Looking forward to clear blue.

It’s Wednesday morning and 25 degrees here in CT.  Burrr….

With just a month to go until Brenda and I rejoin Pandora in FL, I am thinking about what we’ll do and where we’ll go when we head to warmer climes.    All of this has me recalling our past visits to the Bahamas.  Yesterday I saw a very nice video of the Bahamas Sloop Tari Anne.  It was three years ago, the year that Brenda and I made our first run south, that I was fortunate enough to crew on a “Class B” sloop at the Little Farmer’s Cay Regatta.  It was a trip, let me tell you.  I wrote about this wild, and totally fun, experience here.   What a hoot…

Seeing this video last night brought back so many memories and has made me long for clear blue waters and warm breezes.  The video was filmed in Georgetown Exuma, a beautiful harbor in the southern Bahamas where as many as 500 boats congregate every winter when cruisers converge from all over the world to enjoy the protected waters of the largest harbor in the Bahamas.  I assume that it was summer when Tari Anne was filmed as the harbor is all but empty.   Note that you can watch the video in HD by clicking on the icon in the lower right and choosing, you guessed it, HD.
In my last post I wrote, with barely contained excitement, about the possibility of visiting Cuba this winter.   I learned after speaking with someone from the State Department, that Brenda and I could visit under the “journalism” category of travel.  As a next step I called my friend Frank, author of numerous Cruising Guides to the Caribbean. Frank is a prolific writer and maintains a site of FREE cruising guides, brilliantly named www.freecruisingguides.com.  He has written, quite a few guides on all aspects of getting to and cruising the islands of the Caribbean.  Anyway, I asked him about the best way to combine a trip to the Bahamas and Cuba in the same season.  His answer was, predictably, “well it depends”.

My first thought was that we would make a run over to the Bahamas, work our way south to Georgetown, on to the Ragged Islands and then jump over to the north coast of Cuba.  Sounds simple enough.  NOT!  Frank told me that the north coast is very rugged with almost no marinas to stop at.  Actually, between the eastern tip of Cuba and Havana, on the western end, there is only one marina and it’s in the middle of nowhere.   Setting aside the rugged coastline problem, the Cuban Government doesn’t allow anchoring out or landing on the north shore which really limits your options. Besides, the waters are pretty rough and, to make matters worse, it’s a lee shore.  Brenda doesn’t like lee shores and Frank reminded me of this too.

As an alternative, Frank suggested that I get crew, assuming that Brenda wouldn’t do the run from the Bahamas (a long shot at best), to join me in Georgetown and run south through the Windward Passage, the body of water between the eastern tip of Cuba and Haiti, a run of 250 miles.   It’s not as far as I thought, which would probably only mean one night at sea.  We’d have a fair current of 1-2 knots and it’s a beam to broad reach the whole way. After transiting the passage we’d hang an right and make the 250 mile run to Jamaica where I could loose crew, rejoin Brenda and make the 80 mile over to the south coast of Cuba with Brenda.

Another option would be to just make Cuba our first stop.  Brenda flies and meets us there and have crew leave by flying from Cuba to the Dominican Republic (DR), and then back to the US.  However, this option does mean that Brenda would have to fly from Georgetown to Nassau, from there to Florida, on to the DR and then to Cuba to rejoin us, a trip that I expect would take about the same amount of time as her sailing there with us.

Editors note:   As you can imagine, Brenda hasn’t immediately jumped at the “let’s cruise 250 miles to Cuba from the Bahamas” option.  Her reaction was more akin to “I am going to have to think hard about that so don’t push it Bob…”, delivered with a stern steely eye glare.   I was encouraged by that.  Very encouraged.  You know me, “ever hopeful”.

Once in Cuba, we would cruise the south coast, continue our way west, round the western tip of Cuba and go on to Havana where we could jump the 90 miles to the Keys, on to Miami and home.  Isn’t that simple?  Yes, excepting the thorny part of getting Brenda to agree.  Hmm…

Another option is to run down the FL coast, make the 90 mile jump directly to Havana and not cruise the south coast this season.    However, Frank said that the south coast is not to be missed.    So many choices.

So, what’s a cruiser to do?  Frank can provide answers!  Along with the free guides that Frank publishes, he has also written a book “A thinking Man’s Guide to Voyaging South:  The Many Facets of Caribbean Cruising“, which is available as for Kindle @ $9.99 from Amazon. This book describes, in great detail, the two options that Frank laid out for me, along with lots more information.  I downloaded it today and will let you know what I learn.

Yes, there’s lots to think about but there’s one thing for sure.  We are heading south and the water is going to clear, blue, warm and I can’t wait.  Did I mention that it’s 25 degrees outside?  Yuck.  No make that double YUCK.