Itinerary

We have received a few requests to put an itinerary on the website. We don’t know exactly where we are travelling or when, but we have a general idea of the areas we will be visiting during the first year or so. The general areas we visit are based on seasonal weather patterns, but the places we stop and how long we stay are based on several circumstances including short term weather forecasts, how much we like the place and how expensive it is, among other things. For now, this is what we are thinking:

We will leave San Diego in early December and head down the coast of Mexico. We are planning on staying in or around La Paz in the Sea of Cortez for the first couple months and then heading across to the mainland in February. Our first mainland port will likely be Mazatlan. We will head south down the coast over the next few months visiting different anchorages and ports. Acapulco will likely be the southernmost port we visit before we head west across the Pacific in April 2011.

After we leave Mexico, our first stop after crossing the Pacific will be the Marquesas. We plan on spending about six months traveling through French Polynesia and other South Pacific islands on our way to New Zealand. We will arrive in New Zealand around November 2011 and spend five or six months in that area exploring both New Zealand and Australia.

After that we have some difficult decisions to make. We can either take the short route through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal or we can travel a really long way around Africa. The short route unfortunately will take us near Somalia. If we go around Africa, we will be spending another month out on the ocean and less time in the Mediterranean. We have some time to figure it out. Hopefully the situation in Somalia will improve by then.

Updated February 2012, New Zealand

A decision weighing on our minds during this time was where we would go from New Zealand. With Andrew’s brother visiting us in February, we had an opportunity to have charts for the next leg shipped to him so he could bring them to us. So, we spent a fair bit of time mapping out the various options, studying the related weather patterns, and looking at our budget. We basically looked at three options: continuing west through the southern Indian Ocean and around South Africa, continuing west through the northern Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and Mediterranean, or working our way back home through the Pacific. The Red Sea route was ruled out quickly due to the piracy issues.

We decided that rather than sailing some hard miles against the prevailing winds of the Pacific, we would continue westward on the route around South Africa. The downside of this route means we have to sail 10,000 miles from May to November, translating into lots of sailing and less time to explore different places. However, a big upside is continuing to travel with the prevailing winds. Our current plan is to leave New Zealand in May and arrive in South Africa by November, with stops in Vanuatu, Australia (Darwin), Indonesia (Bali) and Mauritius along with a few other small islands in between. We will then continue on to Brazil in February or March 2013 if all goes as planned.

Updated November 2012, South Africa

The current plan is to depart Cape Town, South Africa and sail northwest towards the small British island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic. After a short rest, we’ll make the long haul across the Atlantic to French Guiana. At this point, we have decided to skip Brazil due to the high costs and issues with crime. French Guiana will also likely be a quick stop before finishing the Atlantic crossing with the short leg to Barbados.

While we are in the Caribbean, we plan to visit some of the other Windward Islands, including Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Grenada. By arriving in Grenada by June, we should stay just south of the hurricane belt. From there, we plan to head to the Dutch Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) in July and August. Cartagena, Colombia is the next stop on our way to the San Blas Islands of Panama, where we hope to spend at least a month. We would then transit the Panama Canal in October and start making our way up the Pacific coast of Central America as soon as the hurricane season is over in that part of the world.