Preparing for Journey

We have a lot to get done in the next few weeks. Preparing to set sail for a year has turned out to be quite different than coming down for a few weeks. First of all, when we come down for a few weeks, all the work has already been done by Barecat Charters, the company that charters our boat for us.

So after we arrived, we spent a few days getting reacquainted with "Eyes of the World." I hadn't seen her in nearly a year - and Rick hadn't in over nine months. She looked great! We had a new "stack pack" made, which is a fancy word for the main sail cover, as well as the teal boot stripe replaced with a matching dark blue.

We have lots to get done before we can leave. We bought a compressor to fill our dive tanks - so we have to go to St. Thomas to pick that up and then come back to Tortola to have Mike and Tom at Barecat Charters help us install it. Both Mike and Tom have been fantastic to us while we've been here!

Well, we're leaving the US!

After several false starts, we've actually left our home outside Washington, DC too live on our boat for a year. We were successful in getting our two Cocker Spaniels, Cooper and Coco, onboard our American Airlines flight from Washington Dulles to San Juan, PR. For those of you that we've talked to recently - we had quite a bit of angst about whether we'd be able to get these dogs down to the islands.