Our trip through the greater and Lesser Antilles, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico

The Boat: TBD

Timeline: Nov. 2024-Dec 2025

 I am beyond excited to be in the preliminary planning stages of the sailing expedition we will take through the Caribbean in the the coming years on our own sailing vessel.  As it stands now our jump off point will be somewhere on the central west coast of Florida, but the area of Jacksonville wont be ruled out, as there is a large inventory of strong hulled boats to choose from that would make for safe passage.  

Starting our way south right before Christmas or after Hurricane season has ended, we will make stop offs around Fort Meyers, Sanibel Isle, and onto Key West for Christmas celebrations on Duvall street (the home of the sunset, and Hemmingway's Cats).  Rounding the horn of Florida and into Miami for some more provisioning and fuel before the great jump over the warm gulf stream and into Bahamian waters.  The tentative plan would be to spend the entire winter island hopping through the 700 or so islands of the Bahamas, swim with pigs etc.  The following route is tentatively set, a rough sail plan dictated by weather windows, sea conditions, common sense, and the overall safety of my three children throughout this passage.  

Sailing south we will visit the West Indies along with Turks and Caicos in the Antilles Mayores for some reprovisioning and check out the sites before heading on down to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic for some excellent diving and snorkeling, before headed over to the US commonwealth of Puerto Rico for some Monfongu and garlic flavored ice cream, followed by stop off at Culebra for a leisurely week at anchor.

Onward east and south venturing into the windward islands of the lesser Antilles, there will be the British and US Virgin Islands, Anguilla, St Kitts and Nevis along with the outer islands of Barbuda, St Johns, and the volcanos on Montserrat.  Further to the southeast will be Guadeloupe, a island territory owned by France.  Id like to spend a considerable amount of time on this island exploring its lush tropical landscapes and traveling around with our own personal translator, my daughter. 

Over the next several months we will take our floating home over numerous over night passages skipping through the island nations of Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia, The Grenadines, Barbados, and Grenada.  Granada be our planned haul out for bottom cleaning, painting and any other projects that need to be addressed before splashing again and headed further on to Trinidad and Tobago off the coast of Venezuela.  At this point depending on the season and the shape of the crew after months at sea, we can make the decision to continue to sail south into South America and the State of Amapa, Brazil.  Its never been a plan of mine to sail the Amazon river, but being so close at this point it would seem unthinkable not to.  There would be an outside chance that this could happen coming from the north as the equatorial currents would most certainly be not working in our favor.  This passage is reserved more for sailors coming up the coast from the south.

Sticking with the original sail plan would lead us back to the west from Trinidad and Tobago, for a long offshore passage to the ABC islands. It's worth noting here that sailors must make passage quite a distance off shore from Venezuela.  In my research I have found two reasons for such a distant course offshore from the mainland.  One would be pirates, pirates cannot extend their reach too far from the coast with their little boats to be of any harm.  The second reason is the winds.  The winds in  this part of the Caribbean off this particular coastline are notoriously strong and with such fetch comes a heavy sea state, best to stay way outside these gradients.  I'd favor a longer serene passage with sunsets and sunrises over a damaged rig and a shaken crew. 

This longer multi-day passage will lend its efforts to beautiful anchorages in the ABC's  (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao) where will be hoping to dodge cruise ships and commercialism to seek out some of the best snorkeling/diving in the region.  Bonaire being the most popular of three, it would be wise to focus our efforts collecting shells and making memories here.

A side bar to our trip and whether or not the state of political unrest is ongoing in Columbia.  I'd like to tie up in Maracaibo, Colombia.  Lake Maracaibo, just inland is home to the the most active area for lightening strikes on the entire planet, would be cool to check that off the list.  As I write this early in 2021, the country is currently closed to all outside non-Columbians.  If this stopover is not an option, the expedition will continue as originally planned.  Another long multi-day sail across the Caribbean Sea and into Panama.  Panama City will be worth some exploring and will be a good source for marine supplies if needed, as well as some provisioning the boat for the real reason for setting course for Panama, the San Blas islands https://sanblas-islands.com/ .  The San Blas Islands, 368 of the most beautiful islands this side of French Polynesia, and the place Id like to spend at least one month sailing, exploring and adventuring throughout the entire archipelago of islands.  This will be the cumulation of our entire trip, reflecting on all the experiences we had an and memories we have created.  From the SBI's we head back to Panama and provision the boat once more for the one week passage back east across the Gulf of Mexico to once again become landlubbers, if only temporary.