Where Do We Go From Here?

So where to next? That’s a question we find ourselves asking…well…ourselves, almost every day. Knowing there’s never a clearly right answer, only varying degrees of rightness, is actually more stressful than it might sound because we find ourselves second guessing a lot. “Well this is really nice, but maybe it would have been even better if we went over here or did this other thing instead!”

Nevertheless, right now we’re staying content to take it pretty much one or two days at a time without thinking too far in advance; however, at some point soon that’s going to need to change and we’re going to have to fix an ultimate destination for season’s end in mind.

You see there’s this phenomenon in the northern hemisphere known as the hurricane. Really big, nasty, life-threatening storms that usually form off the coast of Africa and hurtle westward to either spin off harmlessly to dissipate in the North Atlantic or make landfall in the Caribbean or North American causing lots and lots of devastation. You may have heard of them.  The season for northern hemisphere hurricanes is officially June 1st through November 30th, but for our purposes the dates we have marked on the calendar are July 15th and November 1st.  Why?  Because that’s when our current boat insurance mandates that we’re out of the hurricane zone (i.e. north of 30.5 degrees latitude or south of 10 degrees latitude).  Hurricanes are sufficiently rare in June, July, and November that insurance is willing to take the risk, so that’s good enough for us…

But we need to decide where we are going for the summer. And we need to decide soon. 

Option 1: Go North

Going back north to get out of hurricane zone was our original plan.  If you’ve been reading the blog for awhile you might remember our back-of-the-envelope plan to head north to Bermuda as a stop on our way across the Atlantic ocean during the late spring / early summer of 2020; however, we’ve now decided we’d like to take a couple months away from boat during the summer to recharge which is much easier to do if the boat is back on the east coast of the US (easier and less expensive flights home, less expensive storage, excellent facilities and access to parts and professionals for any repairs or upgrades we might choose to do).  On top of that, we don’t need to make any changes to our existing insurance coverage assuming we head back north which saves a bunch of money. Icing on the cake is that this option gives us the opportunity to really cruise either the Chesapeake region or further north in the US which we never really got around to last summer.

So what’s the downside? Well it’s a whole lot of ocean miles we need to cover to make the return trip, followed by another whole lot of ocean miles to get the boat back south for the following season.  Any way you look it, we’re facing at least two major ocean passages of 7-12 days if we take this path. Plus after being in the tropics for three months now, we realize how nice it is sailing in the trade winds versus sailing in the North Atlantic in November as we’d have to do on the way back south.  Which brings me to the next option.

Option 2: Go South

Why, you ask, don’t you just leave the boat in a protected spot the Caribbean, fly home to take a couple months off, then fly back and continue right where you left off? Solid question. This is definitely the most convenient path which is probably why a lot of cruisers do it. No need to spend a week or more offshore in either direction. No need to deal with crew logistics and passage planning. No need for the physical toll an offshore passage can take. Hurricanes rarely hit as far south as Grenada, and even more rarely Trinidad, so both islands are very popular places for cruising boats to spend August through October. We’ve been told there are tons of families (boat kids!) in Grenada and it might be a cool place for the kids to make some friendships for a few months. Something like a summer camp for families living on their boats.

So why not? Well it’s much more expensive in terms of both insurance and storage. Insurance companies still consider both Grenada and Trinidad in the hurricane zone so they charge a big premium for leaving the boat in that region. Plus we’ve got to deal with the process of changing our insurance coverage and finding a storage location we’re comfortable with if we’re going to take a little hiatus. It’s also a lot more expensive for us to fly the family back and forth to Grenada versus, say, renting a car and driving back to Canada from Herrington Harbour in Maryland where we had the boat last summer. It’s also harder to get parts and work done in the islands, especially when you’re not around to watch over it (as we know it’s hard enough as it is in the US!). Finally, we’ve got a bit of trepidation about leaving our floating home in the islands while we’re a couple thousand miles away and can’t get back easily in the event of any issues. And let’s be honest, if there are any issues we probably won’t find out until we return and have to sort them out before getting going again.

Sigh, so now a couple ocean passages aren’t looking thaaaat bad…

Option 3: Go West

Since it seems we’re working our way around the compass, this discussion wouldn’t be complete without covering a third option that wasn’t originally on the radar.  That is, going west, well south-west to be accurate, to get the boat to a point south of 10 degrees latitude, say Panama, before July 15th. Going in this direction wouldn’t require any insurance changes since we’d be out of the hurricane zone and the cruising areas on the east side of Panama are reported to be amazing (San Blas islands anyone?).

The same flight and storage risk downsides as option 2 apply, but the real downside here is the level of commitment this option implies. You see, going west with the trade winds is generally great sailing.  The wind and waves are usually with you making passages relatively comfortable and fast. Basically a sailor’s dream. However, that means exactly the opposite as soon as you turn around and try to go in the opposite direction. Put it all together and realistically for us this option would be a commitment to continue going west because we really don’t like the idea of beating back upwind against the trades to get back to the Caribbean.

So what’s the big deal about continuing to go west? Well it probably means transiting the Panama canal during late winter or early spring next year and continue our journeys into the Pacific Ocean thereafter.  A lot more remote, a lot longer ocean passage(s) involved, and no bringing the boat back to North America unless we continue all the way around (the world that is). We’re just not ready to pull the trigger on it quite yet.

Option 4: Go East

And now we come full circle to the original, original, plan that we started off with last spring. That is, don’t take any time off the boat and instead head north to Bermuda in the spring, followed immediately by an Atlantic crossing to the Azores, followed by a summer in the Azores, followed by another ocean passage to the coast of mainland Portugal for the fall, then possibly leaving the boat there for the winter.

The up-side? Lots of new travel experiences. Bermuda in the spring (beautiful). An Atlantic ocean crossing (how many kids can say they’ve done that before high-school??). The Azores in the summer (wow). All followed by a chance to get off the boat in the Mediterranean and explore the EU by land before continuing on the boat. Talk about packing a whole lot of life experiences and memories into our first 18 months of living on the boat!

But man that’s a looooooong, long way to go. We’d have crew to find (any volunteers?). Boat prep to do (provisioning, little fixes, etc). And a real gut-check to pass given we’re talking about an even bigger leap from what’s comfortable than we’ve ever done before. And we’d need to decide fairly soon since going this route probably means leaving for Bermuda from the Caribbean in May. I’m already feeling the pressure and it doesn’t fit well with our current goal of taking it slow and enjoying every place we visit as much as we can!

Oh and one More Consideration…

Megan’s extended family is all going to Disney this coming winter…we are committed to joining the fun. So this means that whatever direction we choose will result in us leaving the boat for at least two weeks to fly to Florida in December. If we are in the Bahamas or top end of the Caribbean that’s not so bad, but if we are in the Pacific or Europe it’s a bigger deal.

So where does this leave us?

Frankly we’re having a hard time deciding what we’re ready to bite off next. We don’t want to push ourselves so hard that we burn out - hopefully this turns into a marathon, not a sprint. On the other hand, it’s hard not to feel pressure to do longer ocean passages when you talk to other cruisers who discuss it nonchalantly and do it on the semi-regular. Oh and don’t forget spending 10K on flights on top of a Disney trip is really not attractive. 

At the moment we are trying to ensure we find the right mix of meds for Aden so she doesn’t dread passages so much and going North, East or West seems slightly less daunting. We have some questions out to our insurance people to get specific numbers should we decide to leave the boat South. The default still feels like North at the moment which will mean we have to turn around at a set point in time to hop the way back up without having to rush or do long passages with just Megan and I (so tiring to only have 2 adults for night watches). 

Stay tuned for developments and feel free to share your opinions (it’s always fun to arm-chair skipper, isn’t it?). We need to make this decision within the next few weeks since even though it’s deep into winter…spring is just around the corner.