Over the last few days we've started to think ahead in the trip. Feeling we needed to set a timeline for our return journey, we sat down to map out how far south we want to go, which islands we wish to visit most, how long to stay in each place and what route we want to take to get back home. Originally we'd thought to get all the way down to Grenada and several other of the windward islands, but after creating a loose timeline we realized that this wouldn't give us much flexibility and could cause us to rush into poor weather at some point. So we've resolved to explore many of the leeward islands before heading up to the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.
I thought it might be good to post our rough plan so everyone back home has a better idea of what we are thinking. At the moment we don't want to have to do a long ocean passage again, but that may change. Also the dates are a guess and we may end up spending more than a week on some of the leeward islands. There is a gap of one day or more between many of the dates to account for a day of travel between islands.
February 8-15: Dominica
February 16-23: Guadeloupe
February 24- March 1: Antigua/Barbuda
March 2-9: St. Martin or maybe Anguilla
March 10-17: Puerto Rico (To break up a long passage. Likely we won't explore much.)
March 17-24: Turks and Caicos
March 26- April 2: George Town, Bahamas
April 3-10: Nassau, Bahamas
April 11-18: Freeport, Bahamas
April...? Passage to Charleston, South Carolina
Leaving several weeks in the Bahamas gives us the leeway to take our time elsewhere and leave on a passage to the US at any opportune time. Likely a lot of this will change as we go, but I hope this gives a good outline of what we have in mind for the second half of the trip. Once along the coast of the United States we will work our way to New York City, and then traverse the Erie Canal back to Lake Ontario. Hopefully it will be open by then! If not, we will have to work something out, because doing the St. Lawrence the other way would be a much longer trip than we want to do.
Nicole.
Hi to all the crew, we are glad to see that you are getting a little closer to us! I like your itinerary, it's hard to make choices among the Islands... We are still in Martinique and planning to go into the Grenadines within the next two-three weeks with a possible stop at St-Lucia. After we will come back to the Guadeloupe or Dominica and will be heading toward Barbuda and Antigua. We should be spending the month of may in Bahamas and Exumas before heading back north in June.
ReplyDeleteHope to see you in between,
Julie and Patrice, S/V Raftan