Pre planning the winter season

  Scottsdale, Arizona, United States
Sunday, October 21, 2007

We been home for 5 weeks and it feels great....terrific desert weather....friends...golf. Still we are beginning to make our plans. We will still be flying back to Norfolk to "wake up" First Forty on 12/1. Then its down the coast to stop at Hilton Head to see some fiends. But that is familar ground. The trip to the Bahamas in the spring will take more planning, more charts, more cruising guides and more boating skill than we have mustered to date as we begin to tackle reading tropical water and dodging coral heads. The planning is going on now.

Here is the general plan for spring Bahamas... as posted on a boating blog......

"My wife and I will be doing my first Bahama cruise this coming winter/spring and am now trying to do a high level plan for how we might allocate our time.

We will be in a 40 foot/25 ton/7kt trawler. We have about 5000 nm experience in this boat from FL to Maine, but only a little in tropical water from BVI charters many years ago.

I will be ready to leave Lake Worth for weather windows after 3/20/08 and wont need to return until mid May or possibly even into June.

In general, I would like to go for the better weather and could foresee a general plan as follows:

Ft Lauderdale/Bimini/Banks/ChubbKey/Nassau/Exumas

Exumas/Eleuthera

Eleuthers/Abacos

Abacos/PalmBeachInlet

Here are my questions for those of you experienced Bahama cruisers:

- If I am leaving in late March, am I better off going directly to the Abacos as the weather should be good by then. I am thinking of going south primarily in search of warmer wx and water.

- If I go with the southerly route, do I need to look for a weather window all the way to Nassau? Chubb? or some northerly Exuma destination?

- Is this plan too agressive for a first cruise to the Bahamas?

Any other coaching on a general plan for such a cruise would be welcome.

Thanks to all.

Gary
FirstForty"

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For the last few years we've been going the Miami, Nassau, Exumas route.

Usually a window takes you right to Nassau. Cross the stream, the wind will be clocking. The front usually catches you as you enter the tongue of the ocean. If it comes around too fast we hide behind Frazers Hog Cay and head for Nassau a day or two later. We're a sailboat and usually do about six knots. I would recommend this route. You can stay a day or two in Nassau and clear in there. This is not too ambitious an undertaking and many newbies take this route. Miami to Nassau is about thirty hours, maybe less at your speed.

The Abacos can still be cool and breezy in March. Occasionally we visit Abaco on the way home. Last year it was still cool and breezy in May!!

As for windows if we can get a ten hour one we will cross. You just have to get across the stream. Often the weather is very different (nicer) once you get on the Great Bahama Bank. In the Tongue of the Ocean you may get a beam sea and being in a trawler you might roll a bit.

Good luck on your trip. __________________
Rick I
Toronto

plan sounds pretty good. You are right about the weather and temps farther south. We go from south florida to Bimini and clear there. Then head for Nassau/ Fraizers, (according to weather),. Then start making the way south, very leisurely . I agree with Rick, the Abacos is much nicer stop on the way back! __________________
Denny and Diane
Formerly "NCDD"
S/V JusDreaming
Lagoon 37