Doing research

Delaying our trip to Georgetown for a day has certainly worked out in our favor. Had we tried to bash our way there yesterday it would have been uncomfortable and hard on both us and the boat. Today the winds have (temporarily) abated and although we may still end up having to motor to Georgetown, we won’t be doing so into big waves.

The tour that I spoke of in yesterday’s post turned out to be quite interesting. The Perry Institute for Marine Science, also known as the Caribbean Marine Research Center, conducts a variety of experiments in the area and we had a very informative tour* by one of the center’s scientists. As it turns out, the reason why our tour was delayed from the previous day is because they had a medical emergency and one of the scientists had to be rushed out by plane. They have a small runway here on the island and we saw that plane land and take off again shortly after. Hopefully he/she makes out OK.

As I mentioned, the wind has only temporarily abated. Chris Parker, our main source of weather info these days via our SSB radio, says that we are due to have 20-25 knots of wind from the NNE starting tomorrow afternoon and right through until Sunday. I guess we’ll be looking for a spot with some good NNE protection once we get to Georgetown (along with the hundreds of other boats already there).

*The tour is free and can be arranged by hailing them on the VHF radio. They do accept donations for their community outreach programs.