LaGmra Day 18 - Squalls, Goodbye's & Ballast 11 Dec, 06 - 19.48

As usual, checking the weather lottery each morning. It shows no sign of letting up as yet. Still very squally and some rain.The valley leading from the volcano in the center of the island leading down to the San Sebastian seems to compress and funnel the wind out with an exaggerated force, and the marina of course is on the receiving end of it. We estimate the squalls hit around 60 knots at some point in the night, judging by the crashing of masts and wind generators on the other boats in the marina.
(A squall can be described as a sudden wind speed increase of at least 18 miles / hour ) before it returns to its mean value. The usually occurs in a region of strong mid-level height falls, or mid-level tropospheric cooling, which force strong localized upward motions at the leading edge of the region of cooling, which then enhances local downward motions just in its wake. Hope that is crystal clear :)
In the event of ferries being cancelled to the next island, a few good bye's were said today followed by a group photo at the marina.
The ballast, 200kgs arrived later in the evening, and was loaded onto the boat in the middle hatch at the boats center of gravity.
TODAYS PHOTOS -
1. Weather report

2. Group photo

3. Loading 200 kgs of ballast