Planning trip - Ft Lauderdale to St Thomas

[Jim Murray]

I'm planning to move my Carver 466 from
Ft Lauderdale to St Thomas. My vessels range is limited to about 300 miles. Anyone have any ideas as to the best route, time and any considerations I should take into account. Any ideas, suggestions would be welcomed. JIM

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Jim.

[djmarchand]

It can be done, with some planning, outfitting and waiting for weather conditions. You will be going generally upwind all of the way, but you are a power boat. Try this route:

Lauderdale to Nassau
Nassau to Georgetown
Georgetown to Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos
T&C to Puerto Plato on the DR northern coast
PP to San Juan (or maybe a stop in between for fuel)
San Juan to St Thomas

Bruce Van Sant wrote a book- Passages South, the Thornless Path to Windward which is the bible for making this passage. It gives weather tips, anchorages and fuel stops along the way. There are some ugly stretches, like the Mona Passage between the DR and PR.

David

[a64pilot]

Carrying 120 gl of extra fuel is relatively easy, used to do it when going out to the middle grounds fishing. I put two blue plastic drums on the swim platform, almost certain the drums originally held some kind of juice, but were fuel proof. Nice to remove fuel as a concern