All kinds of animals migrate throughout the year. Most are in search of food, breeding grounds, or better climates. Well, right now, from the comfort of our boat, we have been watching one of the annual migrations.

Each day we watch a number of sailboats sailing by us, all heading south. It’s called the hurricane season migration as cruisers who have been enjoying the Leeward and northern part of the Windward Islands that make up the West Indies, head south. We are getting into the hurricane season now. The latest prediction is for a more active than normal season. However, on the positive side, they are predicting that the storms and hurricanes will mostly reside above 20 degrees North. That is above the West Indies. If that holds true, we may end up having a great cruising summer.

We tend to be contrarians when it comes to cruising. We like to stay away from where the masses of cruisers congregate. Thus, it only makes sense that as most of the cruisers head south, to get out of the historical storm paths, and we head north.

Now we are not being reckless or foolhardy. We will be spending most of our time in the mid to southern parts of the West Indies. Plus, we are keeping a close eye out for the development of tropical depressions forming out in the mid-Atlantic. It is from these that tropical storms and hurricanes spawn from. If it looks like a tropical storm is forming and heading in our general direction, we will head south and in a day or two, be well enough away from its track.

We are looking forward to enjoying our summer in the West Indies. Without so many other cruisers around, we will have more spacious anchorages. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we will come across some of our cruiser friends but we think most of them here are also heading south. We have some land based friends coming to join us while we are here and are looking forward to sharing this great cruising ground with them.