Planning...

Top Shelf Resting at Shelter Cove

It's been a week in Hilton Head.  Great place to spend the fall.  New England always feels like you are preparing for winter.  Down here, the humidity is gone and the best part of the season is just starting.

Let's talk about planning a trip like this.

The Boat:    It starts with the boat.  You must have a spare for everything within reason.  I subscribe to Wheel House Technologies for maintenance schedules.  They surveyed Top Shelf and they listed models & serial numbers of every mechanical part.  From the Windlass to the rudders, and every pump in between, I have parts, service manuals, and more important, a maintenance schedule for all of them.

We added a few things on the boat.  From everything I have read, a deep freezer and a water maker will make life in the Caribbean sooooo much easier.  Both were added this spring by Burr Yacht Sales at their brand new facility in Stuart Fl.

Weather:  The weather in the Caribbean is completely different than the weather in the temperate zone (+30 N).  In the winter, the Caribbean weather is dominated by the trade winds.  The trades during the day can blow NE to SE up to 25 kts.  This is Beaufort Scale force 6 winds that create 9-13 ft seas.  It so happens that we are trying to go east in an easterly wind....big waves on the bow, not fun!

The trick is to stay hunkered down during normal trade wind days and only move east just before a winter cold front arrives from the US east coast.  You move before sunrise as soon as the wind goes south of east to arrive early morning at the new destination.  For a short period of time, the frontal winds oppose the trades and the wind dies down.  You need to be back on anchor when the front arrives.  After frontal passage the wind will continue to veer and when it goes SW to NW be ready for a 30 kt blow as it veers NW to NE.  This can last a day or more before the trades settle back in.  Rest-move-hunker down-repeat.  The two best books to learn about the Caribbean weather are The Thornless Path to Windward by Bruce Van Sant and Chris Parker's Coastal & Offshore Weather.  I subscribe to daily weather updates from Chris.

Cruising Guides:  There are dozens of these to pick from, I read most of them and they all have different strengths (and weakness).  My favorite East of Puerto Rico are three guides written by Nancy & Simon Scott.  For the Bahamas I found Stephen Pavlidis to be the best except that he broke the information down into way too many guide books with the front half of each one having the same information.

Last note on planning.  We are going to follow the advice from the "Thornless Path to Windward".  If you are even thinking about doing this, read Bruce Van Sant's book, then read it again.  As we follow the Thornless Path, I will be reporting here on how accurate his information is.

October 10th I'm heading to Florida to take my first freediving class with the North American Spearfishing Champion Ryan Myers.