The Plan

The basic idea is to spend a couple of months getting Avalon (and ourselves) ready to go, then start with a little “shakedown cruise” to Culebra and Vieques for a couple of weeks to push the boat around a little and see if any weaknesses pop up and check how well recent changes are working (i.e., CNG/Propane switch, new SSB radio, autopilot rebuild, etc.). Then start heading east - if we need to return to St. Croix, or stop in St. Thomas or Tortola to straighten something out, no problem it’s right along the way.

Weather will be a primary consideration for us for the whole trip. I’m confident in the boat and the crew, and if we run into some bad whether when we’re out there, okay, but we won’t be departing on any of our legs without at least a decent weather forecast. Another factor of course is the boat - if she’s broken or not right, we’re going to fix her. And lastly, there’s the human element. We need to be healthy to make this safe, and it’s supposed to be fun…if we get sick, tired, or just aren’t having fun, it’s time to stop and reconsider.

All the above leads to the jump across the Anegada Passage, between the BVI and Anguilla/St. Maarten/St. Barths, one of the more notorious parts of the Caribbean. Famous for big, confused seas, and foul and weird currents, there’s about 80 nautical miles of water to cross, and I very much dislike making night landfalls (I‘ve seen too many disasters), so we’ll be making the crossing at night.

We don’t plan on calling on Anguilla on this cruise, but instead will aim for St. Maarten, and will probably stay a week or so, then head to St. Barth’s, one of our favorite’s. I imagine we’ll be there at least a week before heading further south (again, depending on weather) towards St. Kitts and Nevis, then probably Antigua. After that comes Guadeloupe, then a tiny chain of islands I last visited 30 years ago, Les Saintes.

Next is Dominica, followed by Martinique, and then St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and then the Grenadines (sort of our southern goal) and finally Grenada. Hard to say how much or how little time we’ll spend in these islands…but we’d like to be back to St. Croix around the first of April. We may find that we really want to spend a little more time at one spot or another on our way back north. I’d really like to stop at Barbuda, as I’ve only seen it in the hazy distance while taking off from Antigua (and the beaches and diving are supposed to be fantastic).
So that’s it. “But why?” you may ask? Well, the world is changing pretty fast, we all seem to be getting older pretty fast, we’re both interested in exploring the real Caribbean as it is today, and it seems like a pretty cool adventure! No, not the Amazon or Patagonia, but it still feels pretty adventuresome, and of course there’s the old, “If not now, when?” question. The timing seems right, and Lord knows if we’ll be given another chance like this in the future. Would it be safer to sit home and watch CNN and Oprah? Sure. Are there risks? Yup, but there are risks driving our cars.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that many older folks spend a lot of time thinking about the things they wish they had done when they were younger and more able, and surprisingly little time thinking about the mistakes they made in their lives.

Here we go!