The planning is underway

We've started the planning, at the moment we're looking at our route down the south coast. First stop could be 21 hours to Dartmouth... Or 28 to Plymouth!

But who knows what the weather, or the cats, will do

The packages keep arriving

One of the things about organising a trip like this, a long distance cruise for three months, is that all the little jobs one tends to put off, can't be put off any longer

We don't have many months to plan this trip, so everything we might be able to do without for a two week cruise, now make their way onto the to do list.

While I was away in Düsseldorf for work, packages kept arriving in my absence. Kirsty's new Mustos arrived, and while there was nothing really wrong with her old set, they were just too big for her. Likewise there was nothing wrong with the AIS radar, but it hides away at the chart table. After fitting our new chart plotter I wanted to be able to overlay the AIS data. So I bought an AIS receiver from Digital Yacht, their most basic and cheapest model, but it should do exactly what I want it to.

In the mean time Kirsty has ordered the Clyde Cruising Club pilot books for the areas we want to cruise. And I'm getting quotes for fitting the windlass. More packages to arrive

New years day cruise

OK, 20 days late posting this, but anyway....Why do we go sailing? This is why we do it, for moments like this. Bright sunshine, a gentle breeze and music on the stereo. This was Kirsty enjoying New Years Day on board Pixie as we sailed back form spending New Years Eve at Cowes

Birthday Boy

Today it's my birthday, and I got some sailing gloves and the bits to sort out our troublesome furling line. It's a bit of rope we use to wind the sail at the front in and out and since we got Pixie, at the end of May 2009, I've been threatening to do something about it. Now I have the bits it will make the whole process easier to let it out and pull it in.

Charts and stuff

Well it was day two or D minus however many days before the trips starts, but it was another day another bag of bumf from doing research at the boat show. Had a long chat to the nice people at the admiralty, it seems we need lots of charts, which I knew, but I thought we could get better coverage in less charts.....the small chart folios will see us most of the way up the bottom half of Scotland, and then we'll be onto large scale charts and guide books as well as the charts tucked away in our Garmin Plotter.

Had a second look at windlasses, and will have to do a bit more research into chain and all the goodies that go with it.

Planning the route is something that will depend on the weather, when we go, and where we go, we're in the lap of the gods. But we can prepare the yacht as best we can, money permitting.

The light turns green

Well we got the call we were waiting for this afternoon at the London boat show, to quote Yachting Monthly's editor Paul "You've got the green light for your sabbatical". I couldn't believe we got the decision during the boatshow! Ten minutes later I'd bought a new topping lift, and a new Spade anchor. I don't think our 25lb CQR would be up to all the anchoring we're now planning on doing.

Now for everything else that was on the list. We can tick some more things off from our shopping trip around the show on Sunday. It's a great feeing to know that after the months of uncertainty we can finally start planning our cruise. I doubt we'll be the same at the end of it, I really can't wait

Graham