Gone Sailing

The time has finally come for Patrick and myself to set sail. Tomorrow morning will be the big day when we start our 50 (more or less) day voyage to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
All the legalities have been taken care of and as of 1pm this afternoon, according to Immigration, we are no longer in South Africa. WhoooooHooo! All that we need to do now is fill up with water and diesel and sail out of CT Harbour. Too excited!!!

(It'll be much simpler and make more sense to check out Google Earth to see the locations of our route) Once we leave CT our first port of call will be in St. Helena, 12 days into the trip. We'll have a 48 hour stop-over which give us enough time to take a tour of the famous exile island. We keep heading NW towards the Brazilian coastline where we keep a close eye on the weather systems to avoid any pesky hurricanes. If all is clear, we'll keep sailing along the coast til we get to the Caribbean where our first planned stop will be in St. Lucia. The skipper knows someone who can hook us up with diving gear for a little 3 day holiday. When duty calls once more we'll be heading towards St. Maarten and then directly to Fort Lauderdale via the Virgin Islands and Bahamas.

This is the plan so far and it is very difficult to say when we're going to cross the Equator and what the skipper and Mate have in store for us! Nevertheless, a huge learning curve awaits and I am excited, relieved and ready to get this trip underway. It's been a long time coming and it seems daunting to some, yet we have discovered a new way of life that we'll make work for us.

So, ciao for now. Please keep us posted too!