The Making of an Adventure

It started as “so … lets sail to the South Pacific!”  Now that sounds simple, surely?   The more we talked about it, the more achievable it seemed. Of course, the usual obstacle of $$$’s raised it’s ugly head.  “How will we possibly afford this?”  Well, we still don’t know the full answer to this challenge (or several others) exactly, but the question is:  “How do you eat an elephant?”  The answer of course is: “One bite at a time!”

As our dream adventure morphed into a “plan” it soon became apparent that we had to break the tasks down into small manageable chunks.  We decided to split the project into Phase I and Phase II.  Everything as “one big piece” resulted in us not being able to effectively start.  Where does one start a massive project like this afterall?

Phase I

• Select and purchase a “project-boat” during the summer of 2013.
• Bring it into excellent “coastal cruising” condition by the summer of 2014.
• If we are unable to move forward to phase II then sell the boat.

The start of phase II would depend on several things:

• Our health such that we could contemplate leaving on a rigorous trip.
• The boat being fully paid.
• Enough $’s to fit it out for offshore, an expensive proposition.
• Enough projected savings to support us for at least 1 year after leaving.

Our plans are to do a shakedown cruise (probably around Vancouver Island again) later next summer (September 2014) and then finish the rest of the work over the following winter and then hopefully leave May 5th, 2016.  Our plans on routing are still somewhat flexible, but will include San Diego, then onwards to Marqueses, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Cook Islands and Tonga. We will hole up for the summer  hurricane season in the South Pacific (Nov – March) in New Zealand where we will try and get some temporary work to replenish the $kitty. The following year, who knows?  Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands are definitely on our bucket list.   All in all about 20,000 nautical miles will be covered which is roughly the same as the circumference of the earth!

Arabella – Doesn’t our little ship have the look of the “lonely sea-roads of the earth” and “South Pacific” written all over her?