How often does the wind clock or back…increase or decrease when you weren’t expecting it?
How confidently can you pin-down the time of a frontal passage to within an hour or two?
How sure are you in the morning that you’ll sleep like a baby in the anchorage you plan for tonight?
How confident are you that you should travel 30 miles to the next anchorage today in more-favorable winds instead of waiting until tomorrow? If you’re surprised more than once or twice a month, the knowledge I share in this book can help.

PART TWO: Forecast Products… how to get them and how to use them (organized by means of reception)

I trust you will find this a very different book about weather than anything else currently published, and I hope you will find it useful enough to earn a place at your nav station right beside your charts and cruising guides, and that you will refer to it as frequently as you do them.

When I began writing this book, I intended to write a handy reference book which anyone could pick-up, turn to a given page, and read a thorough discussion of a weather topic of interest. As the book progressed, however, it became clear the various topics were just too inter-related and complex for a simple reference-type book to be of much use to most readers.

My advice is to slowly read this book from beginning to end; most topics are covered in just a page or two, and important topics are covered several times in increasing depth and detail as additional concepts become familiar.

Hopefully this book will answer most of the questions you have about weather in the Bahamas and South East US Coast, and how to get and interpret the best and most-relevant weather products, given the electronic equipment you have onboard. My goal is to take a fresh, simple, easy-to-understand, and at times very different approach...yet be thorough, detailed and accurate.

It’s also not a book just about weather…I explore many topics of keen interest to mariners (like how to pick a good anchorage for the weather, how to pick a good cut to pass through and when to cross the Gulf Stream) which weather-only books fail to address and which non-weather authorities have generally failed to cover in the manner I do. The scope of this book is, however, limited by design. This is a basic book about marine weather applicable to the Bahamas and Southeast US Coast. It’s also covers some advanced topics and contains unique, up-to-date reference guides to the various weather analysis and forecast products (and exactly how to access them) available from numerous sources applicable to this geographical area. While most of what I write is scientifically accurate, I have taken occasional liberties in an effort to simplify discussions and enhance understanding of complex topics. For additional information, I recommend browsing various educational Web sites for topics of interest to you. From reading this book, you will have a good understanding of the basics, so I’d jump right into educational Web sites from NOAA and various Universities. You might start at: http://www.education.noaa.gov/cweather.html and explore from there.

Finally, this is a First Edition of this book and I’m a novice author. By purchasing this work, you will have a valuable tool at your disposal and you will make work on an expanded, updated and even better Second Edition possible. As such, anyone possessing a First Edition will receive a special discount on periodic Updates as well as on the Second Edition, when it becomes available. I deeply appreciate any clarifications, corrections or constructive criticisms you