Arvetis suggested that Mallory and I write about our impending circumnavigation, we liked the idea and though it would be a great for all of those of you who might want to do some extended cruising. We hope to depart early in 2005 and there is a lot of preparation both on the boat and in our lives to prepare to be away and depend on the boat that we live in. We lived aboard at the end of last season, which is not too uncommon but, next year we are going to pretend we are gone to see what effect that has on communications and dealing with stuff "back home".

We thought that we would like to write a little about what is going on in our preparation for the trip, both physically to the boat and in research on routing and deciding where we are going to go and when. We are far from experts and realize there are a lot of sailors in our little harbor that have a great deal of knowledge and expertise to lend. We encourage your comments, and support in any facet of our trip planning and underway.

We hope that we will be able to have the boat ready, and that is a truly tricky concept, for the trip with one more summer and two winters work. Most of the articles say, "Just go" and that's a wonderful idea but I want to know that the boat is ready to go to sea and that we have the spares and tools to repair what is likely to brake along the way.

We are hoping to do some distance racing here as well as some cruising next summer. We both need to know how to sail the boat in all conditions. We also need to understand all the systems and learn to use and maintain them.

There is a lot of safety equipment on this boat that we've never used before. We also are going to go out and set a sea anchor, sea brake, and drogue. We've read that it's best to know how to do each of these things when the sea is calm and the winds are light so we know what to do when we are out at sea in not so friendly conditions. I also hope to help Ben with one of the offshore meetings to do a safety at sea meeting. We will deploy a life raft, fire off flares and smoke canisters (with coast guard assistance and approval). I've been racing for over 25 years and never done any of these things. Thinking along the same lines it's better to learn how to do these things when you don't "need" to do them.

Next month we are going to discuss how we decided on this boat and why it's the right one for us. We were told that once we found the right boat that we would just know, and they were right, but you have to understand where to start looking and understand what your looking at when you go yacht shopping.

We would like to hear from you if there are any aspects of the preparation that you would like to hear about or if this is something you would like to hear from us along the way.