Offshore Passage from Florida to the BVI

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Here we go again

Planning a passage to the Caribbean is a dream come true. Even better the second time around. You see Lennie and I had this dream in 2015 and we bought a Catamaran and headed for the deep blue waters of El Caribe and now we are having a do over.  This time we decided to take the offshore route, as we wanted to get there quick compared to our last trip down the “thorny path” to the Caribbean.

Under Pressure

The offshore route is difficult to plan because you are trying to avoid sailing straight into the teeth of the trade winds and waves coming from the prevailing southeast. Most sailboats heading to the Caribbean use a captain to take it there and the joke is that if this was an easy trip the owners would do it themselves.  We, of course, were ready for action, we already had 12,000 miles under our belts, and we weren’t afraid of a “sporty” trip. We called Chris Parker (the weather router) and told him we were ready and to let us know a good departure date. He said sometime between November 10 and December 20th…..what? We wanted a departure date not a departure month!!! He explained his logic, and then I started studying windy.com daily and got the picture. He was waiting for a Low to come off of the southeast US, and if it was strong enough we could ride it offshore and then if the low continued south enough it would suppress the tradewinds for a few days so we could motor directly southeast without being pummeled.  We sat back and waited for Chris. In the meantime, I flew to Baja with some friends to ride dirt bikes in the desert and mountains which I do two or three times a year. As fate would have it, when I arrived in Baja Chris called. So after a quick ride I flew back to Florida and landed at midnight and we departed early the next morning. Not only did we get a low we got three!

Please enjoy this next video of part 1 of our trip and you will see for yourself just how lucky we got.