Possible Tropical Storm warning coming soon

If you are in Antigua at the moment or are on your way here before mid week then be advised that the forecast isn't looking good. At this hour the National Hurricane Center is trying to decide if what was "Invest 94L" (a fancy name for a strong tropical wave or low pressure system) was turning into a Tropical Depression which is the stage of a low pressure system between a tropical wave and a tropical storm. Of course the stage after a tropical storm is a hurricane. Many of the weather forecaster blogs are saying that Invest 94L is probably a Tropcial Depression as i write this and many are suggesting that it may become a Tropcial Storm very soon afterwards. This is where it gets interesting. These days all the super computer forecasting tools that there are out there are usually good enough to predict the track of an approaching storm. We have seen them accurately predict where these storms go each year. In fact, they seem to do a better job each year too. This invest has been different. None of the models seem to know where the hell it will go. Windguru.com still says the weather this week will be awesome, so maybe they know something we don't know.
After reading the weather discussion on www.crownweather.com and looking at the moving sat maps on www.weathercarib.com i think we should all be thinking about getting ready for a storm. I will post updates here and on www.stormcarib.com so keep checking the sites.

balsa wood for a scaled down model boat

My good friend Roddy from www.acquafilms.com has always wanted to build a boat and is very interested in my project of building a 14 foot power boat. I built a model out of card and will show that soon, but i wanted something a little more robust. Roddy had some old model plane balsa and hooked me up (after sushi last night). I will build a 1/2 model of the boat this weekend and show by monday. I hope to start building the real thing soon as well.

Come help out on International Coastal Cleanup Day Spet. 19th

September 19th is International Coastal Cleanup Day. You can find more info on it at the Ocean Conservancy site here: For the past few years we have taken one of two of my boats out to clean up a beach or two that you can't get to by car. "We" is usually a group of people from all over the place who happen to be in Antigua and who are interested in marine life and helping to clean up beaches. So much of the garbage on our beaches ends up in the water and then causes so many problems. Just yesterday I was doing a little talk to the Antigua Yacht Club kids about beaches, reefs and the marine species that live in those habitats. Carl James runs their kids sailing program and had asked me to come down and chat with them. Anyway, we did quite a bit of talking about turtles too as the kids seemed very interested in them. After the talk and before going on a snorkeling trip with the kids, Carl took them on a little beach cleanup down the coast from the Yacht Club. He called me to let me know that they had found one of the "two year old" turtles that we had just spoken about. It was dead and had been washed up on the beach tangled in a bit of discarded fishing net. Ya will never know how much wild life you will be saving by collecting some garbage from the beaches.
If you are interested in coming out with us on the 19th of September to one of the off shore beaches to do a cleanup and then a bit of snorkeling possibly contact my sister Nell who handles the bookings on 1 268 726 6366 or info@adventureantigua.com and make a reservation.
This photo was from two years ago and shows a group of us and the garbage we collected from just one beach at Green Island.

Building your own power boat

Ever since i first went to the Grenadines in November i have been intrigued with the passion many young people there have for building their own speed boats. Since there are so many islands scattered around eachother people need to get to and fro using boats. Fiberglass boats are too expensive down there so almost all small powerboats (and many of the larger boats) are locally build out of wood. As many of you know, i was down there getting a 40 foot wooden sloop made. Ocean Nomad which we do sailing and snorkeling tours on was finished on the beach there back in April 2008. Anyway, each time i go there i take great pleasure is seeing all these little powerboats. Most of the islands in the Caribbean still have one or two people still making them but in the Grenadines almost all of them are locally build of wood. Here is one i saw in Union Island back in November 2007:

As you can see, the young desingers there love to make their boats full of colour, and there is quite a bit of competition and pride encompassed in building them.
Here is another one anchored off the west coast of Carriacou at sunset:

Simple boats but very functional in our choppy waters. With plenty of deep V up in the front of the boat these little vessels cut through the water very well.
Here are photos of some in Grenada:






Most of the fast more modern ones are built using a two by four skeleton and a ply wood skin covered in some fiberglass to keep the wood from rotting. The older ones are built the old school way as our sloop was. No ply wood and no fiberglass. Ones like this have been built the same way for hundreds of years:

The slower and older boats are all like this:

Anyway, without having any experience in boat building I was very interested to listen carefully to my boat's designer speak about making models so that he could scale from there to the big boat. Seen here the model of my new sailing boat still being built is carefully designed with 16th of an inch to one inch scale.

Notice any resemblance?

Hopefully by the end of this yeat she will look something like her sister (our other boat) Ocean Nomad seen here below in photos taken by www.photoaction.com :



Anyway, with some of the things i learnt i decided to start building my own small powerboat. Last week my sister Nell told me that she wanted to go boating with some of her friends and that it wasn't fair that we didn't have a small boat she could use. I agreed! Not only that, when it's calm and i want to go fishing by myself i always think it's crazy to use one of the big boats.
Tomorrow i will show you the simple model i have made. It took me about three days of work on and off, but a scaled model has been almost finished of what will be a fun 14 foot speed boat which will be perfect for fishing and playing.
For more info on our wooden boats check http://www.sailing-antigua.com/ and http://www.adventureantigua.com/

Adventure Antigua is happy

Yup with two storms that were first forecast to come and ruin our nice summer now no threat to us, we at Adventure Antigua are jumping for joy.
Tropical Storm Ana died and Hurricane Bill is turning away from the Caribbean and is of no threat to us according to all forecasts.
The Eco Tour went out yesterday and Xtreme is out today. Tomorrow we are doing maintenance and thursday there is a cruise ship in town and all hands will be on deck as we have Xtreme, Eco and Classic Yacht all out.

Weakening Tropical Depression Ana leaves the area

With a few heavy showers and some thunder rolling around Ana turned up last night after failing to stay strong enough to be called a tropical storm. She never made it to hurricane status either, but we did prepare here in Antigua just in case. I guess we had one or two wind gusts up to 30 mph in rain squalls last night but by sunrise today the weather was perfect and beautiful as it was yesterday morning. The Eco Tour is going out today with Captain JD, Chris and Alex. Jason, Tony and I will be sanding the bottom of Arawak Odyssey so that we can put a fresh layer of bottom paint on her. Hurricane Bill which is the first of the season is forecast by every forecasting tool to totally miss the Caribbean with Bermuda the only land mass that should be very worried. See the model tracks here:

These lines are each organization's forecast track based on the super computing done by their tools. It's extremely technical work and after plugging in a huge variety of weather factors from all over the Atlantic and further, they come up with the forecasts. They are usually pretty accurate. With that in mind we should always prepare when a storFor more info you can check this link. m is east of the islands no matter what the forecasts say. It's like turning your back on a raging bull that's tied. Anyway, i'm keeping my eye on Bill even though i feel pretty confident that he will not come close to us at all. Apart from that we have pretty good weather on the cards for the next week.

Big positive change in forecast for Antigua.

With every single computer model from the international weather departments saying Tropical Storm Bill is going to pass far to our north we are feeling much better in Antigua once again. Tropical Storm Ana which was forecast to hit us at just under hurricane strength has now weakened to a very weak tropical storm and has continued on it's westerly track keeping it far enough south from Antigua that we won't be hit by any of the tropical storm winds and very little of it's rain. Ana is a small tropical storm and a hurricane hunter plane is supposed to be on its way into the storm to see if it is still strong enough to be called a tropical storm. Looking at the actual rainfall amounts at this hour below from the Guadeloupe Radar you can see that there simply isn't much out there.


The IR satellite map below shows very little cloud cover associated with Ana either, but I think Dominica and Guadeloupe will get some squally weather later tonight and tomorrow. We here in Antigua may or may not get much at all. We will have to see. That being said you are wise to prepare for some 40 - 50 mph squalls just in case.

The forecast track for ana is here and for bill is here. Currently the weather is mostly sunny here in Antigua with a very light north wind. Some boaters are securing their boats and the others are out enjoying the use of them on this sunday. The rest of the week now looks fairly normal according to all forecasts but we will have to keep an eye on Bill as he's still east of us and you can never 100% trust the forecasts.

Tropical Storm Ana threatens Antigua and Barbuda

This week has been a strange one for tropical weather forecasters with a tropical wave out in the Atlantic fooling everyone. At first they said this wave was going to develop into a depression and it took some time doing it. Finally it became tropical depression number two or "TD 2". It was then forecast to go North of the island chain and we were told not to worry about it and to focus on the tropical wave behind it. Everyone stopped looking at TD 2 which started to fizzle and we all started to become extremely worried about what was now "invest 90L" (a very strong tropical wave). This thing was forecst to strengthen rapidly and was also forecast to track straight to us arriving on wednesday as a hurricane. Nobody i spoke with in Antigua yesterday (except Steve Mendes) mentioned TD 2 which had been downgraded to a tropical wave once again. We were all making plans for 90 L. Last night i went out for a few rums with the crew and returned home pretty late deciding to look at the forecasts before hitting the bed. WOW!
The old TD 2 had strengthened and was forecast to pass right over Antigua and Barbuda as a Tropical Storm on Monday!!!! This wasn't expected, and at this hour most people on the island are unaware of this.
Here is the National Hurricane Center 11 am forecast:

000
WTNT32 KNHC 151432
TCPAT2
BULLETIN
TROPICAL STORM ANA
ADVISORY NUMBER 14
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL022009
1100 AM AST SAT AUG 15 2009

...ANA...PRONOUNCED AH-NA...MOVING
QUICKLY WESTWARD WITH LITTLE
CHANGE IN STRENGTH...

INTERESTS IN THE
LEEWARD ISLANDS...THE VIRGIN ISLANDS...AND PUERTO
RICO SHOULD MONITOR THE
PROGRESS OF ANA. A TROPICAL STORM WATCH MAY
BE REQUIRED FOR PORTIONS OF THE
LEEWARD ISLANDS LATER TODAY.

FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA
IN THE UNITED
STATES...INCLUDING POSSIBLE INLAND WATCHES AND
WARNINGS...PLEASE
MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL NATIONAL WEATHER
SERVICE
FORECAST OFFICE. FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA
OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED
BY YOUR
NATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE.

AT 1100 AM AST...1500 UTC...THE CENTER
OF TROPICAL STORM ANA WAS
LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 14.3 NORTH...LONGITUDE 48.3
WEST OR ABOUT
920 MILES...1480 KM...EAST OF THE LEEWARD ISLANDS.

ANA
IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 16 MPH...26 KM/HR. A TURN TOWARD
THE
WEST-NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS.
THIS MOTION COULD
BRING THE CENTER OF ANA NEAR THE LEEWARD ISLANDS
ON MONDAY.

MAXIMUM
SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 40 MPH...65 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. SOME SLOW
STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT
48 HOURS.

TROPICAL STORM
FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 70 MILES...110 KM
FROM THE CENTER.

ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1005 MB...29.68 INCHES.

...SUMMARY OF 1100 AM AST INFORMATION...
LOCATION...14.3N 48.3W
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...40 MPH
PRESENT MOVEMENT...WEST OR 270 DEGREES
AT 16 MPH
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1005 MB

THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL
BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
500 PM AST.

$$
FORECASTER BEVEN

You can see the forecast track here showing times and intensity forecasts here in this image:

Another good tracking map for Ana is this one.
Some good sites to go to are http://www.weathercarib.com/ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ and
http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/ and of course you can see local reports on http://www.stormcarib.com/
For now the weather couldnt be better and i have seen many people going out here in jolly harbour today on their boats. I will post more on the stormcarib site later today.

Extreme forecast for Northern Caribbean August 19th and 20th

The photo above was taken as we arrived in from our 15 day adventure sailing trip all the way down to Grenada and back thru the Caribbean. We knew it was a risky time to be doing it because of possible storms and even before we arrived home we started hearing of one brewing over the west coast of Africa. Actually, at that time it was just the seeds of a storm, but now its a very strong tropical wave forecast to get stronger.
With most of the high tech computer models saying that the northern leeward islands are going to be hit by a cat 2 hurricane on wednesday, i think we better start doing what my dad has done already. Get supplies that you will need to see you safely through a hurricane if you haven't gotten them already. Although there is still plenty of time for things to change most suggest that a tropical wave far out in the eastern atlantic will turn into a hurricane fairly soon and track towards the northern leeward islands. We are in the northern leewards and should monitor this situation carefully. For more on this system check http://www.crownweather.com/?page_id=325 and http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200990_model.html IF you are on a yacht cruising here you still have time to sail/power south but go far south. I have reserved to take two boats out the water on monday and tuesday. One up at Parham and another in Jolly. I am still hoping it will just be a good bit of hard core windsurfing weather, but it could be worse. Keep checking the weather sites...
Windguru is saying 60 knots and almost 30 foot waves! For info on how to use windguru (since so many people keep saying they can't figure it out) check: http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2008/07/understanding-windguru-and-weather-in.html
Remember that a hurricane usually gives bad conditions for a day and then is gone. The forecast is still a ways off but Antigua is forecast to get tropical storm winds which are less than 75 mph. We can handle that, so lets hope that IF we are to get hit... 75 is the max we get. For more info and updates from me and others on this you can check http://www.stormcarib.com/


268 725 7263 Cell
The powerboats: http://www.adventureantigua.com
The sailing: http://www.sailing-antigua.com
The Blog: http://www.antiguaisland.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/antigua

a slide show with photos related to Adventure Antigua

Hope you enjoy the show from my flickr account (which is where i get most of the images i show on my blog). Anyway here is the slide show.
To get your own photos of this kinda thing book a tour with www.adventureantigua.com getting the online direct booking discounts and come to Antigua!

terrible weather over st lucia and southern caribbean

very early this am I checked the radar and sat maps while in rodney bay marina. yesterday had been bad but from what I could see, it was gonna b worse today from martinique south. we rushed 2 get some provisions and hurridly pullednout of port bound for dominica. the morning sky was darkening and as we rounded the point a ferocious squall hit us pushing us along @ 8 knots even wit a reefed main and small headsail. it didn't last 2 long tho and the main line of storms seemed 2 always be just east and south of us as we sailed north. we're in the lee of martinique now motoring in no wind at all. ali says that the NHC in miami is speaking about this weather saying it could develop as it goes into the caribbean sea. a french coast guard boat has been shadowing us 4 an hour but with only a few miles before we pass the northern end of the island, i'm sure they won't bother us. according to our crappy garmin GPS we'll be in Roseau, Dominica by 9:30 pm. the radar shows more squalls on the way. ADVENTURE! this HTC Windows mobile phone still working well after 2 years!

mobile phone blogging from da boat

after a fairly bad forecast here in st lucia, we decided to chill here for the day. it probably dumped about 6 inches of the "wet stuff" and martique radar still shows more coming. hope its cleared up by tomorrow as we hope 2 sail 2 dominica early in the am. wish us luck. hope this works as its 1st time on phone blogging.

Sailing Adventures

Together with some friends and Jason we sailed Ocean Nomad from Antigua directly to Carriacou in the Grenadines. This wasn't just a simple cruise..... We were delivering a cargo of 6,500 lbs of lead which will be used as ballast on the new sloop. This is the first time i have been on a computer in 10 days or so. We also took part in the Carriacou Regatta which we didn't do particularly well in before going to Grenada to drop off David Mendes and to pick up Tony. David was going back to med school. Now it's just Jason and Tony with me sailing up the island chain enjoying the breeze and the Caribbean! Very early today we left Union Island where we had a lovely afternoon yesterday bound for the Tobago Keys. Passing very close to Palm island we got a good luck at the lovely resort there. The keys were as beautiful as i had imagined and after relaxing a while there we set sail for Bequia. It was blowing 25 knots and the crossing was a wet one. Bequia is unique and we enjoyed a proper island tour as tourists. Tomorrow we will check the weather and go north stopping wherever we are meant to stop. I am loving this adventure and would do it full time if it wasn't for me missing mykl so much.
www.adventureantigua.com