Monday, April 1, 2013

It Is Spring ... SOMEWHERE!

Who wouldn't want to spend their summer here?
I will greatly miss my garden!
The calendar says it is Spring. But not here in Michigan! The temperatures have been way below normal for this time of year. As we continue to get the house ready for sale, the weather has caused delays on several projects. It will be officially available on April 1st. This is a huge step and I am not sure how I really feel. I suspect Dennis will come home one day and find me in a melt down!

Hopefully it will attract an offer soon after it is listed. The really big task is actually moving everything. Since we are not buying another place right now, I have to really trim down what to store and what's to GO! It is much harder than I ever thought it would be. I am sure other cruisers have had similar challenges when selling their land home to move on board full time. Some rent out their homes, but with our children spread from the west coast of the US to London, UK, we are not sure where we will finally land.

Here is the route. We go west from St. Lucia
to the Panama Canal.
NOW FOR THE FUTURE: We are busy scheduling crew for different legs of our circumnavigation. And planning the move aboard and all of the projects we want to complete before we release the dock lines. We are very happy to have some former crew members sailing with us as we really enjoy their company. Ron, Tom and Stuart are crewing for the Caribbean 1500. Then Ron and Tom are doing later legs as well. Hopefully Stuart and his wife will join us somewhere in the South Pacific. There are still a few legs with open slots.


One of the photos taken by SV Totem crew
Of course, my brain is trying to get a handle on the task of provisioning for the longer legs (15-30) days when there aren't any Costco or super markets. I wonder how much canned tuna and chicken we will consume. Hopefully we will have a lot of fresh (as in really fresh) fish. I can't even picture what provisioning will be like in the islands of the South Pacific.

Soon I will have a chance to see our friend Behan who has been sailing the Pacific Ocean for several years with her husband and three children. The provisioning topic is at the top of my list. You can follow their travels at http://sv-totem.blogspot.com and see their amazing photos. They are getting to know the people on the remote islands not visited by the World ARC Rally. Their children are having a wonderful adventure. Check out the blog to read the interesting stories.