SHAKY PUDDING AGAIN

Magnitude 6.5 this time and fairly close according to the Montserrat center.

Some structural damage reported from the quake alongside the wind and water damage from tropical storm Kirk

Mind you some damage is self inflicted, anybody who leaves a sail bent on a roller furler when a wind storm is forecast deserves to get it shredded. His insurance ma not pay as Kirk was a named storm.

KIRK IS A RIGHT YOYO

He was a tropical storm then briefly a hurricane then he totally decayed back to just being a tropical wave then suddenly cranked up to a storm again

I am still sitting in Deshaies and watching the remnants of Kirk who is getting the stuffing kicked out him by some strong shear winds.

But friends of mine to the South have been worried enough to put hurricane prep 5 into gear and have moved into the mangroves tieing lines ashore with stern anchors laid out .



But as Kirk is to the North it is sucking all the wind from Carriacou and it is totally windless in the mangroves. One comment from a prepper says " EVEN MY EYEBALLS ARE SWEATING".

TROPICAL STORMS AND HURRICANES EVERYWHERE I LOOK

After a very quiet start the Atlantic has gone crazy. Everytime I look another wave is threatening to get organised and start the circulation.

While I have been tempted to make a run south on a couple of occasions there has always been the Azores high pushing a ridge out and forcing the storms South.

So just hanging out in Guadeloupe and getting a little gentle hiking in.

ISAAC IS DECAYING FAST

It was a tropical storm when it blew past me and other than some unpleasant westerly swell which made life on board unpleasant until I organised a stern too mooring set up we were just fine.

The Deshaies dinghy dock survived with no obvious damage mainly because the local dive operator who uses the dock removed the wooden decking which gets smashed up when the westerly swell gets going. The pic below shows the dock in a damaged state after a previous swell smashed the deck in places.

One side effect of storms and hurricanes is spectacular sunsets.

LONG POST PART 1

I have finally got a working laptop. It is even speaking to my new camera a Canon SX 620 HS which is a pocket size point and shoot.

I bought a new laptop which came with Windows 10. I started to transfer all my files over from my old laptop using a remote hard drive.

I finished up locked out of both laptops and with all three of my external hard drives saying they were encrypted which meant I could not read them.

Despite spending considerable amounts of time money and skull sweat I was unable to get back in.

Even my last resort bootable thumb drive could not get me in. Not even using the hackers back door into the command prompt. If I had known how long it would take me to find a way to spoof my old laptop into letting me in I am not sure I would have kept going.

Microsoft help was of no use at all. Possibly my fault because I have stalwartly refused to register with the evil empire.

French 'experts' are of little use.

Youtube/Facebook experts are better but they failed da after day.

But I persevered and the old laptop is working.

GOD BLESS LINUX.

Dizzy has been a very clingy little cat since Y came back from skiing and I wonder if he somehow knew that I was ill. But maybe it was just that I was late with the cat food.

Speaking of food I am blaming my weight gain since I came back from skiing on the Bacon Cheeseburger with Roast potatoes served by the cafe on the dockside. It was just to convenient.

Sometimes I had to share with the locals though.

Long Post part two

Here are some boaty pics from Antigua most from the days of the Classics week and race week.

This was the Carriacou built wooden deck sloop Free.

She broke her wooden mast on practice day and I got the pic of her heading into the boatyard.

They worked all night.

Here she is after completing race one the next day with an aluminium mast.

No such overnight miracles were possible for the Ondeck boat though.

The sandbanks inside Falmouth harbor keep catching the unwary. A passing big RIB was able to push them off.

They were lucky to be in Antigua and not the Florida Keys. There they fine you for running aground in such areas. 1000 $ US upwards. Fines in excess of half a million have been levied.

This is Ashanti IV getting ready for the single handers race which she won with her usual ease. It is a David and Goliath job though and in this case Goliath wins. Ashanti IV is 115 ft LOA and the next biggest is 52 ft.

One thing that was sadly missing was the participation of those magnificent relics of a bygone era the J class yachts. I was there in St Barts when Hanuman finally triumphed over her rivals. Well so she should as every possible turbo tweak had been employed to make her lighter stiffer and faster. I also remember when she turned up to race for the first time and got trounced so badly in practice her billionaire owner withdrew he from the races.

Hanuman is for sale. I wonder who can afford the base running costs ? 10 million US a year just to keep her in the water ?

LONG POST PART 3

HURRICANES

I know I should not be this far North at this time of year but I just have not been up to sailing South. So with hurricane Isaac heading for the Antilles I am planning to sit it out in the Riviere Sens marina on the South end of Guadeloupe.

I would normally have put on my big girl pants and headed out for a 3 day 2 night sail south to safety. UNFORTUNATELY that would be heading into the possible strike zone.

Meanwhile there are two more hurricanes to the North and a third one forming in the Caribbean basin. It is busy after a long quiet spell.

Isaac, the one heading my way, is forecast to hit to the south and may be loosing strength when it gets here. It is just what the folks on Dominica can do without.

Hurricane Florence is the nasty one and is likely to be cat 4 and possibly even a cat 5 when it makes landfall in the East coast of the USA. It looks like it is going to be bad.

So Jan batten down the hatches and look after the puppy.