World cruising routes ... Windows of opportunity

One of the things people in the real world don't get about people in the sailing world is that if you want to go someplace it is a very seasonal thing... You just don't point your boat at Europe and go. For instance, right now is the time to go to Europe from the East coast or Caribbean and not a very big window as Hurricane season (June through November) effectively closes it. So in truth you are looking at a couple of months and if you are not able to go right now you pretty much have to let the calendar roll around till this time next year... 747's make a lot of sense!

Which is where I am at the moment... I'd really like to sail back to Europe now but as I have some commitments and suchlike which I can't finish up here in time to make the window so I'm caught here in the Caribbean for another year. Not such a bad thing as we are going to use extra time to hit some of our favorite places, find some new ones and I'm sure Europe will still be there next year...




Which is a roundabout way of mentioning the fact that we will be doing some extended voyaging in the near future and that the new version of Jimmy Cornell's World Cruising Routes just came out! This book is in its sixth edition and in a highly updated form with a lot of new stuff much improving what was already very good. One might also note that a lot of the time/sailing windows in the new edition are now shorter as a result of global warming and weather pattern shifts we seem to be having. Required reading for anyone in need of crossing oceans.