Issuma is still in France, and George and I are at Newark airport.

Several people have asked how long the preparation has been for this trip. The preparation started in January, with a trip out to France to see the boat (I had it surveyed before I bought it, but I was not able to visit it until afterwards).

The departure date was decided upon in mid-January. The choice of departure date was determined mostly by these things:
* spring tides (the highest tides, about 8 metres or 25 feet in this area) were in the first week of May, and it was not certain if there would be enough water to move the boat from where it was any other time in May than at high water in the first week
* preparation before the first sail was expected to take the better part of a week
* southern routes across the Atlantic (East to West) seem best started before June to reduce the chance of encountering a tropical storm
* northern routes across the Atlantic seem best started later in June or July. If there were problems with the boat that caused delays, attempting to take the southern route in May would allow a fallback plan of taking the northern route in June