And Now It Really Starts!

Well, we've spent the last few days in Key West, making final preparations for the first big leg of the trip.  It's been amazing how long everything takes, and how much we still had to do.  It didn't help that Dave had to do a repair up the mast, 70 feet up in the air, with the boat rolling from side to side.  I know I have to get used to situations like that, but I was almost sick to my stomach watching him up there for about an hour and a half.  Luckily he was able to make the repair and come back down safely.  Needless to say, he was the spectacle of the Marina, with Benjamin counting the number of spectators (I think he said it was 67 or something!).

So now we've done a final grocery shop, final download of all apps onto all devices (weather and routing apps, that is!), downloaded weather forecasts, charged all devices, stowed anything that might go flying and that we don't readily need, transferred money to our agent in the Galapagos Islands, caught up on emails and enjoyed the last moments of fast internet access for a while!

Tomorrow morning early we'll fuel up, and then head out toward the Dry Tortugas, about a 70 mile trip.  Depending on weather we'll stay there for a day or two, and then the next leg starts.  That will be the approximately 800 mile trip to Panama, and should take us about 7  days.  It will be day and night, with just Dave and I splitting the night watches.

A number of people asked us what our route will be, and I realized that I never did really clarify.

We'll head to Panama and hope to transit the Panama Canal mid-May.  Once through the Canal, we'll head to the Galapagos Islands.  That will be our last stop before the really big crossing, the 3,000 mile journey across the Pacific Ocean.  That will take about 3 weeks.  Once we've crossed the Pacific, we'll explore French Polynesia and the South Pacific Islands, and make our way to New Zealand, where we need to be by December 1st.  We'll sit out the Southern Hemisphere cyclone (hurricane) season in New Zealand, and hopefully we'll be able to do some exploring there.

Then about this time next year, we'll leave New Zealand and head back into the Pacific.  We'll make our way toward Australia and over the top of Australia around August next year.  Then we have another big crossing...this time the Indian Ocean, and we'll head to Mauritius/Reunion/Madagascar/maybe Seychelles...all to be determined, but ultimately we'll be in South Africa at the end of 2017.

In early 2018 we'll start heading back across the Atlantic toward South America and then into the Caribbean and back home to Florida.   Well, that is the plan, anyway!  And we all know what they say about the best laid plans...!!

Since we will not have access to the internet for a while we will not be able to make any updates to the blog.  We will send updates to Dave's family via our satellite connection, and have asked his sister, Kim, to occasionally post an update on where we are.

So, until Panama, farewell!

Excited to get going

Sorry, one last sunset in Key West!