where to go in hurricane season Caribbean

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emnick

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Where do most people go if they want to do a couple of seasons in the Caribbean. I gather Grenada is no longer considered safe and not sure about Trinidad Tobago etc.

Thanks
 
NW Caribbean, specifically Rio Dulce, Guatemala, probably the best hurricane whole in the entire Caribbean or further south towards Columbia and Panama which are both below the hurricane belt

Having spent 2 hurricane seasons in Carriacou, I would not be too concerned about Grenada and after IVAN the boat yards have made tremendous efforts to supply Hurricane proof storage there.

I was not impressed with Trinidad because in one yard I visited, the boats were stacked up VERY close together on low lying grass, it rains most days and how good is the drainage? and if 1 falls over, they all do
 
Well this what I and quite a number of fellow cruisers do. We are in Martinique by the beginning of June. Bequia by July. Grenada for August and September. I would think there are about 600 boats at anchor with more in the marinas in South Grenada just now. Check the weather daily. From Canouan down to Scotland Bay in Trinidad that means I switch on the VHF to ch 66 international at 7.30 and listen to the Grenada cruisers net which uses a repeater with a 50 - 75 mile range.

We know where the hurricane holes are and we keep our diesel tanks full and are prepared to move at 6 hours notice.

Cape Verde monsters would give you 3 days notice, smaller and fast developing ones that usually are cat 1 when they hit the Windward/Leewards still give 24 hours. If one threatened Grenada I would leave for Trinidad. If it was a low wobbler like Ivan I would head for Venezuela.

It is often very pleasant cruising at this time of year 10 to 15 knts of wind instead of 20 to 25 and the anchorages are not full of charter boats.

Luperon is pretty safe and so is the Rio Dulce. The trouble with the Rio Dulce is the headbanging beat upwind and upcurrent if you want to get back to the Windward/Leewards.
 
Cruising Trinidad is limited but Tobago is superb with quiet anchorages and a glorious coastline. Trinidad's marine repair services are excellent so it could be a good place to come out of the water for maintenance.
We've now been here in T&T for 6 weeks and we plan to sail to Guyana / Surinam for the rest of the hurricane season. Many yachts have headed for the ABC's, we might do that during next year's hurricane season.
Our insurers were happy with T&T, they weren't keen on us being any further north at this time.
 
Ther are some great suggestions for your consideration above. Do check with your insurance company first or be prepared not to be insured in case of incident during their definition of the hurricane season, particularly during a named storm. You might get insurance cover to sail in those places. I couldn't.
 
Initially we stayed in Trinidad but then we used to head down to Bonaire then on to Curacao for hurricane season specifically for the diving. Spanish Waters in Curacao is the place to anchor, an enclosed lagoon with a narrow entrance. It's up wind up current to get back to the island chain, not pleasant but doable, you can stop in the Venezuelan out islands and Tortuga to split the journey. Provision for the whole trip there is only one small store in one of the out islands. Don't stop in Margarita or even go near the Venezuelan coast it is now too dangerous.
 
It's nice to see some boats "prepared to move at 6 hours notice" eh? I woulda thought I'd be ready to move a boat quite a lot quicker than with 6 hours notice but whatever.

I found it quite refreshing NOT to sail with insurance, cos heh, it's not actually any safer at all.

Grenada, Trini, Tobago all as above. Nice option is to sail off to Azores then Madeira (or s spain) and
Canaries and back to carib, which I did a few times, as you get the "start of sailing season" thing twice a year :-)
 
Barbados is a nice place to visit (some info in my signature) - and our track record for hurricanes now is better than Grenada after they got clobbered by Ivan about 8 years ago.
As folk say in Barbados, 'God is a Bajan' - and this seems to be true, as although we have had a few encounters with fringes of hurricanes in recent years, we havent had a full blown one since Janet in 1955.
Ivan was heading straight for us initially, but then he decided to defy all the forecast wisdom, stayed south, and decimated Grenada instead.
Our main disadvantage I suppose (apart from the lack of a public marina) is the fact that we are 100 miles to windward of the other islands - but if the wind is in the north-east, and you are sitting at anchor in St Annes, Martinique, it is a comfortable overnight sail on a close reach.......
 
Bajansailor said:
Barbados is a nice place to visit (some info in my signature) - and our track record for hurricanes now is better than Grenada after they got clobbered by Ivan about 8 years ago.
As folk say in Barbados, 'God is a Bajan' - and this seems to be true, as although we have had a few encounters with fringes of hurricanes in recent years, we havent had a full blown one since Janet in 1955.
Ivan was heading straight for us initially, but then he decided to defy all the forecast wisdom, stayed south, and decimated Grenada instead.
Our main disadvantage I suppose (apart from the lack of a public marina) is the fact that we are 100 miles to windward of the other islands - but if the wind is in the north-east, and you are sitting at anchor in St Annes, Martinique, it is a comfortable overnight sail on a close reach.......
Click to expand...

I was going to ask why so many yachts head straight for St Lucia and by-pass Barbados ?? is it considered expensive? I was in Port St Charles about 2 years ago (holiday not boating) and there seemed to be a lot of work going on around the bridge and marina are they expanding??
 
Bit of information about Curacao.

Friends of ours, circumnavigators so not shy have spent between them many years there. Both have worked and run businesses there.

The undercurrent of violence and intimidation have reached such levels that they have left it for good and moved to Bonaire.

Go careful out there!
 
>escape is NE to PR or the Virgins

We did that once rather than the southern route, it's still upwind up current and we had a big swell that wasn't forecast which kept pushing us back. We crossed 68 degrees west 3 times and eventually made it to Puerto Rico and ended up motoring along the coast because there is no wind. Then upwind and current to the BVIs and Antigua. Agree about the diving.
 
emnick said:
I was going to ask why so many yachts head straight for St Lucia and by-pass Barbados ?? is it considered expensive? I was in Port St Charles about 2 years ago (holiday not boating) and there seemed to be a lot of work going on around the bridge and marina are they expanding??
Click to expand...

I think that (partly) the ARC sets the pattern - they *used* to go to Barbados (nearest island to Canaries innit?) but for at least 20years they go to St Lucia, so that's a whole load of boats going straight to St Lucia - praps 20% of those private boats going annually. Then there's some arc followers, yerknow like-minded folk meeting up and all that. Then there's the lack of european-type marina in Barbados so even if you did land there... you would move on if the plan was to leave the boat a bit and fly back to europe, which for many it often is. Economically, I think Barbados is more interested in cruise ships
 
capnsensible said:
Bit of information about Curacao.

Friends of ours, circumnavigators so not shy have spent between them many years there. Both have worked and run businesses there.

The undercurrent of violence and intimidation have reached such levels that they have left it for good and moved to Bonaire.

Go careful out there!
Click to expand...

Could you elaborate on this more? I've read article about the Coast Guard stopping patrols and only using air patrols?
 
>Bit of information about Curacao. Friends of ours, circumnavigators so not shy have spent between them many years there. Both have worked and run businesses there. The undercurrent of violence and intimidation have reached such levels that they have left it for good and moved to Bonaire.

A senator has been killed but I haven't heard of Curacao having an undercurrent of violence, it certainly didn't when we were there it was very peaceful. Looking it up there are no reports of violence other than domestic.There were dinghy and out board thefts because people didn't lock them.
 
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