The Problem with Bahamas Marine Weather

There is a cold front passing through the area right now as I sit in Port Lucaya on Grand Bahama Island waiting for the weather to settle. The winds have already shifted to the north and seas right outside this port are picking up to four to six feet. Our trip from here to Nassau will require two long days of over 50 miles each. First, across the Northwest Providence Channel to the Great Stirrup Cay area, and then across the Northeast Providence Channel to Nassau. The question becomes: when will we have a two-day window of settled weather to travel south?

In the US, we have the luxury of detailed weather forecasts for specific areas along our coasts. One can look at an overall synopsis for a large area and then zoom into a forecast for exactly where you will be. Out here, the forecasts from the US cover gigantic areas of the ocean. The Bahamas is within the High Seas forecast area described as the “Southwest North Atlantic south of 31 degrees north and west of 65 degrees west”. This area covers some 600 miles north and south including most of the Florida east coast all the way down to the north coast of Cuba. East and west it covers more than 900 miles out as far as Puerto Rico. While it can give you a broad synopsis of what is going on, the wind and wave height predictions are utterly useless over such a large area.

For example, the forecast for today for this huge area reads as follows:

.TODAY ...N OF 27N W OF FRONT NW TO N WINDS 20 TO 25 KT BECOMING 
N TO NE 20 TO 30 KT THIS AFTERNOON. SEAS 6 TO 9 FT BUILDING 10 
TO 15 FT THIS AFTERNOON. N OF 25N E OF FRONT SW WINDS 20 TO 25 
KT. SEAS 5 TO 8 FT. S OF 27N W OF BAHAMAS N WINDS 10 TO 15 KT 
BECOMING NE 20 KT THIS AFTERNOON. SEAS 2 TO 4 FT BUILDING 5 TO 8 
FT IN BAHAMA CHANNEL. ELSEWHERE AREA E OF BAHAMAS VARIABLE WINDS 
10 KT SHIFTING TO N 10 TO 15 KT BEHIND FRONT. SEAS 4 TO 7 FT IN 
E SWELL. SCATTERED SHOWERS ALONG FRONT.

Obviously, I can’t be out there today. But as I sit in the marina with internet access and a sideband radio, I am on a quest to find something to look to over the next few days.

First, there is the Bahamas Department of Meteorology website at www.bahamasweather.org.bs. It has a marine forecast for the northwest area of the Bahamas. As of right now, 11 am Friday, it gives a forecast for last night and today. Not much help in looking for a two-day weather window next week.

Next, John Fortenberry told me of a friend in the Abacos called Barometer Bob who maintains www.barometerbob.com. His site has localized weather around Marsh Harbor in the Abacos and several useful links to NOAA forecasts. But there is no specific forecast for the area I must traverse.

I have tried the Weather Underground site, marine section, at www.wunderground.com/MAR/. Again, there are hundreds of useful and interesting links, but no specific forecast for the small area I am looking for. I press on, searching Google for perhaps an amateur forecaster interested in this area.

This afternoon, I checked in on the SSB radio with a guy from Canada named Herb Hilgenberg. He has been providing forecasts daily for many years for boats crossing the Atlantic or on passages to or from the Virgin Islands or Bahamas. He told me that the next 24-hour window he sees for my specific route will be to depart late in the day Monday and arrive Nassau Tuesday afternoon. Reading the high seas forecasts carefully fully backs up his analysis, although his idea of decent weather is a little rougher than mine. Anyway, the reason we can’t go now is that a cold front passed through this morning, creating strong northeast winds for the next couple of days. Just when things would likely calm down, another front is due through here Sunday. Hence the Monday night Tuesday recommendation from Herb.

I’ll keep exploring the internet and the radio broadcasts. However right now, I see a need for more specific forecasts from the Bahama Meteorology office. Their forecast will be very helpful when we think we’re ready to go, but it never extends more than 24 hours.