forecast.weather.gov/shmrn.php?mz=amz671&syn=amz600. It has a synopsis of amz600 and a five-day forecast.

Now that we know the zone IDs, we can get access to the data directly. Each forecast and synopsis are a .txt file stored on the NWS website. Start by going to tgftp.nws.noaa.gov.  Click on data, then forecasts, marine and either coastal or offshore.  Next click on the directory with the two-letter name that matches your zone ID, such as am. You will see a list of .txt files. Click on amz101.txt to see the synopsis and amz117.txt to see the five-day forecast for the Bahamas.

These files are updated periodically to contain the most current forecast. We like to look at them each day at about the same time. It’s a good idea to look over previous forecasts to see how they change. We could make copies each day, but we find it easier to write it down in a small notebook. Also make sure to check the date and time in the file.

Getting Forecasts by email

You can have the forecasts and synopses emailed to you. Here is the way as described in the NWS website. Address your email to nws.ftpmail.ops@noaa.gov.  The subject is ignored and you put commands in the body similar to below:

!REM send to nws.ftpmail.ops@noaa.gov
open
cd data/forecasts/marine/coastal/am
!REM Atlantic Coastal Waters Synopsis
get amz600.txt
!REM Atlantic Coastal Waters Forecast
get amz671.txt
cd ../../offshore/am
!REM Bahamas Synopsis
get amz101.txt
!REM Bahamas Offshore Waters Forecast
get amz117.txt
quit

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An easier way is to use SailDocs . Send your email to query@saildocs.com. The subject is ignored and the body looks as follows:

send amz600
send amz671
send amz101
send amz117

This format is easier to write and you can change the word send to subscribe to get an email every day. The default subscription is for 14 days, but you can change that.

subscribe amz600 days=7
subscribe amz671 days=7
subscribe amz101
subscribe amz117

Some of the zones are not supported by SailDocs. In that case you can format your email as a web page request.

Send http://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/marine/coastal/an/anz152.txt

Note: The above email is formatted as a single line. You can substitute Subscribe for Send and get a file every day for two weeks.

We use AirMail, with SailMail on our SSB while cruising, but you can use any email service to get these forecasts from SailMail.

Using Marine Forecasts

The format of the marine zone forecast is pretty obvious. It goes out for five-days, or ten 12-hour periods. We like to compare them to other weather resources that are labeled by hour so we note the days and hours when we copy it. Times are noted in local time of the reporting office, which is EST or EDT for all Atlantic zones. Some other weather resources are in UTC (Universal Coordinated Time), but we have gotten used to converting.

The format of the forecast is straightforward. Both the synopsis and five-day forecast have dates and times, descriptions of what they are and the area covered. They use a limited set of characters – all uppercase letters, numbers and very few punctuation marks. This is a holdover from years ago when there were devices that could not display all the characters.

Note: The NWS has updated their system to use mixed case and more punctuation marks.

The synopsis has a few sentences, describing current patterns and what’s expected in the next coming days.

We use the synopsis to verify our analysis of weather faxes and other weather resources. The weather faxes are like snapshots that are 24 hours apart, the synopsis explains what happens in between. If you want more detailed information about the forecast, look at the discussion for the area.

Weather Log

The five-day forecast has wind direction, wind speed, sea height and precipitation forecasts for five days. Wind speeds are in knots and seas are in feet. We copy the forecast to a small notebook along with notes from weather faxes and other resources. We have one page a day and generally go back to see how forecasts change. We also compare actual conditions to what was forecast.

Here’s a page of our weather log. It starts out with the date and location. Next are notes from the Surface Analysis and 24, 48, 72 and 96 hour Surface Forecast weather faxes. Refer to Weather, Part 6 for more information about weather faxes.  Next is the five-day forecast. When we are actually cruising there will be more on this page, such as observed conditions and notes from Chris Parker and other weather resources.

Summary

In this post I discussed different ways to get marine forecasts. The method we use depends on whether we have access to the internet. When we are cruising in the Bahamas we use SailMail to get our forecasts by email, otherwise we access them directly. Some cruisers prefer to listen to the broadcasts on their HF or VHF radio. Whatever you decide, you can’t say that marine forecasts are not a valuable weather service when cruising.

The next post will talk about GRIB files.

Using Weather Faxes While Cruising

Marine weather faxes, or Radiofaxes, from NOAA are a valuable resource while cruising. In Weather, Part 3, I discussed how we use weather charts that we download from the internet. In this post I talk about how we get weather faxes on Questeria when we have no internet or cell phone service, such as our last Bahamas cruise.

What You Need to Get Weather Faxes

To receive weather faxes, you need a SSB (single-sideband) receiver (you don’t need a transmitter), a way to decode the signal and a way to display the fax. We currently decode the signal with a pactor modem, but we have also used our smartphones and tablets to decode weather faxes. You can display the fax on a computer screen, mobile device or print it on paper. We generally like to look at the fax on a large screen tablet.

Getting Ready to Use Weather Faxes

We got ready for our Bahamas cruise by going on-line deciding what data we needed to look at. We started by going to http://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/fax/marine.shtml and deciding what station was best for our cruising area. For us it was GULF of MEXICO, CARIB, TROP ATLANTIC, and SE PAC (New Orleans/NMG). Next, we looked at the Schedule and made note of the broadcast times and frequencies. All times are in UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) and all broadcasts are in the USB (Upper Side Band) mode.

Why All the Frequencies?

The faxes are broadcast on multiple frequencies for different propagation conditions. Propagation is the principle that allows HF radio signals to travel long distances. Propagation is complicated, but for our purposes we just listen to each frequency and decide which one is clearest. You must tune your receiver 1.9 kHz. lower than the frequency on the schedule. For example, if you want to receive a fax on 4317.9 kHz, set your receiver to 4316.0 kHz. Make sure your radio is programmed to receive all frequencies so you can quickly scan through them and listen for the clearest signal. My ICOM M802 came with weather stations already programmed in. New Orleans station 4316.0 kHz. is channel 54.

What Charts Should I Get?

There are many charts available, but what do you really need to understand the forecast? We rely on the Surface Analysis charts to see what is happening and Surface Forecast charts to see what will happen. The four charts that are most interesting for the Bahamas are the U.S./TROPICAL SURFACE ANALYSIS (W HALF) and 24, 48 and 72 HR SURFACE FORECAST charts.

Sometimes we look at the WIND/WAVE charts to verify our analysis of the surface forecast charts. These charts have wind barbs that show wind speed and direction, but wind speed is only in 5 knot increments. Also, the charts don’t always have wind barbs in the exact locations you care about. With practice you can extract the wind speed and direction from the SA/SF charts and use WIND/WAVE charts to verify your analysis.

Familiarize yourself with these charts before you start cruising. You can click on the times or contents of the Hyperlinked Schedule to see what each transmission looks like. The charts you get over the air will not be as clear as what you download and there will be times when you can’t get readable charts at all.

Decoding the Signal

Once we have the SSB receiving the signal, we need to decode it. On Questeria we have decoded it two ways; with an iPhone/iPad or with a pactor modem.  Before we had a pactor modem we used the HF FAX app with an iPad or iPhone.   At first, we would hold the device next to the speaker or an ear bud. Later I built a an interface based on the instructions at this website.

We found it easier to decode weather faxes when we got a pactor modem. We installed the Viewfax software, which comes with the AirMail program. We got AirMail on a CD that came with the pactor modem we bought from DockSide Radio. We highly recommend DockSide Radio. They sell systems already set-up with the right cables, software and documentation for your SSB and they will help you resolve any problems.

If you have AirMail on your computer you just open the GetFax window, select your station and frequency, and start receiving faxes.  We listen to each frequency and choose the clearest. We periodically listen to make sure we are receiving the clearest signal, as propagation condition change over time.

Viewing the Weather Fax

When we have decoded the faxes that we want, we need to view the files. The files are in one of several formats, depending on how you receive and decode them. If downloaded from the internet they could be in .gif (Graphics Interchange Format) or .tif (Tagged Image File Format). If decoded with HF FAX they will be in .png (Portable Network Graphics) format. When received with a pactor modem they will be in .tif format.  Files in .gif and .png format are easily viewed as photos, but files in .tif format need a special viewer. AIrMail includes a TIFF viewer, but we like to transfer the files to an android tablet so we can easily rotate and zoom into the image. There are many android apps to view TIFF files, but we use Multi-TIFF Viewer.

When we use HF Fax on the iPad, we use the iPad to display the charts. The displays on our iPhones are too small, so we transfer the files to the computer with iTunes. Make sure your iTunes is up to date before you start cruising off the grid. When we were in Dry Tortugas we were unable to transfer files until we got back home because we had a back-level version of iTunes on our computer which refused to talk to our phones.

Examples of Weather Faxes

In Weather, Part 5, I talked about tropical storm Ana forming on top of us. Here are some real weather charts we received while in the Bahamas showing this forecast.

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In this chart you can see the surface trough at about 25N 76W.

This chart shows the low starting to form at 30N 76W.

In this chart the low continues to form.

Weather Log

In  Weather, Part 3, I described how to analyze the weather fax by measuring the isobar lines and latitude lines. But what do you do with this data? I like to keep track and see how the actual weather compares with the forecast. I keep a weather log book that I update daily with forecast and actual weather data.

Weather Log Book

This is the page when I received the faxes shown above. It starts with the date and current location. Next is observed weather, at 6:13am there was 17 knots at 95 degrees, barometric pressure was 1017.0 and it was raining. The next line was from the Bahamas Zone forecast, Winds Southeast at 10-15 knots, seas 5 to 7 feet and 2 to 3 feet. Numerous showers and isolated thunderstorms.

The next three lines are the 24, 48 and 72 hour Surface Forecast at 00 UTC. the 24-hour forecast calls for 1017 millibars and winds of 11 knots from the ESE. The actual barometric pressure was measured at 1017.3. I was not able to calculate wind speed or direction for the 48 or 72 hour forecasts. Nor did I record actual observations.

Following that are notes from the zone marine forecast and Chris Parker.

What’s Next?

Receiving weather faxes on your SSB radio is pretty simple once you get started. Analyzing them is a bit more difficult, but with practice it becomes easier and easier. We started treating it like a hobby and now they have become a resource that we rely on while cruising. In a later post I’ll talk about how we use zone forecasts, synopsis-es, and GRIB files.

Marine Weather Center

In Weather, Part 4, I talked about how I watched weather while cruising in the Bahamas. In this post I discuss one of the weather resources, the Marine Weather Center (better known as Chris Parker), in more detail.

Chris Parker Services

I knew about Chris Parker when we started planning our Bahamas trip, but I haven’t yet talked about his services, because I hadn’t used them before the trip. Chris Parker provides a number of subscription and free services. You can get general weather advice or weather advice for your specific location or destination. You can receive this information in several formats, including SSB (single-sideband radio), satellite phone, fax and email. In addition, he broadcasts a weather synopsis for Bahamas, Caribbean and US East coast on SSB every Monday through Saturday. You can subscribe to the Marine Weather Center services at different levels:

• SSB Radio
• Daily Emails
• Combo SSB and Email
• Custom Email or Fax
• Phone-in

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We didn’t subscribe to any services for the last trip, but we did try to listen in on his Bahamas weather synopsis. Sometimes we couldn’t catch everything he said so next Bahamas trip we will subscribe to his daily email service.

The SSB Bahamas synopsis starts at about 6:40 am on 4.045 MHz USB and 8.137 MHz USB. We would usually tune in before then and adjust the SSB to get the best reception. We would switch between 4.045 and 8.137  and adjust settings to get the best audio reception. It was not always possible to hear the entire synopsis and sometimes we would have to change frequencies in the middle of the broadcast to hear it.

Chris Parker’s Bahamas Synopsis

When we tune in he is taking calls from subscribing vessels. He tries to prioritize calls by propagation. In other words, he will delay his synopsis if there are vessels calling in who will soon lose contact. He always starts his synopsis asking if there is any emergency traffic. Next, he covers recent observations that are pertinent to the area. Then he covers a five-day synopsis and outlook for the next five days. Then he covers precipitation, winds and seas for northern, central and south Bahamas. Finally, he discusses gulf stream crossings, both east and west.

We would prepare for his broadcast by writing down the  National Weather Service Offshore Forecast for the Bahamas (more on that in a future post). Then we would take notes on differences while he was talking. At the end we would compare notes and try to make sure we didn’t miss anything important. The information on squalls was what we found most useful. We have not found an easy way to get this information any other way.

Tropical Storm Ana

We had our share of squalls while in the Bahamas. A trough of low pressure started forming in the Bahamas the first week of May. This later formed tropical storm Ana, the earliest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in the US. It was not fun being there with a tropical storm forming overhead. (See Waiting for Weather and Rain, Rain Go Away.) But from a scientific point of view it was quite fascinating. We would not have known about this except for Chris Parker.

What’s Next

We relied on Chris Parker’s synopsis more than we thought we would. We will definitely subscribe to his daily email service for the next Bahamas trip. In the next post on I will discuss receiving weather faxes.

Weather Resources While Cruising

In Weather, Part 1, I talk about why I became interested in weather and about the book, Modern Marine Weather: From Time Honored Maritime Traditions to the Latest Technology. In Weather, Part 2, I talk about some of the weather resources I use and in Weather, Part 3, I talk about how I use these resources to watch marine weather. In this post I talk about how I actually monitored weather during our Bahamas cruise.

Single-Sideband Band Radio

We left Marathon, FL on March 31, 2015, headed to the Bahamas and returned on May 12. Most of that time our only communication was through our single-sideband band radio (SSB). We knew this ahead of time and planned for it. The SSB allowed us to keep in touch with family and friends, but more importantly keep track of weather.

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Daily Weather Routine

While in the Bahamas we usually got up at 6:00 am. After coffee we looked at the wind speed, direction, barometer and of course the sky. Then at 6:30 we tuned the SSB to hear Chris Parker’s Bahamas weather synopsis. After that, depending on our location we would listen in to various VHF radio nets on weather. When we were in Warderick Wells, the local cruisers held a weather net on VHF 68 at 8:00 am. At 8:30 we would join a weather net on VHF 12 from Staniel Cay. At some point during the day we would try to receive NOAA weather faxes and send and receive emails through SailMail. These emails included a GRIB file, Bahamas synopsis and zone forecast that we had subscribed to from SailDocs.

I’ll elaborate on each of these resources in future posts.