Ready to Go

Last few days have been a whirlwind of frantic activity trying to get the boat ready and organise for Nic and Calley to leave but I think at last we are just about there barring anything catastrophic happening.

Nic and Calley flew out yesterday to New York and at the same time most of the crew arrived.  Nic has done a great job over the last few days getting the boat provisioned and ready below decks.  We have enough food for a small army.  The freezer is packed full of prepared meals and we have other foodstuffs packed in most available spaces.  It has been a bit tense as she has had to organise her trip aswell but we are pretty well prepared.  Sam and I will really miss her and Calley onboard but I will especially miss all the things Nic does to help out and her support while we are sailing.  (One thing is the editing of the blog so there may be more than the normal amount of spelling and grammatical errors.)

Our last look at the BVI's

The crew is made up of friends and relatives and its fantastic that they have been able to take time off to help us get the boat across the Atlantic.  So we have a total crew of seven onboard including Sam and myself; they are Lars, who is my brother; Steve, a friend from Australia who sailed with us last year from St Lucia to Grenada;  Gordon, a friend from Scotland and keen sailor, Andy, a friend who I met sailing in Malaysia and Clemmie who is the daughter of a friend of mine from university days in Scotland too long ago to think about.  Everyone is raring to go even though a couple are trying to get into the correct time groove.

The crew for Left to Right: Steve, Sam, Gordon, Andy, Clemmie and Lars in front

Am waiting for the professionals to give us the weather forecast but from my untrained eye it looks perfect to go on Tuesday.  So we intend to head off today for a days sailing and end up in Virgin Gorda for the night.  We will then carryout clearance formalities tomorrow morning, do the final fuel and water top up and hopefully get away by midday.

It has been very busy the last week and I am glad, relieved, and anxious all at the same time but will be glad to get underway.  Next blog will be from Bermuda hopefully in a weeks time unless we decide to continue on to the Azores with favourable weather.

There is now a link at the top of the page which will take you to a map showing our latest reported position which will be getting updated daily so you can track our progress.