Hello Everyone,

Has anyone here sailed from Miami, Florida to California ?

Please tell me which is the best route (East or West of Cuba)
and best time of year to do this.

How long does this take in a 40' monohull ?

Should I bring a lot of supplies or is it easy to find them along the way ?

TIA

Did you mean to North or South of Cuba instead of East West? The answer
would be North.
Most people head to the Florida Keys, go along the Gulf coast, then
through the Panama Canal. You'll need to hire line handlers & make a
reservation to go through the Canal. http://www.pancanal.com/
Don't go during hurricane season (June 1 through October 31).
Plan on 5 knots per hour (probably a maximum of 100 miles per day) made
good. Measure the distance out and you'll have your answer. Include
days for lay days, sopping, breakdowns, weather delays.

wrote:
Hello Everyone,

Has anyone here sailed from Miami, Florida to California ?

Please tell me which is the best route (East or West of Cuba)
and best time of year to do this.

How long does this take in a 40' monohull ?

Should I bring a lot of supplies or is it easy to find them along the way ?

TIA

Did you mean to North or South of Cuba instead of East West? The answer
would be North.
Most people head to the Florida Keys, go along the Gulf coast, then
through the Panama Canal. You'll need to hire line handlers & make a
reservation to go through the Canal. http://www.pancanal.com/
Don't go during hurricane season (June 1 through October 31).
Plan on 5 knots per hour (probably a maximum of 100 miles per day) made
good. Measure the distance out and you'll have your answer. Include
days for lay days, sopping, breakdowns, weather delays.

wrote:
Hello Everyone,

Has anyone here sailed from Miami, Florida to California ?

Please tell me which is the best route (East or West of Cuba)
and best time of year to do this.

How long does this take in a 40' monohull ?

Should I bring a lot of supplies or is it easy to find them along the way ?

TIA

wrote in news:hsfso1hmstopt3gh51ij367tffn8cmhkov@
4ax.com:

How long does this take

Oh, oh....

This isn't a sailing question. If this is a consideration, take a
plane....

A sailboat isn't a mode of transportation from A to B and has nothing to
do with time-between-points, unless you're in a sailboat race, of course.
Arrival is simply the unfortunate end of a sailing experience, necessary
to replenish money, food, parts that break, etc. Sailing is all that
matters.

Never take anyone out in your sailboat that just HAS to "get there". Buy
him or her a plane ticket and tell them you'll call them IF you ever
arrive at THEIR destination, at all. Never try to be "on time" at some
destination because that forces you to pass up anything of interest in
between where you are now and where they will be when their plane touches
down so they can get on with their lives. On this trip, for instance,
you may fall in love with some place or people you encounter and decide
to stay a "few years" or never make it past the place, at all, which is
just fine for "sailors", but not normal, ratraced humans.

One of the finest sailing experiences you can have is to be 182 miles
from some "place" and become becalmed with the sails just hanging limp
for hours on end drifting with the local stream, miles and miles from
anything. The sea calms to nearly flat, you give it all up and furl it
all in and enjoy your 22 hours of dead calm, giving you time to fix a few
things you've broken while heeled over 30 degrees in that gale a week
ago, get plenty of sleep if, in fact, the wind ever does pick up past 1
knot at some point in the future. You have that book that never quite
got read because of the dock parties, too. Now, becalmed, you have time
to read it while those red snapper are grilling for dinner that got
tangled in the fishing lines you put over the side this morning. After
the dishes are packed away after dinner, we'll take our time checking the
newest WEFAX off the HF from Norfolk. Looks like the sunset is going to
be beautiful, tonight. Maybe the wind will freshen after
midnight...maybe not.

Maybe we'll get to XXX by Friday.....maybe not.

Oh, Wow...Wasn't that the prettiest meteor that just streaked past from
SE to NE! (Yawn)....I'll just lay back a few minutes propped up against
the cockpit and rest my eyes before
turni.....n........in.....g....zzzzzzZZZZ

Thanks for the advice.

According to Google Earth, Panama is located almost directly
to the South of Miami with Cuba blocking the way just below the
Tropic of Cancer. Doesn't this mean I have to sail West if I want
to go between Cuba and Mexico or East if I want to go between
Cuba and Dominican Republic ?

Or are you suggesting that I sail North and go along the coast
of Florida Panhandle, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas,
Mexico, etc. and triple the sailing distance from Miami to Panama ?

"TabbyCat" wrote:

Did you mean to North or South of Cuba instead of East West?
The answer would be North.
Most people head to the Florida Keys, go along the Gulf coast, then
through the Panama Canal. You'll need to hire line handlers & make a
reservation to go through the Canal. http://www.pancanal.com/
Don't go during hurricane season (June 1 through October 31).
Plan on 5 knots per hour (probably a maximum of 100 miles per day) made
good. Measure the distance out and you'll have your answer. Include
days for lay days, sopping, breakdowns, weather delays.

wrote:
Hello Everyone,

Has anyone here sailed from Miami, Florida to California ?

Please tell me which is the best route (East or West of Cuba)
and best time of year to do this.

How long does this take in a 40' monohull ?

Should I bring a lot of supplies or is it easy to find them along the way ?

TIA

Getting around Cuba is the least of your problems. Count on 3 months
minimum

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

wrote in message
...

Hello Everyone,

Has anyone here sailed from Miami, Florida to California ?

Please tell me which is the best route (East or West of Cuba)
and best time of year to do this.

How long does this take in a 40' monohull ?

Should I bring a lot of supplies or is it easy to find them along the way
?

TIA

"Glenn Ashmore" wrote:
Getting around Cuba is the least of your problems.
Count on 3 months minimum

Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my
progress (or lack there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com

You're doing a great job. I tried to visit John's web site
at http://members.bellatlantic.net/~fcsdsg/ but got an error
message saying that it cannot be found.

wrote:

Has anyone here sailed from Miami, Florida to California ?

Please tell me which is the best route (East or West of Cuba)
and best time of year to do this.

How long does this take in a 40' monohull ?

Should I bring a lot of supplies or is it easy to find them along the
way ?

Have you considered another hobby?

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://home.comcast.net/~kerrydeare

Larry wrote:
snip

Never take anyone out in your sailboat that just HAS to "get there". Buy
him or her a plane ticket and tell them you'll call them IF you ever
arrive at THEIR destination, at all. Never try to be "on time" at some
destination because that forces you to pass up anything of interest in
between where you are now and where they will be when their plane touches
down so they can get on with their lives. On this trip, for instance,
you may fall in love with some place or people you encounter and decide
to stay a "few years" or never make it past the place, at all, which is
just fine for "sailors", but not normal, ratraced humans.
snip...

I used to hate it when we would take a new 'passenger' out for their
first (usually last) afternoon sail on the yacht I crewed on. They
always had to be back at the marina in a couple of hours for some other
pressing social engagement. Usually I wouldn't hear about this
rquirement until we were already underway....or I would have told our
skipper.....I'm sitting this one out. If I wanted to rush around, I'd be
out on a stinkpot.

Don White wrote in news:5pDjf.132324$Ph4.4056575
@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca:

I used to hate it when we would take a new 'passenger' out for their
first (usually last) afternoon sail on the yacht I crewed on. They
always had to be back at the marina in a couple of hours for some other
pressing social engagement. Usually I wouldn't hear about this
rquirement until we were already underway....or I would have told our
skipper.....I'm sitting this one out. If I wanted to rush around, I'd
be
out on a stinkpot.



In last year's Gulfstreamer Race from Daytona Beach to Charleston, we all
got becalmed 90 miles S of Charleston after a great run all night in the
Gulf Stream. It went on for hours and the go-getters in the crew got all
antsy over just sitting there. After 6 hours of good rest and listening
to comments about having to go to work on Monday (this was Saturday),
Cap'n Geoffrey made the decision to drop out and we dieseled home. The
calm went on for a lot longer as I watched it on the net. Cap'n and I
would have been just as happy to finish the race as we would have
probably placed fairly good in the cruiser class as most all of them
dropped out, too. It's all part of sailboat racing. "Lionheart" isn't
any kind of racer, but we do have a lot of fun trying to get the big
elephant to go as fast as she can...(c;

Pity we didn't finish what we started....

I usually poll any guests on the harbor cruises, especially those I've
never met, casually mentioning that we might not be back by tomorrow in a
joke. If one is discovered while we're tied to the dock, I mention it to
the cap'n as part of the planning. Once in a while someone will bow out
and everyone aboard thanks them, profusely, for not spoiling the cruise-
to-nowhere....