We did not race today. I went for a bike ride after they cancelled us to look at the conditions. The waves were definitely big, but it didn't seem that windy. Hopefully we will get to race tomorrow - the forecast is similar to today.
It was nice to get a little local weather knowledge from Robert Hopkins who lives here in Las Palmas. This is what I learned: In the summer the Canaries are in the trade winds which blow from the northeast. In the winter the prevailing wind is also from the northeast because the Azores High sits to the northwest, but the weather is dominated by frontal systems - which is what we are seeing right now. When the wind is from the north or northwest, it channels between La Isleta and the main part of the island and is accelerated along the shore, but then it fans out as the shore bends south. This morning he advised looking for the squalls and recognizing which side of the squall you were on and that the breeze would shift correspondingly, and die on the back side of the squall. As we were waiting around the velocity changes as the squalls passed by were pretty big. He also talked about the local current, which is primarily wind driven, but is affected by the shore line which creates eddies and swirls that often change during racing. He advised paying attention to clues about the current while racing to try to understand how it is affecting you at that moment.
Sails down while we wait for them to send us out:
Now everyone is packing up:
Map of course area:
Here you can see the next squall heading toward us from La Isleta:
The beach on the other side of the peninsula:
Mom, I figured you would take a lot of pictures of this door:
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