Shifting winds Lindsay McRory October 27, 1996 Our experience in Luperon is starting to match our stay in Tittusville earlier this year. Our list of pre-departure preparations gets longer every day. The main difference is that we're not installing new gear, but fixing old gear. We would like to leave in one or two weeks, but the way things have been going, it could be another month. Our generator just refuses to give me a day off; it's been a series of unrelated breakdowns. Denise has been studying the cruising guides for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We look forward to leaving, but will wait until we're properly prepared and appropriate weather arrives. We are in a hurry to leave, but we want to make sure the weather's stable and our preparations are complete. We met a family who had been cruising on their boat, Scud, for the last 15 years. They just finished a tour of the Caribbean and Venezuela. Our kids played together for the few days they stayed, but they were in a hurry to get to Georgetown for the winter festivities. Yesterday it came over the ham radio that Hurricane Lili sent Scud to the bottom. No injuries, but everything they had is gone. It hits a little close to home considering Scud was here just two weeks ago. Extended cruising can take its toll on relationships. We have met several people for whom it didn't work out. A husband-and-wife team took five years to build their boat in Wisconsin. Last year, they embarked on their dream voyage after having the boat shipped to Florida. He was sailing back to Florida single-handed; his wife left him in Venezuela. I assumed she didn't like sailing or the lifestyle and bailed out, so I told him a lot of people find out they really don't like sailing once they leave. His face tensed as he looked straight down, speaking through clenched lips, he said, "Well, she's sailing across the Atlantic with some French guy right now, heading for the Mediterranean, so I guess sailing wasn't the problem, was it?" Oops, I didn't want to open up that can of worms. For other people, the time passes enjoyably but quickly. Our Hawaiian friends here aboard Kaiolahea just realized to their shock that they've been gone for 10 years. They insist it seems like only a couple of years. The trade winds have changed their pattern. The strong southeast winds have been replaced by milder winds due east, or north of east. We wait for the first cold fronts of the season, but cold front is a misnomer here. It's never cold at all, just a shift in wind direction. Our weather forecasting techniques have changed considerably since the Bahamas. Rather than relying on a ton of weather faxes and satellite pictures, which are great for long-term forecasting, we pay more attention to patterns in wind direction, cloud cover, and barometric pressure. If you're observant, the cycle of the trades follow a fuzzy pattern that you can predict in the short term. All in all we anticipate that next week will be much the same as this week--lots of work on Hakuna Matata.