When we were in the Eastern Caribbean we signed up with David Jones and got to know David very well spending time with him in Tortola.

When we sailed south from California and entered the Caribbean from the Pacific we started listening to Chris. Never signed on but now that we're heading north to Providenia, Roatan and beyond we subscribed to his service.

Funny story,,,,, back in 2003 the Admiral was talking to David Jones on the SSB while we were on passage from,,, hell,, I forget now,,, anyway, we were about 1/5th of the way into a 10 hour passage with Rey telling him of our position and plans. His answer to what she said was "shouldn't you be hunkering down now?". The Admiral said she felt that we would make it to our destination before the front hit. He disagreed.

He was right. About 4 hours later I looked behind and saw a wall of black from horizon to horizon. OH SHIT! We managed to get 2 reefs in the main and reef the headsail just as the 60 knots of horizontal rain hit us. Couldn't see past the bow of the boat for more than an hour. When it hit, there was a big Catana catamaran about 2 miles ahead of us off to our starboard. When it cleared the Catana was behind us to our port. Never saw to which side we passed it.

The more information the better.