Season 3 Cruising Plans-Western Caribbean

This week, Sondra and I look into our magic 8-ball and try to figure out what is Utopia’s plan for our third season of cruising...

Up until this October we had always planned for this next season to involve hopping down through the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and taking the Caribbean's Leeward and Windward islands all the way to Grenada, where we would spend hurricane season.  The more we thought about it, the more we wanted to do a 180 and do the Western Caribbean instead as shown on the map. I will break our Season 3 plans into 4 legs and give a general idea on timing and what we want to do in those areas.

Overall map of Season 3

Leg 1 (February)

Leg 1 is sort of a staging leg to get in position to move further south. At the beginning of February, after an extended stop in Daytona, we will start heading south again. The general plan is to do a fast hop down to Miami and go back through the keys, which curised in 2024.  Hopefully we will visit a few spots we didn’t see the first time, like Bahia Honda State Park. The general plan is to get to Key West in a few weeks, arriving towards the end of February. 

Leg 2 (March)

Around the end of February or the first part of March we want to be departing Key West for destinations south and west.  Back in December 2023 we were trying to get to the Dry Tortugas (which is 70 miles due west of Key West). Due to the weather that year we never could find a weather window to get there back within our desired time frame.  This year we don’t plan to miss it since it is on our path to the Western Caribbean. 

Key West, Dry Tortugas and Isla Mujeres

We plan on doing a couple of day sails from Key West to the Dry Tortugas since there are places to anchor along the way.  From there we will spend a couple of days exploring the area including Fort Jefferson (it’s a National Park) and  wait for a weather window to go from the Dry Tortugas to Isla Mujeres, Mexico.  Isla Mujeres is about 300 nautical miles southwest of the Dry Tortugas and should take us around 60 hours to make it. This is a great place to stop initially since you can 1) check into the country there and 2) have a very protected anchorage.

General timeline in Mexico is that we will be there through March.  Mexico is a great cruising ground on the Pacific side, but in reality there isn’t a lot of good places to anchor on the Caribbean side, so we plan on pretty much keeping Utopia in Isla Mujeres the entire time until we are ready to leave. Instead, most of our exploration in Mexico will be by land. Once we are checked into Mexico we plan on taking at least one sizable inland travel expedition to visit the Mayan Ruins, Visit some cenotes (big sinkholes you can swim in) and have our fill of tacos. 

Tacos, Cenotes and Mayan Ruins (Mexico)

Leg 3 (April to May)

Around late March or early April we will continue our journey south to Belize. In 2018 we chartered a sailboat (with the Whitlocks of Quest II!) for a week in Belize and are excited to return on our own boat. 

Since there is almost an uncountable number of islands to stop at along the barrier reef along the Belize coast (2^nd largest reefon the planet), we always wanted to revisit and spend some more time there. In general we plan on being there for about two months before we move on and find a spot for hurricane season.

Getting to Belize will require at least one overnight trip. The plan is to check into the country in Belize City (Belize’s largest city).  While in Belize, most of the traveling will be by boat with limited trips inland. There are so many islands to take Utopia that I think most of our time will be island hopping and hopefully going out to the atolls outside of the reefs.  We will have significantly more time on this trip, allowing us to be able to go at a leisurely pace.

Cay Caulker and Great Blue Hole (Belize)

Leg 4 (June to November)

As May draws on and hurricane season get closer, we will want to be moving to a spot that is generally protected from hurricanes.  And that brings us to our last leg and that is getting to Guatemala, actually heading to a location called Rio Dulce, Guatemala.

 Maps of Rio Dulce, Guatemala

Around the beginning of June we will do a day sail from Belize to the delta of the Rio Dulce at Livingston, Guatemala where we will check into the country. From there, we will travel about 20 miles up the river to a very protected area on the Rio Dulce. This is a common destination for cruisers to spend their hurricane season and we plan on being there from June to November while we wait out the season.  Marinas are very reasonable (i.e. $300/month) and we already have a slip reserved for this time frame. 

Rio Dulce, Guatemala

Since Utopia will be in a slip and there really isn’t any more boat destinations in that area, most of our time here will be land based and we have many destinations already in mind.  Guatemala has lots of hiking available, volcanos, mountains and has the largest city in Central America (Guatemala City). Also, we plan on some visits back to the states during our time here so we should be plenty busy during this time. 

Guatemala City

Possible Tangent

Although it is not on the must do list for this year’s cruising, we might take a side trip to Roatan, Honduras either on our way to Guatemala, or on our way back to the States.  It’s about 130 nautical miles east of Guatemala and if we find that we have had our fill of Belize or if we have a good window there once we leave Guatemala in November, we might stop there for a couple of weeks.  

Return Trip (November)

Once November rolls around and we are pretty confident that we won’t be impacted by a hurricane we will start to head north back to the USA again. We may, or may not, stop in Belize or Mexico heading north.  It will be based on weather conditions for the most part.  A general goal is to be back in the States by the end of November and stop in a location either on the Atlantic side or maybe on the Gulf.  That is something we really don’t need to think too much on at this point. 

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