Christine and I are actively getting ready: we have home school materials for the kids (9,6 and 4), are planning provisions, and I am spending weekends installing and upgrading gear on the boat.

Our rough plan is to sail from Seattle to Port Townsend in early May, spend a few days with our riggers. We will move on to Port Angeles where we will pick up Dale, Christine's father, who will join us for the leg to Hawaii. From there to Neah Bay to wait for our weather window. We expect arrive in Hawaii in early June. After a short break, we will sail to French Polynesia where we hope to spend a little more time. These first two legs will take around 20 days each. Yes, we will sail at night, and one of us does have to be awake at all times. From there, our plan is to island hop on short (2-4 day passages) through the Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga, Somoa, Fiji, New Caledonia, and land somewhere on the Queensland Coast to wait out the cyclone season. Around April of 2011, we will begin working our way back through the Pacific Islands and home. This is a rough route, riding the trade winds across the Pacific. I am sure that weather patterns will alter our route and that the people we meet and experience may also alter our plans

We did extensive maintenance and upgrades on our 25 year old boat, including new rigging, new bowsprit, several new sails, new electronic instruments (radar, chart plotter, wind instruments, etc.), a desalinater, more efficient refrigeration, HAM radio, new VHF, new liferaft, new dinghy, new batteries, and of course, bottom paint. Not all of these are complete, and we have a lot to do before May.