The Four-Week Plan

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  Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Thursday, November 4, 2010

I'm currently reading a book called An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude by Ann Vanderhoof.  It's about Ann and her husband Steve, who decide to buy a sailboat, put their stuff in storage, rent out their house, and leave their careers to sail south for a year, maybe two.  I'm only a few chapters in, but one of the first chapters was entitled The Five-Year Plan, to describe all the measures taken to get prepared, which was then modified to the seven-year plan.

I chuckled. 

About two months ago, Peter started pipe-dreaming the possibility of sailing his and Connor's 30-foot sailboat, Hejira, to Hawaii, starting this fall.  About six weeks ago, the pipe dream became slightly more realistic by instead aiming for the Caribbean for Hejira's first big voyage.  And about a month ago, the dream got out of the pipes when Connor, Peter, and I agreed that we should just make this thing happen.

Now, four weeks later, we sit in Eel Pond in Woods Hole, all ready to depart tomorrow morning.  The general plan is to head for Fort Lauderdale, taking our time and not straying too far from the coast, before heading toward the Bahamas.  Then, who knows?  Despite the scare of an engine exhaust leak earlier this week (good thing Peter is a very capable mechanic), we have evaded any major setbacks for our departure date (knock wood, obviously).  We have plenty of spare parts, tools, safety equipment, and a first-aid kit that is borderline remarkable.  No seriously - we have a skin stapler.

With more than 20 pounds of rice, 15 pounds of rice pasta, 10 pounds of rolled oats, 30 cans of tuna, 30 cans of beans (including a can of Aduki beans? Whatever those area...), plenty of snacks to keep us from grumbling and enough peanut butter to feed a small army, plus so much more, we all feel fairly confident that we won't be needing a major re-stock of our dry storage until Florida - but again, we knock wood.

We'll try to be regular with the updates.  Stay in touch and wish us luck!

~Ellie

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