October 01-09, 2001 -- Weather Woes and Running

October 1-9, 2001 -- Weather Woes and Running The dominant focus for this week was the fact that there were two different systems that had great potential to form up into tropical systems to the east of the island chain. Sure enough, both systems formed up. First, was Tropical Storm Iris. She formed north of 10.5 north, so we weren't overly concerned about her. We kept an eye on her though. During the week, we worked with Ron on Jackobite to back his system down from Windows 2000 Professional to Windows 98. That took up the greater part of a week because we needed to get the special driver set for his computer. Iris passed the island chain well north of us. Unfortunately, she dragged up the ITCZ which spun out a bunch of thunder storms to the south of Grenada. It got very rolly in Prickley Bay for about 2 days. Then, the tropical wave at 40 degrees formed into a tropical depression. It formed up at 10.4 degrees north. We watched and waited. We called a halt to all work we were doing on the boat, and spent the next two days getting the boat ready to move and listening to the weather. The initial forecasts were very optimistic. The system would hit tropical storm strength quickly, but it would also head north of Grenada, in fact, well north of Grenada at Martinique. The system hit tropical storm strength and became Jerry. It was not moving north very fast, and by the time that Saturday, October 6 rolled around, its track was forecast to pass just north of Grenada. We became very concerned. On Sunday October 7, we decided to run. The forecast storm track had now dropped to passing over the north end of the island in less than 48 hours. It was also forecast to be at hurricane strength. We left Grenada at 7:30 AM AST ( 1130 GMT). We weren't holding anything back. We pushed the engines a little and averaged 10.3 knots for the first 8 hours. The last weather update we paid attention to was just before we had Los Testigos in sight. That forecast put the storm track a little bit further north again, crossing through the Grenedines. The system had sped up slightly, and was loosing cohesion. We passed Los Testigos about an hour to late, otherwise we would have stopped there for the night. Unfortunately, the sun set so we had to keep moving. At this point, we were definitely safe from the storm, so we dropped the engines back to idle and motored through the night. We arrived in Porlamar, Margarita about 6:30 AM AST (1030 GMT). We dropped anchor, and stayed up long enough to talk to folks back in Grenada. The storm had made a sharp turn north and the highest wind our friends had was about 15 knots! Once we were sure everyone there was safe, and everyone knew we were safe, we sacked out for a few hours. After we woke up, we moved the boat up behind Blind Date and dropped the dinghy. That evening, we had dinner with Beaujolais, Miss P, and Stargazer. Miss P and Stargazer were in Los Testigos the night before. We had chatted with them briefly and had met them in Grenada. Some people have asked us why we left. Some people have asked us if we would do it again. There are two short answers to this. First, we left because we had the speed to get out of the way safely. As to whether we would do it again, the answer is yes, if we had to we would do it again. However, our goal is not be in that situation again. Next year, if we are still in the Caribbean, our plan will be to spend hurricane season in Margarita