The Crew: Andrew and Anna, a couple in their late-20's
The Boat: "Jumble", a 31' Ketch in its mid-40's
The Plan: Sail from San Diego to New England
The route has gone through several revisions. It will likely change once we cast off:
- Leave San Diego in mid-November and sail to the Mexican mainland, Puerto Vallarta or Mazatlan. We took Jumble to Cabo San Lucas and back in 2012; we'll only stop in Baja California if we experience mechanical or weather issues.
- Cruise leisurely down the coast of Mexico through December and January, making our last stop for paperwork and provisioning at the Guatemalan border (Puerto Chiapas). Recreation is expected to be diving, fishing, reading and boozing.
- Sometime in February, head from Mexico, coast-wise, to Costa Rica. El Salvador is the bail-out stopover. Spend a couple of weeks in Costa Rica. Recreation might be hiking or some other form of eco-tourism. I wanted to use that phrase. These diversions might be too expensive.
- Hit the Pacific coast of Panama sometime in March and get on the list to go through the Ditch. The Ditch is cool nautical slang for the Panama Canal. We will party, if possible; however, the major push will be to get to the Atlantic side of the Canal. At least one of Jumble's crew will try to do a stint line-handling for another cruiser before we go through the Ditch ourselves. This is the biggest expense of the trip. We've heard as many numbers as sailors we've asked, but we expect those 40 miles to cost us $2-3K. That's still cheaper than rounding the Horn,
- Enjoy April and maybe even May in Atlantic Panama. Measures may have to be taken to avoid slipping into drunken frolics. The threat of Hurricane Season should be enough to maintain a measure of sobriety. We've heard lots of good things from sailors and tourists who've visited the San Blas Islands.
- Depart Panama in early May for Grand Cayman. This is a long and possibly upwind leg. We may spend a week or so recovering in Cayman. Diving in Cayman is renowned.
- Leave Grand Cayman before the end of May and head through the Yucatan Channel to the Florida Keys and then the US mainland. We'll take the Inter-Coastal Waterway north and overwinter somewhere cold and miserable: Long Island Sound or Boston.
*Bailout plan if we get behind schedule is to spend Hurricane Season in Panama. We'll then proceed north in the fall.
This is the cruising plan for a small sailboat with an amateur crew. We're not getting paid and we don't have a support crew. We'll likely get side-tracked or hung-up along the way and that's fine: it's kind of the point.
Thank you for your interest.
