Where are kids in the Caribbean spending Hurricane season 2012?

[crewofnoka]

Do you have kids on board?

Where are you this hurricane season.....
Rio Dulce?
Grenada?
Curacao?
Panama?
somewhere else?

[Tranquilo]

Aruba!

[SV Liberty]

Great thread! Liberty (with Chris, 16, and Josh, 13 on board) plan to be in Grenada for hurricane season. Currently in Guadeloupe and working our way south, slowly.

[drewvta]

For 2013 we hope to be in Grenada/ Grenadines with Lily (11) and Miles (8).

S/V Liberty did you make it to Grenada in 2012 and were there other families?

[vtsailguy]

This is a great thread and so timely. I was talking to my better half last night about our plans to make the jump and live sailing. We are trying to figure out when to make the jump. One thing we were trying to figure is if we are planning to be in the Carribean, is there really a hurricane season any more. I have read several websites that are saying these days, around the USVI/BVI area, you'll get as many hurricanes as NYC. She doesn't agree and says we need to time so we miss the season.

PS
The boys are 10, 8 and 6

[paulbennett]

We are a family of 5 with three daughters ages 5, 9, and 10 who will be in Grenada and points south this season. Looking to connect with other families. Trinidad? ABCs? drewvta, where will you guys be June - November? I'd love to hear about s/v Liberty's experience last season.

[Kettlewell]

We are now home, but our family (two kids) spent the dreaded summer partly in Panama and the San Blas and partly in Cartagena. Not sure I would recommend the San Blas in the summer, though we did have a great time. The thunderstorms are incredible there. San Blas are best in the winter. The thing that is advantageous about Panama is that you can still keep cruising, moving around and doing things. I would go nuts holing up in one place for the entire hurricane season.

[paulbennett]

Kettlewell, I hear you. We're planning to cruise from Grenada to Cartagena from July to November, so on the move a bit—though not too fast. Do you know of any online fora where families cruising that area communicate and plan? We definitely want to intersect with other families along the way.

[Kettlewell]

PaulBennett: No, I haven't heard of any forums, but there are certain areas where families do gather, and one of them was Caratagena. We arrived in October and at one point there were something like 17 different kids at Club Nautico--enough so we had soccer games in the afternoon after home school. We hooked up there with a couple of other boats that had kids and then cruised in company back through the San Blas, up to Honduras, then up the Rio Dulce, and on to Belize. After that we went our different ways. But, I would highly recommend modifying your plans if you need to in order to travel in company with other kid boats. We did and it made a world of difference in how happy the children were. When I say "travel in company" we didn't always go everywhere at the same time, but we would plan on reconnecting at certain points, though sometimes we made offshore hops at the same time too.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by paulbennett

We are a family of 5 with three daughters ages 5, 9, and 10 who will be in Grenada and points south this season. Looking to connect with other families. Trinidad? ABCs? drewvta, where will you guys be June - November? I'd love to hear about s/v Liberty's experience last season.

There will be some in Grenada, none or not too many in Trinidad, I don't know about the ABCs.

You will meet people on the way down by bumping into people, that's really the only way.
St Martin is one of the best areas to meet kids because everyone comes through here, and there's a weekly organised cruisng kids activity which are always free so all the. It's go.

Then when you find like minded boats you adjust your time table to fit in with the others.

I don't have kids, but I do look for the right sort of people i gte along with, and know where they are going to be when.

[Teknav]

...and...there are reform schools with plenty of goats...err...kids... What do I know? I don't have any! Mauritz

[drewvta]

paulbennett - We decided one more year stateside to beef up the cruising kitty, so it will be first thing 2014 before we cast off for good. Still trying to get a feel for how comfortable it will be to "cruise" with kids during summer in Grenada, Trinidad and ABCs. Not sure how badly the South Carib gets his by storm surge and feeder bands of storms further North. If it is a matter of needing to stay in harbor throughout we may choose to throw the boat on the hard and go overland for the worst months. Please let us know how it goes.

vtsailguy - Yes there appears to be more late and early storms but I still think the vast majority of named storms still hit the Caribbean in Aug/Sept. Then further North on US East Coast during Oct/Nov. Given the exceptions to the rule always safe to have an eye/ ear on the weather, especially during "La Nina."

[paulbennett]

Kettlewell, Thanks. Is there a seasonality to it? We're planning to reach Cartagena by November. I'm assuming families planning a canal transit would be there around then, planning for a late-January canal transit. But, I wonder if we want to "speed up" in order to get there a little earlier. We have good friends in Bonaire and Curacao; but, still, it would be awesome to connect with other cruising families there who are heading to Cartagena.

[Kettlewell]

November would be perfect. We arrived in October and for us Yanks it was fun to celebrate Halloween (end of October) and then Thanksgiving (third week in November) and then Christmas and New Year's too! Particularly the latter two holidays are big deals and lots of fun in Cartagena, though I was surprised how into Halloween everyone was. Some of the barrios put on a real show around Christmas. They decorate their homes and the entire neighborhood. We took a tour bus around with other families and children. There were concerts in the streets, art shows, etc. The cruising kids were organized by a musician and sang various national holiday carols at a retirement home, and some of them played instruments (my son brought his violin with him). We found and hired a college teacher to provide Spanish lessons for our children for a couple of months--my daughter became nearly fluent and was a big help from then on dealing with officials in the rest of Central America. She basically charmed everyone with her Spanish, and then we were good to go.

[Kettlewell]

Found this photo of some of the cruising kids in Club Nautico, Cartagena, in 2006.