We’re now about a week from leaving. It’s difficult for me to believe, but we’re STILL not done buying stuff and making arrangements! We’ve had 9 months! Sheesh!

We’ll leave Anchorage on 21 April, on that “red-eye” flight to Seattle, then to Oakland. We’ll stay with LaVerne, Conni’s dad, for a day or so, packing some items that I had shipped there. Ship to Alaska, then turn around and haul them back to California..No, don’t think it’s a good idea. They’re trinkets but important ones and we’ll just leave room for them.

From Oakland, we fly to Los Angeles, then on to Papeete, arriving on 25 April. We’ve hired a ship’s agent to help with the paperwork: Laurent Bernaert of Polynesian Yacht Services (http://polynesiayachtservices.com/index.html). For a reasonable charge, he’ll get our duty-free-fuel document, help us haul our stuff from the airport, and other tasks. In addition, he’ll complete all of the odious paperwork that needs to be done when one brings into Tahiti several thousand dollars worth of boat supplies.

We’d rather not stay in Papeete since we have a lot of work to complete on the boat, but we shall if we must. Our “druthers” are to fly on to Raiatea that same day (we arrive in Papeete in early morning), rent a car, and haul our stuff to the boat. In theory, all of the work that we wanted done has been completed and I sincerely hope that it has. If all we have to do is re-commission the boat and splash her, it’ll be the easiest trip ever. Too good to be true…..

We’ll sail in French Polynesia for a month or so, taking in Bora Bora, Moorea, Tahiti, and other islands. Our crew mate, Nate Ziegler, will join us with a week to go, and we’ll depart French Polynesia and sail for 6 days to the Cook Islands: Rarotonga and Aitutaki, to name the two more well-known ones. Nate will leave us there and return to the US, having seen some great places and helping us through our first long crossing of the leg. Do “Google” these two islands and tell me what you think. They’re beautiful.

From there, Conni and I will sail to the Kingdom of Tonga, (992 miles, so about 10 days). We were originally going to leave the boat there but Wings would have to be in the water and that’s not to our liking. The real issue was the difficulty of flying from Tonga to the US! We’d have left Wings, probably, near the northern island of Vava’u, a beautiful island with mediocre services.

There used to be a good and reliable New Zealand-based airlines but the Chinese gave Tonga three aircraft that are neither FAA nor EU certified. This caused the NZ-based airlines to quit their business there and RealTonga (the royal airlines: it’s a kingdom, you remember) has not proven itself to be reliable. Conni gave up after a marathon day of trying to make arrangements.

Fiji: only 500 miles (5 days of travel) gets us to Fiji, an ex-British colony. They speak English, they have GREAT air transportation, and some of the finest marine services in the Pacific. For boat storage, one can pay extra and have a sailboat stored in the ground! The have slots cut into the sand, with old tires around the opening. A lift gently places the vessel’s keel in the slot and the boat’s hull sits on the tires. She absolutely can’t fall! Very cool and I can’t wait to see it done. We’ll stay at the Vuda Point Marina (http://www.vudamarina.com.fj) and have made arrangements. Their international airport has free shuttle service between the marina and airport, and we will fly DIRECTLY back to the US from there. What could be easier?

We still have packing issues, but they’re minimum and nothing that mere money won’t solve. We each have clothing, although not much, but we have LOTS of supplies and equipment that must go with us, and awaiting us in Oakland is a stainless steel lifting device for our new outboard. At 5-ft tall, it will have to go as excess baggage, as will at least one “blue box”.

We’re very excited about seeing all of these new places, and hoping against hope that the work that we have requested has been competently completed.

Our crew mate, Nate, is a welcomed addition for the first long crossing. We’ve sailed with him on a local racing boat, Williwaw, and have known him for a few years. He’s an engineer, outdoorsman, and gentleman. We think that he’ll do well.

So, that’s the plan. As we get closer, I’ll try to keep everyone appraised of things.