I hadn’t thought it much, but I haven’t actually seen land for the last 10 days, when I rounded the big corner of Brazil. Since then I’ve been around 100 miles off the coastline all along. So this morning, in the pre-dawn light, I spotted Trinidad on my left, and Tobago on my right. This means I am now officially in the Caribbean Sea.
Although these are the windward islands, the weather forecast for the week has rather light winds every day, near 10 knots mostly, sometimes less, sometimes maybe a little more, so it won’t be a super-fast trip across the bottom of the Caribbean. I am also starting to lose my beloved helpful current, which dragged me along when the winds were light. From now on, I will only get hepful current once in a while, and only up to a knot. My best guess right now is that I will arrive at the Panama Canal next Monday, and will hopefully transit to the Pacific ocean within the week after that.
The direct route from here to the top of Venezuela goes straight through Los Roques islands, and the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). So the decision is whether to sail above them or below them. I think based on the light winds forecast, I will go above them, in hopes of better winds, and not worry about needing protection from wind or waves by sailing below them. And I suppose if I change my mind, I can always zig zag between them.
4/9 8am 11.01N 61.09W 4298nm gone, 1157nm to go