It's time to leave

We spent a busy 5 months in Grenada and Carriacou, ticking off our boat jobs in preparation for our 2023 Pacific adventure and, by mid October, we were ready to move on. We still officially had another month until the end of the hurricane season, so we were heading west to one of the ABC islands: Bonaire. We had booked a month in the Harbour Village Marina there and were going to spend it with two of our ARC+ friends. The plan was to dive, dive and dive some more. But first, we needed to get there…

After 10 months of day sailing, this was going to be an interesting journey. It would be about 450 nm and take around 4 days. First, we set to with our passage planning. We had been doing lots of research, including speaking to many experienced sailors about the best route to take. The straight line route would take us quite close to the northern coast of Venezuela. Definitely not a route we wanted to take as there have been several incidents involving ‘pirates’. Not the sort with eye patches and galleons, but still people after plundering your worldy goods. Therefore, for us, further north was a better option.

Which route?

Hurricane watch

Another decision was when to leave to ensure favourable wind and current. To assess our options, we use various apps and websites. At the moment, we monitor the National Hurricane Centre and Mike’s Weather Page (Facebook). These both give us information about the general picture across the Caribbean and Atlantic and give us information about tropical storms and hurricanes, including the likelihood of development and their predicted paths.

Another two apps we use are PredictWind and Windy. Windy is good for general overviews of wind and current over a 7 day period and PredictWind gives us more detailed information using several different weather models. It is also enables us to trial different departure dates and routes to see what conditions may be like. Of course, these are only predictions and we have learnt that the most accurate weather forecasting comes by looking out of the window! However, looking at the models, we can narrow down a possible weather window with the best predicted conditions.

Possible wind predictions

Windy - current model

While waiting for the right weather window, we do our ‘last minute’ preparations to make the boat ready for leaving. This includes packing away things that have made their way out of their secure storage into the main body of the boat, filling up with diesel and petrol (for the outboard engine) and working the watermaker to keep the water tanks filled up.

A selection of our provisions

We also need to ensure that we have enough food for the journey. Friends who had already been to Bonaire had recommended that we stock up in Grenada as, although the supermarkets are well stocked in Bonaire, things come at a price! With this in mind, we made several trips into town for provisioning to restock our dried and tinned goods. Predicting that we may need a few days to regain our sealegs, we also made a couple of meals for the freezer. Then the final job was fresh produce – plenty of fruit and veg.

Preparation complete, we were just waiting for the weather window! This gave us chance to fit in a couple of goodbyes and even get a haircut!!