Two weeks to go - what were we thinking?

A vacation from my vacation

I just got back from an epic adventure in Hood River windsurfing/biking/golfing (all done very poorly) with my old compatriots. It's been 18 years since we last got together, so things had changed a bit, but it was great to get back on the water after I found the right combination of gear to float my sorry ass. My friends somewhat enjoy terrorizing me by taking me places where I don't belong. It used to be downhill skiing (they were experts, I was a noob) but this time it was a mountain bike ride (same deal - I haven't even ridden a bike for 10 years). Anyway, I survived and there were great wild blackberries at the end of the ride, so it wasn't a total loss.

Two weeks?

Now, we're roughly 2 weeks from shipping off for unknown shores and it's finally coming home to me that we're really going to do this. Don't know where I've been for the last 3 months, you'd think I'd be aware of the departure date creeping up, but suddenly, it's almost here. The last 3 months have been nonstop work to get the boat ready and fix things that I've broken. I've been so immersed in getting through my list of things to do that I haven't really been thinking about the bigger event. Now I can really feel the, "what the heck do we think we're doing" with this big milestone coming like a freight train. It didn't look so scary off in the distance.

Beth is dealing with her last two weeks of work (only 6 work days left!). She's amazingly busy for someone who won't be there in a few days. I'll have to explain the concept of "quitting her job" to her. Time to shift gears and get focused on the boat/journey preparations that she needs to do.

The good news is that I feel we have a pretty good handle on the remaining tasks. I'm now trying to sell the cars, which is a little unpredictable, but I'm sure it will work out. Most of my big projects are done and the boat is stuffed with stuff. Not sure where the windsurfer I bought in Oregon will go, but I'll fit it somewhere where it will be inconveniently in the way.

Grand Plan Version 0.09

So, everyone wants to know what we're going to do next. For the first time in my sailing life, I don't really have any clearly defined plan. When we brought the boat up from South Carolina last year, I had it all figured out on an Excel spreadsheet. Now, all I know is that sometime in September we'll leave the dock and head to NYC. I'd like to anchor by the Statue of Liberty like our buds on Makai (another cruising cat with kids that we ran into) did, so hopefully that will come off. Then, we have to transit the New Jersey coast and get to somewhere around Cape May. From there, we'll work our way up the Delaware Bay and stumble into Annapolis - hopefully around Sept 20th. From that point, things are very vague. We will be in Norfolk for October 10-17 as I zip back west for a wedding, and then we might move south, but we're restricted from going south of Cape Hatteras until Nov 1 (end of hurricane season). Then things become so fuzzy that a block of granite would be easier to peer through. Florida by December and maybe Bahamas by January. We'll have to make a decision in March if we head south to Grenada or north back to the USA to avoid hurricane season. That's about all we know for now. Stay tuned for more.