The Hurricane Season Is Approaching.

As the Hurricane season is approaching (01 June to 30 November) every day many yachts leave St Martin. Some heads south to Grenada, or Trinidad as these islands are south of the Hurricane Belt. Others head north to the USA and Canada. But most head east to Europe and in particular the Med. Some of the latter will make a stop in Bermuda (about 950 Nm to the north), as I did in 2004, but more go straight to the Azores, where Horta is a popular stop, a distance of 2.100-2.500 Nm, depending on the route, the weather and the location and size of the Azores High. After the Azores yachts head mostly for the Med, but many sail to the northern Europe.

The effect of this exodus starts to show as the Marigot Bay and Simpson Bay Lagoon  anchorages starts to thin out of yachts. 

The weather forecast is not optimal at the moment, so some had advanced their departure time, but I fear that they will encounter little, or head wind before they are at least level with Bermuda. Personally if there is no wind, I prefer to delay the departure till the wind will pick up a little, as it is nicer to be in St Martin rather than at sea without wind. 

I was this morning on the SSB and heard on the the Atlantic Crossing Net that most of the yachts were making little progress and some had only 5 kn wind and others were motor sailing. I believe that the weather should be better when we are ready to set sails, but then who knows, as the west to east route is always a bit complicated and the tactics have to change continuously according with the weather. 

But the weather has played up for a couple of weeks, where we have had gale force wind from NE and SE. Boy did we get rain the last two days and especially on the 4 May, it was pouring down to such an extend that I could not see more than a meter in front of me. And severe Thunderstorm came as well, which is less amusing when on a sailing yacht. On the positive side: it was a free boat wash and that is always welcome.

Today I cleaned the waterline, which was needed as a lot of growth and slime had attached itself while I was in the Lagoon. Many jobs have been done during the last days (Generator, Electronics, VHF, cleaning, washing, preparing for the arrival of the crew, etc.), but I still have a long list of jobs that are needed to be done before we set sails.

Talking about Lights..... A big Budget Marine shopping was done before the rain and I have now bought and installed LED lights (about 75, I think) all over New Dawn. They work well and it is nice to put on the lights and not really have to worry about the power consumption. But it is an expensive exercise and at HR the LED lights I bought last winter cost me EUR 22.50/each, plus shipping, but at Budget Marine I found the at USD 15.45/each (EUR 10, net).