My guest captain, Peter Ryan, has put a weather delay on Annie's departure. It appears that there two tropical waves developing in the gulf and in the Atlantic. One or both could prove to be a safety issue. Since Peter has literally thousands of miles and thousands of hours sailing a Westsail 32 and since I have only a little more than 100 hours and only 500 miles experience, I am deferring to his experience.
Actually I didn't even know this stuff was out there and brewing until Thursday morning when he called me and sent me links regarding this developing weather.
According to the National Hurricane Center there is a 60 percent chance this wave over the Yucatan Peninsula will develop into a tropical cyclone in the next 5 days...
Winds are projected to be 30 knots, gusting to 40 knots on Tuesday and seas 6 to 10 feet... according to passageweather.com...
For those who do not understand the symbols, the long line points in the direction the wind will be blowing and the short lines at the "flag" of the symbol represent wind speed; a half line is 5 knots and a full line is 10 knots. You can see the wind speed on Tuesday would be 30 knots on the nose. In other words, the wind will be blowing from the very direction we need to sail.
Here's a YouTube video explaining wind charts...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=CCqtrg5Z96I
Also, a number of weather stations are warning of potential development of weather in the gulf next week...
AccuWeather...
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/gulf-of-mexico-could-yield-second-atlantic-tropical-system-of-2017-next-week/70001919
The Weather Channel...
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/tropical-development-area-to-watch-caribbean-gulf-june-2017
Bottom line, we will have to delay departure for a few days and watch for our weather window. We will leave as soon as it is safe to do so.
There is a theological point that I should make here...
In Matthew 4:1-11 Jesus was tempted by the devil at the beginning of His ministry. In the second temptation Matthew records this:
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Matthew 4:5-7.
In this temptation, the devil tempts Christ to prove He is in fact the Son of God by casting Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. The devil quotes a passage from Psalms 91:11-12. In other words, the devil was saying to Christ, "throw yourself off the temple and if you really are the Son of God, God has promised He will protect you and His angels will come and rescue you and you will not be harmed... that will prove you are who you say you are."
Jesus didn't go for it... He knew to place Himself in unnecessary danger to prove God, was in essence, to tempt God and He made that clear in His reply to the devil.
The point? Simple... to knowingly place one's self in obvious danger to prove God is to tempt God.
Hence, such reasoning can be readily applied to this situation.
We will wait for a good weather window. Probably by Thursday if the system moves Northwest.
Say a prayer.
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