Chapter 23 - No we're not !

In Gippsland at the moment it is raining with cloud TEMPO down to minima and we are not going today.

The weather in Gippsland is not the problem.

Apparently, the FAA checks have not been done and there is another HF radio to go into one of the aircraft. Don't know what it is all about, but the radio is yet to leave Australia, so I guess the checks come after it is installed. I assume that will happen some time next week.

I found another web site which gives computer modeling for the weather for the Eastern Pacific for the coming 16 days and the weather doesn't look all that good to me. Don't know how accurate the modeling is and I am not a weather expert, however, my reading of it is that the most favourable winds for departure will be between now and Tuesday. Even if the winds were ok until Tuesday or even Wednesday, I suspect that the engineering will not have been completed by that time, so it will be no go. If the modeling is close to accurate, the weather will deteriorate after Tuesday. If we haven't gone by then, I don't see us leaving USA until some time after 28th February and probably into March.

If anyone is interested, goto :

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/npac/gfs/00/model_l.shtml