Alternative destinations

First I'd planned to visit Saba to dive there. Then the wind was consistently from the North East which made mooring in Saba pretty horrible so we changed plans and aimed for St. Barths instead. When we left on Saturday morning, the wind didn't do much, but later rose and changed to the North, and in the afternoon veered North East. But by then, our target was too far to windward, so we opted for Statia instead.

All of these are pretty close together, so no trouble getting from one to the next. Our next hop was meant to be Oyster Pond in St. Martin, but the North Easterly wind combined with the late hour made us go into Great Bay on St. Martin. Just six Miles closer, but 4 Miles more Westward. It took us 3 days of waiting until the wind had changed enough to finally make it into Oyster Pond.

The upshot of all this is of course the continuous changing of cruising plans and destinations as we go along. We're having a lot of fun exploring different options and I've long started putting in alternate routes into our navigational software so we're never without an alternative.

But tomorrow we're headed for Anguilla, and since we're picking up my brother in law, we'll make that. At least that's our aim and weather permitting, it doens't look impossible. But we have already had to put people on a ferry so as not to rush too much, so our cruising lifestyle remains leisurely. No point getting stressed with deadlines or having to beat to windward if the wind isn't favorable. There's always ferries, planes and cars to get others to come to us.

But we try. It's just a far cry from my trip to Portugal in 2006, when we ended up taking the rough route to meet folks. But I believed then, and do still, there is always an alternative destination on the horizon. It should be every cruiser's motto.