Passage Plans for 2006

Well, as I type this it is the 13th of August and the latest plan is to join the ARC. Any correlation between the date and the announcement . . . I wonder? I don't know, but for now I will be put on a waiting list. Unexpectedly, however I look at it, I will have spent a year in the Canaries and most of that at anchor or tied up at dock. Arrrgh. The new engine probably won't be in, tested and completed by the end of September. That leaves October to bed the engine in and delay leaving town while I still have a warrantee. November looms large. Decisions, decisions and to complicate the matter more I seem to have problem tearing myself from the Islands. This plus a very old friend’s wedding in Vancouver beginning of December is leaving the poor old skipper’s head spinning. Will the good ship Compromise sail on . . . ? In, I believe, 1974 she was commissioned to sail the Atlantic but she never set sail. Am I battling some cosmic force here or am I just beset by doubt. Only the future will tell. . .

In the mean time the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers fills the void. 2800 miles from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. A fixed schedule and a list of provisional conditions of entry and safety requirements 5 pages long.

The passage report does not look very promising. Click here for the passage summary. The route takes you south first heading south to the Cape Verde Islands. This is the optimal trade wind route. Conservatively the passage will take 30 days, which if we account for an average of an extra knot could be shaved down to 24, but is it worth it. . .? Yachts arriving in St. Lucia after the 21st of December will be out of the competition. If the passage is slow Christmas could be spent at sea just a day away from shore.