Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Tammy Wright at Half Moon Bay in West End. I want to thank everyone who sent photos from here and elsewhere of yesterday’s solar eclipse. I am amazed that our Creator made the moon appear the same size as the sun from Earth’s perspective so that it fits so perfectly over the sun during an eclipse. Next total solar eclipse for Roatan is June 13, 2132 and I hope to be here for it.

Let’s start with the Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: Last night I got up to 38 mph east winds on Jonesville Point and strong east winds will continue today, tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night. Thursday we will start to see winds calm and shift to the west. Exactly when that happens is up for debate. 

Above is a map of two computer models for winds Thursday at 9 a.m. The GFS is giving us 15-20 mph west winds, while the Euro shows us more in the middle between west winds and east winds, but as the day goes on we should catch a westerly breeze.

Friday and Saturday winds shift to the northeast, but only around 10-15 mph.

We will be dry today and tomorrow and most of Thursday. I hate to get everyone’s hopes up again, but there will be chances of rain from Thursday night through Sunday morning, with the best chance coming Friday night into Saturday morning. Like previous cold fronts, the chance of rain is much better to our west, toward Puerto Cortes. But we could get fortunate like Guanaja did a few days ago with a 3 inch downpour.

Today and tomorrow will be quite hot. Yesterday’s high at the airport was 86 (30C), but I expect to see 90 degree (32C) readings today and tomorrow. Windy conditions will help with the heat. When the cold front gets here there will be more clouds and that should knock our temperature back a couple of degrees, but don’t expect a big cooldown from this weak cold front. By the weekend we will be having highs of 84 (29C) and lows around 77 (25C).

Low tide is 3:20 p.m. Have a great Tuesday!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Patric Lengacher at Paya Bay. With winds coming from the south, inside the reef at Paya Bay will still be pretty calm, depite the strong winds. Today is eclipse day. Hopefully skies clear out for you wherever you are.

On satellite we see a pretty decent storm that popped up overnight over southern Belize and the coast of Guatemala. A few high clouds are actually close to Utila from this storm, but unfortunately none of the rain will come this way. I think we would trade in a 40 percent eclipse for a nice rain. Things look decent right now for Mitch Cummins in Mazatlan, but unfortunately clouds are supposed to increase there through the day. I think we should be partly cloudy by noon for the eclipse.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We start the day with 20 mph winds and 3 foot seas on the southside. Those winds and seas will continue today, tomorrow and Wednesday. We will have low pressure nearby as we get into Thursday, Friday and Saturday, meaning that winds will be variable on the islands depending on your location.

The cold front that is bringing clouds to much of the total eclipse zone, will finally make it here on Friday, giving us about a 40 percent chance of rain Friday and Saturday.

Speaking of Mitch Cummins, don’t forget to get in touch with him when he returns to get your order in for Roatan Pets food. Sourced from local ingredients and 10 percent of proceeds goes to Roatan Operation Animal Rescue.

5. Low tide is 2:30 p.m. Have a great week and don’t look at the sun!

Good morning Bay Islands! I love the after-Semana Santa feel to our photo of the day from Cat Brown at Eddie’s on the Beach in West End. I woke up this morning to some sprinkles and we have hope – sweet hope – to get some rain over the next 24 hours.

Let’s start with our satellite image, that shows strong showers between Miami and Nassau, then extending southwest to western Cuba. The clouds start thinning out on the west side of the front, but we have enough cloud cover to give us a mostly cloudy day with a few peeks of sunshine today and about a 50 percent chance of rain today and 40 percent tonight into early tomorrow morning. After that we clear out and rain chances go down to 10 percent for Saturday morning and Sunday morning with mostly sunny skies this weekend.

You can see the cold front clearly on the wind boundary map. Being at the end of the cold front, the winds shift around to the west over our islands. We have west/northwest winds 15 mph today and seas 2-3 feet on the north and west sides today. Those will shift to the north this evening. Tomorrow winds will be from the north, but only at 3-7 mph and seas 1-2 feet. Saturday they turn back to the east at 10 mph, Sunday to 15 mph and Monday 20-25 mph.

You can see the waves even making it to the beach at West Bay this morning.

The GFS is trying to give us hope for perhaps three quarters of an inch in some places over the next 24 hours. We’ll see if that happens. We’ve been disappointed before.

Now, let’s talk temperature. We got up to 93 degrees (33.8C) at the airport yesterday, which is one of the higher reading I ever remember seeing. When I received the record book for Roatan, there was a note that the all-time high was 97 (36.1C). Fortunately with the cloud cover today, we should be a bit cooler, probably around 87 (30.6C). Tomorrow with the north breeze we should start the day in the 70s and get up to around 84. Cooler conditions last through Saturday morning, but by early to mid week next week we’ll be back in the heat and around 90 for highs.

I saw on Roatan Hable Claro that James Thomas and his Carniceria Rosita matched donations made by customers 2 to 1 and they were able to raise over $3000 to assist with the rebuilding after the fire in French Harbor. That’s awesome. And every time I spend $20 or $30 at Rosita’s I’m always amazed at the large package of meat I carry out of there. Much more than I would get at that other place I wont mention 

Low tides are 11:30 a.m. and midnight. Have a great Thursday!

Good morning Bay Islands! Our photo of the day comes from Melanie Wood and shows a crinum lily looking out to sea and a sunny day. After our brief cool-down, we got back to 90 degrees (32.2C) at the airport. We have a cool front coming tomorrow that will lower our temperature a few degrees. We’ll be back around 90 today, but tomorrow with clouds maybe 86 (30C) and with a north breeze Friday maybe 83 (28.3C). Every little bit helps.

Let’s start with our wind and wave forecast, brought to you by the Galaxy Wave. You can see we start this morning with east winds 15-20 mph on the east side and Guanaja, giving us 5 foot south side waves, but as the morning goes on our winds die down (they’re already light in Utila). They will turn to the northeast by evening at 5-10 mph and seas at 2 feet.
Tomorrow west winds pick up 15-20 mph and seas 2-3 feet north and west sides, so a few more waves than usual on West Bay beach.
Friday we will have a north breeze, but it won’t be strong, only around 5-10 mph and seas 1-2 feet north side.
This weekend winds turn back to the east at 15 mph and then we get back to the strong trade winds Monday and the first part of next week.

I was glad to hear that Kristi Voves donated her Roatan Pets food prize to a deserving pet owner, but she is going to purchase her own supply from Mitch Cummins. That’s definitely spreading the puppy love. It good for the environment and good for your pet. Don’t forget to send your photo along with photographer name and location and ID of any plants or animals in the photo to bookmybio@gmail.com for a chance at $50 for a meal at Blue Bahia Beach Grill.

Low tides are 11 p.m. and 11 a.m. Have a great Wednesday!

We will go with Megan Mitchell’s reading of .03 of an inch of rain for the month in Sandy Bay, since it was likely accurate and about average for the island. This was the driest March since records started being kept in 1994 and well below the average of 3.42 inches. This was after an unusually dry February, so my cistern is complaining because I rely on rainfall since the powers that be in Jonesville Point refuse to let me share the well (that’s a story for another day).
April is our driest month of the year on average, with only an inch and a half. The long-range forecast is trying to give us some hope of rain, especially toward the middle of the month, but we’ve been deceived before. So it looks like those water trucks will be staying busy.

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Dean Olds at Villas del Playa at West End. As I was choosing photo of the day, Sailing by Christopher Cross came up on my music mix, so I think it biased me. We’ve had strong winds to sail with. I got up to 35 mph last night. We have one windy night left before we go into a calmer period.

On the satellite can see the front to our north that will get close Thursday and Friday. In the circled area we can see our clear skies. This morning at 6:30 a.m. we have already started our mid-morning calm-down to winds 10-15 mph from the southeast with seas calming to 3 feet on the south side, which we will have much of today before getting much windier (25-30 mph) tonight.

Midday tomorrow we will start having calmer winds and a turn to the northeast at 5-10 mph.

Thursday winds turn to the west at 15 mph. Thursday we will be partly cloudy and have a 20 percent chance of an isolated shower. That chance will increase to 30 percent for Friday morning.

If you were fortunate enough to be on the islands Oct. 14 to see the total eclipse you got a once or twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity. On Monday, we will only be getting a partial eclipse with 40 percent of the sun covered up by the moon. That may sound like a lot, but the sun is very bright, so it won’t make it much darker here. If you want a complete eclipse experience, you need to go to Mazatlan, Mexico or Austin, Texas (though both those places may be getting cloudy skies that day, and even we here in Roatan should have morning clouds that day). I would suggest you look, instead at the light through the leaves of trees. When you look on the ground, the light will be reflected on the ground with a mirror image of the sun in a crescent shape, reflecting the portion that is being eclipsed by the moon.

I was so pleased that a pet-lover was the winner of the March contest and $50 in Roatan Pets, but not nearly so pleased as her poochies will be. Hopefully a food-lover winds the April prize of $50 worth of food from Blue Bahia Beach Grill.

Lowest tide is 10:30 p.m. Have a great Tuesday!

Good morning Bay Islands and welcome to April. Our photo of the day comes from Lisa Johnson and was taken at Brady’s Cay, near French Key. We will continue to have strong easterly trade winds a couple more days before we get calmer on Wednesday.

Our skies are mostly clear and we were quite windy last night, with winds up to 30 mph. We will continue to have east winds 20-25 mph during the day and 25-30 mph at night with seas 3-4 feet on the southside today and tomorrow. Wednesday winds will be much calmer, with north winds 5-10 mph and Thursday we will have northwest winds 10-15 mph. A cold front Thursday and Friday gets close, but not close enough to give us big rain chances.

If you are coming to Roatan, either with a cruise or by air, check out Jolly Roger Roatan for the perfect daytime excursion.

Low tide is 9:30 p.m. Have a great week!