And none too soon, apparently. Last week’s heat wave broke, and we had to find long pants, socks and shoes, and jackets for our early morning departure today.

Everyone has been asking where exactly we are going, so Matthew pulled together this map that shows the route, including the major highlights. Clicking on the push-pins will tell you where we are going next, and when we expect to be there.

There are several components to the trip. We start by crossing Lake Ontario from Kingston/Bath Ontario, where we have been finalizing some last-minute preparations at Loyalist Cove Marina. Thanks to the gang there and their hard work, we are right on schedule. Although we were ready to leave on Saturday September 10th, we were delayed by the bad weather, so we set sail to Oswego NY today, Monday September 12th at 0600 hrs..

Oswego marks the start of the Canal leg of the trip. Last year when we were did this trip in reverse to bring Kinship home we were on a tight timeline and had to race through the canal. We felt we missed a lot that way, so this year we will be taking our time and enjoying the points of interest (and of course, the coffee shops) along the way. We have given ourselves two weeks to do what we did in one last time, motoring down the canal to the Hudson River, then sailing on to NYC.

The next leg of the trip will be on the ocean, travelling down the New Jersey Coast, around Cape May and into Delaware Bay. That will be about 36 hours straight sailing, so we have lined up a couple of extra crew members from a crew bank, to help with the watches. After an overnight to rest up, a quick day-sail through the D&C Canal and down Chesapeake Bay will bring us to Annapolis in time for the Annapolis Boat Show. We loved that show two years ago, and are excited about returning for the seminars and ideas. We will get to meet up with the team from the Caribbean 1500 Rally, and of course drop a pile of money with the vendors!

After the boat show, another day-sail will take us back to Zahniser’s marina in Solomon’s Island Maryland, where we bought Kinship. We will haul her out for a bottom-cleaning and final inspection before sailing to Portsmouth VA to join up with the other 40 or so Rally boats.

The ocean crossing from Portsmouth to Tortolla BVI is scheduled to start November 2nd or thereabouts (weather dependent). It should take is between 10-15 days of straight sailing to get there. For this leg we will be joined by our highly trained and qualified crew members, Lisa and Paul (see our July 18th blog Shakedown Cruise). Sure hope we get a little more wind this next time!

After the round of arrival parties in Tortola, we are on our own, and will decide when and where we go next. We have roughly six months to explore the Caribbean. Our tentative plans are to sail south down the Leeward Islands, stopping at various islands along the way whenever we like what we see.  When we run out of time we will head back north to Tortola to launch the trip back home. We have to be out of the hurricane zone by the end of May, so we expect to arrive back in the USA around then, go back up the Canal and spend the summer sailing in our own back yard, exploring the Great Lakes.

That sums up the “One Year Plan” as it currently stands. Of course, the great part about being retired is that we are free to change those plans on the fly. So keep watching to see how  our “Great Adventure 2016-2017” unfolds!