We are off tomorrow on our 3000 mile sailing journey. We feel ready and excited, grateful to have 2 excellent crew, Tasha Sims and Douglas MacDonald. Most of all we are appreciative of the interest and good wishes (for fare winds of course) from family and friends.

I was trying to remember how and when this idea of sailing across the Atlantic began. I'm not sure. I think it like a "when you give a mouse a cookie" phenomenon. We decided that we wanted to go on an adventure when we retired. We considered a number of ideas, and as we sailed more, decided that our adventure would be sailing related. Then, I think that we decided that we needed to get a boat to have a sailing adventure. I think David brought up the idea of buying a boat in Europe and sailing it back to the US. I thought "we'll see" about the sailing it back. We found our boat and ordered it in October 2018 for delivery April 2020. We planned our retirement dates and continued to weigh the idea of sailing our boat back. I thought maybe, or we could have it shipped after we sailed in Europe or hire a skipper to go with us when we did the crossing. We did more sailing, began to really consider doing the crossing. So, I decided to retire early and crew on a boat doing an Atlantic Crossing. I had a great experience and then said, okay, maybe we can do this. So, here we are.

Over the past week, we have completed our provisioning...



...and found ways to store the food. We now have 5 food hammocks in the saloon, 2 in one unoccupied (by people) aft cabin, baskets of food also in that cabin, baskets of food on the floor of our head, 2 bags hanging from hooks in our head, stores of food in every possible cranny under the floorboards of the boat. We added 10 gerry cans of fuel to the deck since the weather forecast is for very light wind.


I think that Ithaka will be a little low in water for the first few days and we will have to have hearty meals to compensate. Importantly, I added a fishing rod and reel to augment the hand line I have. I even videotaped a neighboring sailor explaining to me how to use it.

We have a 1 pm start with about 120 other boats (there is a separate start for the racing division and for monohulls). After following the usual checklist for when we head offshore, we will leave the dock ready to enjoy a no news-cycle, non-googling, wind, weather, and boat life few weeks. Given the very light wind for the first 5 or so days, I have changed my prediction from 20-21 days to 21-25 days (December 12-16) for completing the crossing. We certainly have enough food for 30 days if needed.


You can follow our route if you wish by going to:
https://share.garmin.com/Sailingithaka
or going onto the ARC website and see our boat and all of the other boats on our rally as well. We are in the ARC rally and you can select team and put in Ithaka to only see our boat.
https://www.worldcruising.com/arc/eventfleetviewer.aspx

We hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving Celebration. We plan to - our menu is roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. Maybe next time, you will consider joining us!