Navigating our way through rough Caribbean seas | Ep133

[@gefginn3699]

Always wishing you two great health and happiness. Take care there my friends. Thanks for sharing all you do. I enjoy tuning in to every new post. 🌞🌴⛵

[@mikeherbert7664]

Plenty of money in the Cayman Islands I’m not surprised you liked it

[@nickwilkinson2501]

another lovely episode, thanks guy's. PS Jude looks lovely caught in a rain shower!! smile 😊😊

[@rainfinger]

Good job! VPNs area absolutely essential for any cruiser, connecting to the Internet.

[@dougsrepair1060]

You guys have a great boat.

[@Westendgirlsailing]

Not sure about navionics but you can run the PredictWind modeling from within your chart plotter. We have a B&G plotter and it allows us to see the routes overlaid on the plotter.

[@svfairisle]

That's interesting, we will be looking to replace our dated onboard Raymarine system sometime, heard good things about B&G

[@OspreySailingAdventures]

Do you find Predictwind is more accurate than using orca. I’m a big fan of Orca and planning on an upgrade for this season. Add in navionics and predict wind for backups plus chartplotter cards and open cpm we have lots of redundancy but it gets very expensive and time consuming comparing all the different options. What are your go to everyday products for the Med.

[@svfairisle]

Well Orca uses the ECMWF mode so if that forcast has things right then Orca will give great information on routing etc. For multi day passages though (especially more than 3 days) then I personally like to compare models. The discrepancies in the models in this passage means there's no certainty of what you would get, In an ideal world we would have waited as we had a good chance of it being a tough passage and it was. Had the models all been a level up from that and the worst case scenario been a proper storm then we would have stayed. especially as there was nowhere to go with Nicaragua being the only country to run downwind to. The game really is working out what the worst you're likely to encounter is and making the call on that and only multiple models will give you that. You also have to set your own level for you and your boat. in this case although there was no boat breaking storm in the models there was the possibility strong wind on the nose and a 2-3 meter sea with a 5 second period, that would be a no go for most modern boats that slam so you have to take that into account. For the Med things are easier as you are never more than a day or maybe a day and a half from shelter ( don't be shy of turning around!) The Med is more about local winds that can smack you when you least expect it. These are difficult to predict but PW and others seem to be working on this, it will be interesting to see in the next few years how they do.

[@OspreySailingAdventures]

@ thanks for your in-depth answer, that’s great info.

[@svfairisle]

@@OspreySailingAdventures No problem. The thing you must avoid at all cost working with multiple models is just going with the best one putting your belief in that one being right. Having Starlink is a game changer because you are not just dealing with one model in grib form any more. You can closely see how each model changes with their updates and work out which is closest to reality so it becomes possible to see which models are doing the best job for where you are at the moment and have more faith in that one.

[@Alex000113]

Wow those wind models were very different, looks like your comfort was more of a toin coss as was which side of that atol to take. Im sure that was a tiring leg. Seemed to be worth it though. Glad you found a good place to resupply (Bobys in Roadtown BVI makes my list). What ??? 2 out 3 bilge pumps not working ? thats an issue, one you shouldnt be worrying about. Replace them (theyre inexpensive) and perhaps upgrade to modern ones with alarms and battery backup ? Have fun with the chores while Judy is away !

[@svfairisle]

Judys bringing back a new manual pump the old one had some corrosion on the aluminium where the flap valve seats so it couldnt seal enough to form a vacuum to raise the water up, a common problem. The other one was the rule float not the pump again a very common problem that i've whinged about before, I only changed it 6 months ago in Grenada!

[@billygrahamyachtsinc753]

S &J, do you think the cruising life style has aged you faster, slower or not at all, compared to land life?

[@Wanderglobe]

I can't speak for them and apologies for chiming in but when I bought my first sailboat last year I spent the first 6 months living on the hook in the Pacific Northwest in BC. Within a month I had dropped quite a bit of weight. Main reason is you're not eating as much processed food, you're entertainment is hiking and swimming and there's a lot of exercise in running a sailboat, even a small one. None of it feels like work though. I'm 58, soon to be 59.

[@svfairisle]

I think anything that keeps you active in mind and physically keeps you young. The mind part is probably more important than you might imagine. It used to be the standing joke in the newsrooms we worked in that people retired and dropped dead! Cruising when your'e moving as much as we do takes a lot of effort, people think it's all very laid back but that's not always the case. Having the channel works well for us too as we don't feel retired. My father lived on his boat until he was 82, left it in good health but died shortly after. So I guess the morel is, don't retire and don't live on land!

[@Wanderglobe]

@@svfairisle One of my favorite things about Fair Isle is your editing studio. I've worked in IT all my life and have spent some time editing and shooting video from my old VW bus. When I saw that v berth conversion I thought now that's what I need. Winter here now, snow is coming and I'm a dock princess and I feel the weight lost returning.

[@wrbouwman7287]

👍

[@thomasthornton5737]

😀😀😀👍👍👍❤❤❤

[@billygrahamyachtsinc753]

Come on, your Internet celebrities in George Town, and from the UK. Ask any others if they got the royal treatment?

[@stevewalter7840]

Grand Cayman ain’t the Caribbean! It’s USA version of the Carib! That’s why it’s so freakin’ user friendly but lacking in soul!

[@ashley-tm1uk]

when you can’t even trust the real time wind readings it’s hard to have confidence in the forecasts…

[@stephenbyfield6776]

You've got to stop Steve yacking on about his nav software - dull as ditchwater after first minute or so.

[@svfairisle]

Ha! and I edited half of it out! Some people love it, but when I do the full techy deep dive I will confine it to a dedicated video so you can skip that one!

[@earthman3000]

I was hoping you were going to stop at Providencia….maybe your time didn’t allow.

[@svfairisle]

Time and weather were against us I'm afraid. We would have liked to stop there too.

[@earthman3000]

Next time after Providencia maybe take a big turn to port and head over to Guanaja, Utila and rio Dulce.

[@svfairisle]

Yes if we we're spending another season in the Caribbean then the Rio Dulce was definitely on the cards. Next time.