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Diving Bonaire: Interpret Wind Guru?
Bonaire Talk: Diving Bonaire: Interpret Wind Guru?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Lori Mulhisen (BonaireTalker - Post #97) on Wednesday, January 5, 2011 - 9:30 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Can anyone shed some light for me on how to interpret wind guru to determine if shore diving in any one particular area, i.e., north or south of downtown, would have less surf at entry/exit points given the stated conditions? I admit that I am no meteorologist, but the tables look all "Greek" to me. Thanks!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mel Briscoe (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #846) on Wednesday, January 5, 2011 - 10:27 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I doubt that the resolution and accuracy of Wind Guru allow one with any validity to distinguish between the subtleties of north or south of downtown. Maybe between east cost and west coast....

I'll be interested to hear what the locals think!

For reference, Wind Guru for Ol' Blue (Tolo) is at http://www.windguru.cz/int/index.php?sc=209064

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Vince DePietro-www.bonairebeachcondo.com (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3381) on Thursday, January 6, 2011 - 7:20 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Lori..Perhaps my use of the info is an oversimplification but as a general rule...

The velocity of the wind has a bearing on the surf conditions, so green days should be better for beach entries than orange or red. The velocity is provided in both knots or mph..
Wave height is another indicator, again in meters or feet. Generally, lower the better. Wave direction will also have an impact on a particular dive site.

Next major factor to consider is the wind direction (which affects the wave direction). Coming directly east (indicate by arrow pointing left) the entire west side should be calm. If coming from the NE I would suspect this would tend to build the surf on the southern dive sites, if coming from the southeast the converse would be true, would exacerbate some of the northern sites.

Again, nothing beats a visual observation of a specific dive site. The data provided by wind guru is merely a tool and not a definitive predictor of what the surf is going to be like at a specific dive site..

I'd be interested to hear how others use this data.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Lori Mulhisen (BonaireTalker - Post #98) on Thursday, January 6, 2011 - 9:02 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thank you so much, Vince, for giving me some idea of how to interpret the Wind Guru charts. We will be on the island for two weeks this month and armed with this knowledge, will see if we can make heads or tails out of the data.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bas Noij -- www.vipdiving.com -- (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #635) on Thursday, January 6, 2011 - 9:57 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

On Bonaire you mainly use windguru for East Coast diving. If there are 8ft waves at the East Coast they still tend to be zero ft at the West Coast.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bruce Schnaak (BonaireTalker - Post #15) on Friday, January 7, 2011 - 11:06 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I'll also use wind guru in my decision to dive the lighthouse or North @ Karpata and Beyond to Taylor Made more specifically. A particular strong wind out of the east will blow parallel on those southward facing shores and make for a challenging entry. My cut-off is anything over a 1 star rating.

 


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