November 2024 – November 2025
Season 1 Recap
Last year around this time we did a post outlining what the next year holds for Sondra, I and Baxter. It was neat to look at that post and see what we ended up doing in comparison to what we thought we were going to do. It was pretty close but some things that were different were: 1) we didn’t make it to the Dry Tortugas like we thought and 2) our expected dates where we thought we were going to be all over the board. If you are interested in seeing our last years post you can go HERE.
Season 2 Overview
So now we will look into our crystal ball and see what we plan to do for the next year now that we are in the water. We only have one hard deadline this year and it is to get north of Cumberland Island Georgia by June 1 due to insurance requirements for the boat. Other than that, we are loose with the plans so it will be interesting to go back next year and compare it with what we thought we were going to do vs. what we actually did.
November & December 2024: Brunswick
So right now we are sitting in a slip in Brunswick Landing Marina and Utopia plans to stay here until the first week in January. During that time we will be finishing our boat projects, getting the boat ready for long term cruising, visiting family and friends and go to our remaining doctor’s appointments. This marina is a cruisers mecca and there are many people and boats doing the exact same thing we are doing (i.e., getting their boat ready for points south).
January - April 2025: Bahamas
Once January rolls around we will start looking for a weather window to get far south in Florida (and as fast as we can). We did the ICW coming up to Brunswick last year and we can check that off our list of things to experience. If we could get a 2–3-day favorable window we could take the offshore route and transport Utopia to West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale, or Miami very quickly. One reason to do this is to get out of the expected chilly weather up here and two, we want to position ourselves for the hop over the Bahamas.
Ultimately, we probably will get to Miami to make the jump. The present plan is to probably leave Miami near the end of January or First part of February to make it to the Bahamas. The Bahamas allow US Citizens a 3-month visa (or a year if we want to purchase one) and we plan to stay right up to that 3-month cutoff. The north Bahamas like the Abacos can still be pretty chilly in the winter, so we plan to go as far south as we plan to go quickly and then slowly make our way back to the U.S. as the weather warms up.
Right now, our target south is Georgetown, Bahamas on the Exumas chain (see map in link). This may change but for now that is the target. There are several routes there, but a common one is crossing from Miami over top of Bimini, crossing the Great Bahama Bank, passing west (or stopping in a west anchorage) of Nassau and then southeast to The Exumas. Another route is going through the Abacos and down south to the Exumas but for right now the first path seems to be the quickest. We will make this decision when we get into south Florida and based on weather.
Once in Georgetown we will stay put for a brief time and then start island hopping back up to the USA. We have no real idea exactly where we will be, or the route we will take back so we will save those details for the actual future posts.
It is expected we will be in the Bahamas from February through April. At the end of April, we plan to make the jump north to get north of Cumberland Island, Georgia. Again, we will move north quickly (offshore where we can) to get to our summer cruising grounds.
May - October 2025: Eastern Seaboard
Loose timing is to get to the Chesapeake Bay area in mid-May and spend 5-6 weeks cruising the hundreds of coves and towns in the area. By the end of June, we will be ready to make an offshore jump along the Atlantic coast up to New York City. There is a nice anchorage adjacent to the Statue of Liberty with a splendid view of the NYC skyline. We are not sure the timing will work but it would be neat if it worked out. Wouldn’t it be great to be there on the 4th of July to see the fireworks?
From there we would take the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn and enter Long Island Sound. From there we would slowly make our way as far as Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard and by the beginning of September start reversing our course. Our earlier plan was to continue north up to Maine but after looking at what we were wishing to cover we decided to skip it so we would not have to move so quickly. Maine’s summer is truly short so we would be pushing it to avoid wintry weather.
We would like to be back in the Chesapeake by the end of September and specifically in Annapolis, Maryland by the beginning of October to attend the Annapolis Boat Show. There is a huge mooring field for visiting boats right around the show and we would love to attend in our own boat. You can read about the boat show HERE.
After the boat show we plan to move south again to get away from the cold and stage ourselves for the next season. Since we must be North of Cumberland Island Georgia until November 1, we should be able to move swiftly south and hopefully get back to around Brunswick Georgia this time next year.
We are not sure what the next year will bring but the Eastern or Western Caribbean seems like a fairly good bet. Stay tuned.
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