Caribbean - tips and hints

[seriousailor]

A great way to stay informed about crimes against yachts in the Caribbean is to subscribe to CSSN Alerts!, which are free. Their website is loaded with lots of useful information, here is a link. https://safetyandsecuritynet.org/.

[RickG]

My Lady and I left for the Caribbean out of Marathon Florida April 13 via Georgetown. We left for Great Inagua May 6 and arrived Puerto Plata, DR on the North Shore May 15. Ocean World marina was a great place to check in and Great Inagua was a good place to check out. Yes, there was motoring between Great Inagua and Puerto Plata, but we had a great weather window and it was pleasant. Puerto Plata is a good base to visit the DR and see some culture, great food, and cheap good provisions.

From Puerto Plata we left the evening of May 26 for Ponce, PR with a stop at Puerto del Valle, DR to rest for the day, via the Mona Passage with the time headed South in the Mona Passage sailing and the rest motoring.

Thornless/Thorny Path? With decent weather windows and evening departures to sail the North Shore of the DR that was no problem. Our longest passage was from Puerto del Valle, DR to Ponce, skipping Samana, was 36 hours.

We kept a boat at St. Thomas, USVI for four years and know the Virgins and Puerto Rico well. Puerto Rico has wonderful happy people, great food, inexpensive provisions, and 11.5% sales tax. People complain about the charter boats, but few visit the USVIs and Puerto Rico. There are plenty of spots in the BVIs to anchor, but that country seems to add a new fee every time you check in. They now charge $1/foot port authority fee when you check in.

We have not been South of the Virgins since Irma, but will head that direction after wintering in the VIs.

All in all, the US territories are wonderful to visit. You can pick your experience based on where you anchor.

Cheers, RickG

[anacapaisland42]

We've been using Keene's they are comfortable and dry really fast.
Bill









[QUOTE=barnakiel;2952070]Take a decent ascent rucsack and a pair of strong walking shoes.

[JanetGroene]

CSY Man is so right. To a newbie, the Bahamas and Caribbean look like one, wonderful, stepping-stone landfall after another. You have yet to learn about the very shallow (for a sailboat) Bahamas, the powerful Gulf Stream, hurricane season (which may affect your insurance) and the tradewinds. Because the islands come under so many flags, you'll be constantly shelling out for clearances, papers, duties, taxes and whatever else they can nick you for. That said, it's heaven, so get your ship together and GO.

[thataway41]

Dinghy Thief's: We had a 13' brand new inflatable. with 25 HP stolen in S. Boston Harbor (most likely by Green Peace sailboat). Never had a problem with over a year and a half total time in the Caribbean. Normally, we put an eyebolt thru the dinghy transom, and peened over the shaft of the bolt so the nut could not be backed off. Cable ran thru a secure place on outboard, the bow eye and finally padlocked thru a strong point on the deck. When we lost the dinghy had only been padlocked thru the bow eye; the fabric attachment of the D Ring was cut from underneath (from in the water), between 5 AM and 6 AM--so stealth our dog did not alert. Normally we we also bring the inflatable aboard... We also carried a 10' fiberglass hard dingy in davits off the transom. That was also cabled to the boat. If tied to the boat, each dinghy had at least two painters tied aboard the boat and the SS, vinyl coated cable.

We never had air conditioning. Good awnings and wind scoops were key. 3 awnings, for a Ketch--over the mizen boom, the main boom and foredeck.

Situational awareness is very important. If there are suspicious characters and activity, we move on. On several occasions we have stood a night "anchor" watch (where it was not prudent to leave late in the day.) Our 100#Labrador Retriever was both a deterrent and alert system (usually). We were boarded several times in the Med, only once in the Caribbean. I had a switch to turn on 4 spreader lights, a button to hit the 125 dB air horn and a RAM mike for the VHF all reachable from our bunk.

Once I had to threaten a native with a machete who was attempting to board, when I had said "no". We believe it was the same person who did the attack in the book "Sitting Duck" Our incident was in the Tobago Cays, we moved to Mustique Britannia Bay Harbor. In the Western Caribbean, we had just left Port Royal Roatan, when the owner of "Port Royal Yacht Club" was murdered by a native (dispute over wage), and two other boaters were wounded. The owner's wife killed the native with a .45. All of these were evacuated out of the country by US Military very promptly. These occurred many years ago. Recently there have been several incidents off Nicaragua. Check on the internet, ICC, Noonsite for any recent security reports. The area near Venezuela remains dangerous.

[SGGeronimo]

If a 10 day offshore passage isn't in your plans you should read Gentleman's Guide to Passages South (Van Sant) at least twice and follow his advice.

Subscribe to Chris Parker's Marine Wx Center.

Explorer charts are the best for Bahamas, Navionics not so much.

A set schedule is the enemy of comfort. Don't make plans with unattainable dates. You can island hop with short wx windows if you are always ready to go - otherwise you may not make it past George Town.

[Dan Mosby]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

I blame it on primitive psychopaths

Ayup. The carribean is the place where every white face is an invitation to robbery....at least I heard that somewhere before.

There are exceptions, like the Caymans. Go there. It's very nice.

[stimpsonjcat]

I like the bashed up OB cowling idea.

Making a big show of it not starting easily (by flipping the lanyard kill) each time you crank it at the dock might help also.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by RickG

......

Thornless/Thorny Path? With decent weather windows and evening departures to sail the North Shore of the DR that was no problem. Our longest passage was from Puerto del Valle, DR to Ponce, skipping Samana, was 36 hours.

....

All true, but the mythical thorny path is not sailing, its motoring more than 3/4 of the 900 miles to weather. As long as you are comfy with that choice, it'll get you to the eastern Carib.

[sailorboy1]

Thread sure didn’t go the way I hoped, oh well

[merrydolphin]

Was in Caribbean for 9 yrs. mostly Eastern. Sailed to Panama and there for 2 yrs. Never had a dingy stolen ( of course I locked it.). I thinks there is a lot more killing and rape in the US than the Caribbean. Been held up at gun point twice, both in the US! Never a problem in E car. Cartagena, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico.....
Most people sail to Car. In Nov. We went in May. Worked great. Worked our way south to Trinidad and Tobago (SCUBA in Tobago is incredible) for hurricane season so had several months to leisurely get there. Good ground tackle is a must as you will anchor most of the time. The good news is that at least in the eastern Car. You can anchor on the west side of damn near anything and be in good shape. Very much unlike the Bahamas. The wind blows NE-E almost all winter and E-SE all summer, with the exception of tropical systems (that are fairly rare). And another big plus! Almost no thunder storms! Again except in some of the easterly waves (tropical weather)in the summer. It will rain, big black clouds, blow, but no lightning, hallelujah! And watermaker really not necessary in one downpour we could collect 200 gal of water for our tanks and still have a dingy full to do laundry! You will also see cruisers our on deck for a shower. Fun! We also almost never needed screens or Air Cond. lots of facilities for “yachties” as we are called there. I found the people there very friendly and pleasant. Has a great time with them. Sure the occaional bad apple is every where in the world. I think the E Car is some of the best sailing in the world Enjoy!

[ZITIBOAT]

For the Bahamas a Bruce anchor is indispensable. Only had one time it got rolled up in a ball of turtle grass on a windy day and had to start the Aux.

[sailorboy1]

for you caribbean veterans; how often did you use the third reef in your main?

[sailcrazy]

Our monohull was originally built as a sloop, with a removable babystay. Some years ago we converted it to a cutter rig, with both the H/S and the S/S on a roller furler. And our main is also on an in-mast furler. But since we've moved to the Caribbean, we've replaced our 135% H/S with a 98%....and we still reef it routinely. And then we reduce the M/S as we reef the H/S, to keep the boat balanced. We frequently furl the H/S and put out the S/S, to sail as a cutter, when the winds pipe up. I don't ever remember reefing our main to about a 3rd reefing point....by that time we're usually running on just the heavily reefed H/S and the S/S, or we just bring the m/s in altogether.....or we just motorsail!

[jmh2002]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

for you caribbean veterans; how often did you use the third reef in your main?

I don't think ever. The third reef was only used for the ocean passages between the US and the Caribbean. In fact we used to pull the third reef from the main altogether once we were down island.

But that will be boat and sail combination dependant too though. Eg: we were still reaching in 45-50kn using the third reef on the way down from New England one time, so it was a pretty deep reef.

Edit: for info this was a large roach full batten mainsail with standard slab reefing.