Raven, Kurt, and Nancy

We met the couple we will be sailing with about 8 years ago, during a strong northerly that kept Raven and Ladybug pinned down for several days in San Juanico, Baja. Since that time we have cruised on Raven up here in BC, visited Kurt and Nancy at their lovely home in the hills north of San Francisco and hosted them on Ladybug II in Mexico. I helped deliver Raven to San Francisco from Victoria and Kurt also joined us for 2 weeks on a rafting trip down the Colorado river that is described in this blog.

So we do know each other fairly well, but 10 months on a smallish boat will be a pretty thorough test of this relationship!

Packing for a 16 Month Trip

In the next 16 months we will be visiting the UK, driving from BC to Mexico, sailing around the Baja and then crossing to New Zealand, visiting tropical islands en route. Once in New Zealand we plan to explore the 2 islands for a few months, car camping and hiking. Raven is no doubt well outfitted and we will stock up on food and drink in Mexico before the crossing, but we must still consider what clothing to bring for the various climates and activities as well as medical supplies to deal with emergencies when help is potentially weeks away. In addition, we need to stay in touch with people back home and entertain ourselves while underway.

It does help that we have done something similar to this, but even so, we have spent many hours over the last couple of months planning, buying equipment, and packing. An added complication is that we are renting our house and although we have left the furnishings, we have had to pack and store everything else. This amounts to a startling number of boxes stuffed into our crawlspace and a modest sized but quite full heated storage locker.

Most of what is going with us - a car load

Following is a rough list of what we are bringing

• Clothing suitable for tropics and hiking in NZ in the spring and summer - bought some nice new hiking boots with good ankle support to help Rani avoid another leg break. The 2 red duffle bags in the picture contain our clothing
• Two inflatable kayaks to allow all of us to explore individually from the boat - we may use these in NZ if they survive that long. These are Intex Challenger K1 kayaks - inexpensive but they get good reviews and our one test paddle indicates they are decently made and perform adequately 
• Full first aid kit including a suite of prescription antibiotics and other medications to deal with infections, leg and arm splints, dressings, ointments, etc. This fills 3 small boxes
• Cameras - SLR and underwater we used on our last trip. We also have 2 smart phones we can use in a pinch if the cameras fail
• Netbooks - 2 for navigation and communications including doing this blog - again left over from our last trip. They survived a few years on the boat and hopefully will last another couple
• Big USB hard drive with ebooks, music, and recorded movies and TV shows + room to back up our photos and movies, ebook readers, batteries and battery chargers
• Snorkeling gear
• Books for reading and reference, playing cards, farkle dice, ukulele and music
• Backpacks and sleeping bags, hiking poles
• Art supplies for Rani's drawing and painting
• Gifts - clothing and other small gifts for giving and trading along the way

It all adds up to maybe 50 cubic feet and when added to what Kurt and Nancy will be bringing will make for a very full carload on the trip from Northern California to Ensenada!

Return to the South Pacific

When we returned from New Zealand in early 2015 after selling Ladybug II (See Ladybug Blog) we did so for two reasons. The first was a financial setback resulting from a poor investment choice I had made. The second was that Rani's parents were not in the best of health and Rani wanted to spend more time with them. At that time, we agreed that we would return to full time work and Rani would spend a good portion of her time in the UK with her family.

Well we are now about four years into this plan and have saved up enough that we can go vagabonding again for a while. The next adventure beckons, but will be balanced with helping to care for Rani's mother.

Our friends Kurt and Nancy who live in California plan to sail their 39 foot yacht, Raven, from Mexico to New Zealand and have invited us along. All of us will sail Raven from Ensenada, Mexico (just south of Tijuana) to La Paz in the Sea of Cortez.

Raven

We will then crew with Captain Kurt on the long open ocean passage to French Polynesia and Nancy will join us there. After a few months in the Marquesas, Tuamotus, and Society islands, we will continue west through the Cook islands, with possible stops in the Cooks and Samoa or perhaps at Palmerston and Niue before arriving in Tonga. From Tonga we will sail south to New Zealand. We look forward to doing some land travel in New Zealand before returning to Canada in 2020