Carribean or Gulf of Mexico

[colemj]

Originally Posted by sneuman

Via the Windward Passage or from Florida?

Well, it's your trip…

I somehow thought you were leaving from the Bahamas, so had the Windward Passage in mind, but now I reread it and see you are leaving from the Keys, which changes things a little bit.

If you decide to do North Cuba, then you are probably best to drop South through the Caymans from there and things will be a little bit tighter to the wind than if you were coming more from the East.

Or preferably you could go around to the South coast of Cuba and make your way more East in the protection of the land and drop south with the wind at a greater angle.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to go through the Windward Passage from the Keys.

But if you go the E Caribe route, you will be needing to make 3,000 miles in 4 months, with half of them upwind and the other half in strong winds/waves. The Western/Central passage will be less than half that distance in more favorable conditions.

Mark

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by colemj

Well, it's your trip…

I somehow thought you were leaving from the Bahamas, so had the Windward Passage in mind, but now I reread it and see you are leaving from the Keys, which changes things a little bit.

If you decide to do North Cuba, then you are probably best to drop South through the Caymans from there and things will be a little bit tighter to the wind than if you were coming more from the East.

Or preferably you could go around to the South coast of Cuba and make your way more East in the protection of the land and drop south with the wind at a greater angle.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to go through the Windward Passage from the Keys.

But if you go the E Caribe route, you will be needing to make 3,000 miles in 4 months, with half of them upwind and the other half in strong winds/waves. The Western/Central passage will be less than half that distance in more favorable conditions.

Mark

Thanks. I'm Chesapeake based now and thinking ahead to a likely November 2015 departure. It's looking like ICW to Moorhead, NC to Eastern Caribbean (or) ICW to Fla. Keys then to Western Carib.

As I said, we're looking for as much comfort and adventure as we can reasonably get without breaking the cruising kitty. Not having much opportunity to run up a bar/restaurant tab would be a plus.

[bstreep]

Just my $0.02. We've been to most of the islands of the EC, via charter. After talking with friends who did both, we'll be doing the Mexico to Panama thing. No contest on the decision. And Isla Mujeras is delightful.