Tips on Travel From Eastern Caribbean to Guatamala

[seadream]

We're looking to travel from St Marten or Antigua to Guatamala and Belize in the next few weeks.

Direct this is a long trip due West of around 1400 miles and although we could stop in Jamaica we have a long sail past Puerto Rico and Haiti which we'd like to avoid.

We have UK passports and the Visa waiver program doesn't apply to travel by sea. Our investigation of the Visa process suggests that it is expensive, time consuming and we need to get to Jamaica, Barbados or Trinidad to apply so we'd prefer to avoid U.S. territories and not get visas.

One Alternative that we like is to go to Aruba (about 500nm 230 degrees magnetic and then head up from there (950 nm 300 degrees). We could stop in Jamaica on the way as a backup plan.

Winds should generally be NE or Easterly although you can get strong Northerly winds along the Central American coast so going across and up from Panama doesn't seem wise. Currents I think should generally be E / N as you get closer to the coast of Central America.

Any ideas and sources of weather information (we have an SSB receiver) ?