After five weeks of visiting family, flying gliders, doing yoga, going to plays, movies and football games, and being overwhelmed with cable news about the election we’re heading back to Beowulf.

We’ve got a short list of things to do – mostly minor changes we’ve been thinking about plus installing our replacement washer/drier – and then we’ll have time to get to see a bit of the Norfolk area.

In case we’ve forgotten to mention it, we are going to participate in this year’s Caribbean 1500 race/rally. It will be a chance for us to meet some new folks, and see how we do against some of the new hotter cruising boats. Most important, however, is we get to go to sea for a few days!

The race runs from Norfolk, VA to Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. The tentative departure date is November 5. However, Steve Black, the rally organizer, consults with the weather gurus to make sure conditions are auspicious for crossing the Gulf Stream.

We’ve started watching both the Atlantic and Caribbean faxes on the web (see SetSail’s weather links for the NOAA website). Conditions for a moderately quick trip have been good all week. However, what we don’t like is the “Indian Summer” conditions of the East Coast. If you check out the 500mb fax charts you will see that the “jet stream” is quite far north for this time of year. Good for local weather – but it also increases the likelihood of tropical disturbances.

Check out the tropical charts between the Caribbean and Northeast Africa and you will see a series of easterly waves, plus areas of convection in the Gulf and Caribbean. We’d like to see those waves and convection go into hibernation until next year. However, until the jet stream starts moving south, and things begin to cool off, it is not likely to happen.

What’s the best weather scenario for the fleet to leave with? Ideally, on Friday we’ll have a vigorous front come through, with a big high pressure system spread out behind it. This will generate northwest winds for several days – hopefully enough to get us into the easterlies on the underside of the high as it moves across. For Beowulf, this would mean a couple of days of starboard tack reaching followed by a couple of more days of port tack reaching. We’re not asking for much – just perfect weather…

For those of you into speed, the current elapsed time record is six days, ten hours, and 50-some minutes.

We’ll be checking the weather from here on out on a daily basis, and will post our thoughts on SetSail. If you are interested, check out the faxes with us. It is a good way to get a feel for how to decide when to go.