15-20 mph+ within 50 min. of SE Florida???

[ricki]

For several of the last few days with NO waves, just miles of calm water? I just checked and it was light here. These are thermal winds that may be fairly common. More to come on that once I can do more research.

Where is it?

[BigR]

Rick,

I know exactly where this is............

[ricki]

If you are thinking of Cuba, you could be right. But that isn't the location I was thinking about. I need to see the wind stat's to confirm this but it could be a great find for kiting and CLOSE.

[ricki]

No more guesses?

Ok, well it's Andros Island, roughly 160 miles SSE of Ft. Lauderdale and about 50 minutes by plane to Andros Town on the NE coast. It blew quite a lot while I was there usually starting late morning and going on to and sometimes past sunset. I didn't have a wind speed meter with me but I would guess wind was about 15 to 20 mph+. There was a tropical wave coming through, still it seemed more like thermal wind. Reasoning through things you have the mile deep, cool TOTO (tongue of the ocean) to the east, shallow hot andros to the west. With periods of oceanic divergence upwelling cooler waters you would think the table might be set for a nice thermal pressure/wind gradient.

I am trying to retrieve archived wind records from AUTEC and hope to be successful. I may not be but it is a good first stop. btw, they have a realtime wind site about 1/4 mile offshore and 30 ft. high.


Good winds off Small Hope Bay Lodge with minimal chop

I checked and neither Nassau a short distance to the NE (you can easily see the glow of lights at night) and SE FLorida both had minimal wind during this period. But this part of Andros was good for riding. It is flat inside the barrier reef from what I could see. Boring for me but for all the calm water riders out there, pretty good. Even if you manage to get skunked for wind, the diving is intriguing. More about that at:http://fksa.org/showthread.php?p=21809



Cabarete has a unique micro climate wind wise along the NE coast of Dominica. I wonder if there might be sections of Andros that might have more wind than other areas? I don't think useable thermals come up every day just more often than in SE Florida perhaps. Could offer an option to wind-starved riders.

Can anyone offer information about this? It would be nice to check the Internet to see if the wind is on, hop a short flight over, ride your brains out and fly back while Florida is becalmed.

More to come on this as I learn more.

[kiwiar2000]

nice. now all i need is a boat to get me there....oo wait, we may get our fair share this weekend!
-Danny

[ricki]

You wouldn't want to take a boat there, at least not for a short time. It would take too long and be costly in fuel. Just grab a plane over, that is the point. The jury is still out but if conditions are like what I think they might be, parts of Andros may provide a close wind destination to Florida. Still trying to get archived wind info from AUTEC to see what happens there over time.

[ricki]

I've been looking over wind data for an area within NE Andros. It looks like the winds do bump up there often for several days at a time interspersed with days of calmer weather. The wind often starts in late morning and goes until after sunset similar to thermal winds. The winds have been recorded in the mid to high teen knot range usually during June and July and with lesser frequency in August. As a rule, there is no useable wind in SE Florida during most of these times. An ideal situation would be to get a heads up when the wind bumps up and fly over for some kiting, diving and island time during our summer calms. If the wind isn't on, don't go or just head over for other water activities.