- Why all the hanging around?
In the shelter of the Strait of Canso
If one were to look out the portal at the weather conditions, here in the Strait of Canso, one may wonder why in the world Makina is not underway on the last 22 hour leg of the passage to Halifax.
What you are looking at is a testimony of the shelter provided by this wonderful layover. You see the Strait of Canso cuts right through the province of Nova Scotia and the Strait of Canso Yacht Club shares the weather conditions of the mainland as opposed to the surrounding seas.
This is made more evident in the screenshot of WindGuru's output. It is a piece of software that gives one wind data from all over the world. The color codes used on the maps make the overall wind conditions clearly visual. The colors provides an intuitive indication of wind speed. The warmer the colors (red, purple, etc.), the stronger the wind will be.
At present the red areas have wind speeds of over 25 knots/hr and gusts of over 44 knot/hr. The yellow areas are in the 20 knots/hr or less range, at the moment, yet with gusts still at 20 to 25 knots/hr. The green areas have winds which would be somewhat pleasant, being under 20 knots/hr. at mostly the high teens yet still with gusts of up to 25 knot/hr.
The blue areas, you will notice, are mostly over land. The Strait of Canso is marked by the blue dot, which is Makina's location. The Strait is sharing the same low wind blue coloring which are winds under 10 knots/hr and currently 7 knots/hr.. That red area, currently to the south west, has 24knots/hr winds with gusts up to 29kms/hr and is expected to get worse before it settles down around 8:00 on Thursday; which is my tentative departure date.
It is also visibly clear that if one were to leave my present location and sail south west along the coast to Halifax that they would meet up with that large red area coming up the coast towards the north east.
There have been a couple of vessels that have come in for an overnight stop and continued on. One on its way to Halifax. Yet they had some crew and are probably not as tired of being bounced around on choppy seas caused by high winds as myself. And so we sit until the Thursday morning at 8:00.
Due to this past weekend being the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend, it was extremely quite around the Club. Had a nice chat with one of the club officers yesterday. Other than some interaction when shopping on Saturday it has been pretty solitary. Downloaded Baldur's Gate 3 from our family account on steam for entertainment. It worked.
Interspersed gaming with some YouTubing Time, which inevitably led to nap times.
Had good snacks from Saturday's shopping so it ended up being a weekend which was Thankful Worthy. Only thing missing was a turkey. Go ahead say it. Gobble! Gobble!. 😁
Called all the clubs around Halifax again this morning. Still only VM pick ups.
Called the Halifax City service that offers free daily passes and overnight stays for a fee along Halifax' downtown docks. They took my info and expected arrival date and asked that they get a call a little before arrival, as well, to know where to direct me on the docks. So there will be a temporary landing zone in Halifax at least.
It being a clear day there are some chores that need doing. Hope my fellow citizens had a wonderful long weekend which was as relaxing as mine.
May the wind be at your back!
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A chronological listing of my recent sailing posts:
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