Heading north from Trinidad? What would you do?

[Iaangus]

Originally Posted by NickCreak

Dear all,
I have just bought a boat in Trinidad and want to get up to the BVI’s for some easy sailing. My wife is an inexperienced sailor and I want to make this as easy on her as possible. We will be in Trinidad from October and don’t have to be back in England until August (although appreciate the Hurricane season)
Since so many boats are based in Trinidad, I’m assuming this is a common route.

I have been told that I need to head West to Bonaire and further before heading north to Puerto Rico as the sailing is hard going north?

this seems like to long a journey to put my wife through straight off the bat.
I am after advice.

What would you do?
When would you go?

I just did this passage as crew (wife and 14 year old daughter were crew also) from Trinidad to Granada in July just prior to Hurricane Beryl. We were mostly close reached with winds 20 to 25 knots with gusts to 30 just as forecast. It was far rougher than I expected, anybody prone to seasickness would have been sick, difficult to move around in the dark, lots of noise, my wife got to experience heavy rain that reduced visibility to near nothing during her watch, on rare occasion water over the bow splashing the dodger etc. As the sun came up and we sailed into beautiful sunny Granada any unpleasantness from the passage was quickly forgotten. Can’t wait to do again. "Your milage may vary”

[jbarber5000]

Nick,

Hope it worked out for you. I just did EXACTLY what you are doing and it was my first experience with a long trip. Trini to PR....the kicker was we only had 3 weeks.

So much good advice on here but reading all this only helps a little. When you get out there for real you just have to be ready. The current between Trinidad and Grenada was a little more than we thought and when we left in mid December the wind was a little more out of the north than we anticipated as well. Day one was the roughest, wettest sail of our 3 week trip to western PR.

The advice to day sail in Trini for a week is spot on. We did not do that and paid the price. But Im jealous...wish I had months too!

Hope it's been amazing.