"hurricane season" fears paralyse caribbean

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tcm

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Hurricane Danny approached the Leewards on Monday, many islands boarded themselves up even tho the forecast was solid that it would downgrade and sure enough, it was a windy day, no more. Likewise Erika came along four days later and er, another windy day with a bit of rain. Very like Northern England on lots of winter days, except 20degrees warmer. The storm hasn't "pounded" Dominica - it dropped 8 inches of rain and that's what's caused their problems.

Seems the ghost of Gonzalo last year - forecast a minor storm event but upgraded to hurricane 2 on the day during its 60 mile advance from Antigua - is still looming large. And of course, "hurricane season" looms large for their tourism too - despite quite wonderful weather for most of the summer, the "hurricane season" tag keeps everyone away. Shame really.
 
My son lives on Tortola and he is a chef. Lat weekend they had to shutter everything up a week before they had planned. They then opened again on Tuesday just in time for Erika and closed last night. They are closed for a month or so which is less than the other island they were on last year. That closes for two months and suffered nothing until they re-opened in October when they had a few days torrential rain and high winds which forced the resort to close (there are only 11 rooms on the island but mooring balls for 35 boats).

I have been watching the weather over there all week due to my vested interest and also on the webcams I can find here;

http://reservationsbvi.com/web cams.html
 
Our boat is out of the water in Antigua so been following the weather closely. Nothing more than 50 kts over the boat but some heavy rain. Nipping over for a holiday next week to check on boat and do some jobs
 
Perhaps a bit premature tcm. Tropical storm Erika hit Dominica, 20+ dead, 30+ missing, roads, bridges and houses swept away. Not exactly "another windy day with a bit of rain"?
 
Ashman said:
Perhaps a bit premature tcm. Tropical storm Erika hit Dominica, 20+ dead, 30+ missing, roads, bridges and houses swept away. Not exactly "another windy day with a bit of rain"?
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agreed and very sad. But that was al lot of rain on a mountainous island, not the result of a "hit" of hurricane-force wind-damage or storm surge.
 
ER-IK-A is now busted and a trough only. IT was forecast to get close to us so we watched and it served as a reminder to do some advance preps. We are in a sheltered corner of a sheltered marina with all floating docks ( rare in these parts) and tallish piles ( important for surge protection) Our permanent berth lines are high quality nylon and chafe protected. I did not remove the sails so far but could have if the threats continued. the main is in-mast and very little is 'out'. The genoa is on a roller and I did wind a whole load of turns of the sheets round it and locked it off tight. We still have our RIB hanging in davits, but with additional straps and chafe protection i strategically placed. We do still have a full enclosed cockpit canopy/bimini in place which may have been removed in the next 48 hours if Erika had not gone 'poof'. On land we had a lightning strike nearby that knocked out all the leccy for a few hours and reminded me to plan better for that kind of event so we added another battery lantern or two with multi[ple spare batteries. I have a 4G notebook that caan act as a mobile hotspot for WiFi, so that got set up and tested. Cold coffee with the filter machine out of action in the power outage had me break out a spare gas stove, old fashioned kettle and manual coffee filter device, together with a couple of thermos flasks to make it in. I filled a spare 5 gallon water carrier and some other containers too as our mains water gets contaminated at the drop of a hat. We bought a few days worth of foods not needing refrigeration and that can be easily cooked/.heated on our little camping stove. If not used they can go on the boat for use there.

We live are on the 3rd floor of a sturdy concrete condo so hopefully above any potential flood levels of the ICW which we overlook.,


So, glad Erika is no more, but somewhat pleased we got some preps in place for potential future events.
 
The only time I'm aware of the Caribbean being paralysed, meaning sailing came to a grinding halt, was 2005 when we were there. There were the most hurricanes ever, the most Cat 1 hurricanes ever Katrina was one and one hurricane in January 2006 which is unheard of. NOOA's forecast for this year is fewer hurricanes than normal.
 
KellysEye said:
The only time I'm aware of the Caribbean being paralysed, meaning sailing came to a grinding halt, was 2005 when we were there. There were the most hurricanes ever, the most Cat 1 hurricanes ever Katrina was one and one hurricane in January 2006 which is unheard of. NOOA's forecast for this year is fewer hurricanes than normal.
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Perfect example of what I'm talking about - hype and exaggeration. 2005 was indeed the record year for hurricanes BUT

1 Katrina actually formed in the Bahamas in Aug 2005, well over a thousand miles north from southern carib where most sailors hang out. So it didn't stop anything in the leeward/windward caribbean islands.

2 There was tropical storm (not a hurricane) which took the name Zeta and which formed in late December 2005 and was still a tropical storm in early January 2006, lasting about a week, didn't make landfall and peaked at 50knots. Wooh.

3 No, "paralysed" doesn't mean "sailing came to a grinding halt" .....
 
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