Whee! She said yes!

[Amgine]

So! in August or thereabouts, if the scheduling works with my oral surgeon's scheduling, and if I get the rigging replaced and primary systems upgraded as minlmally necessary, I will be sailing to Hawaiʻi!

And yes, I'm slightly intoxicated having indulged in a couple of celebratory rum and cokes.

The plan, however mystical it is at the moment, is to head up and around Vancouver Island with the family sometime in late July or early August. Spend a week on the west coast of the island heading out into the Pacific and back in, testing the systems (and my personal skills.) And, if everything shakes out as expected, ship the family back to Vancouver and jump offshore. Probably from Uclulet or Tofino.

Barring serious issues, the primary route would be a single offshore passage of 24 days (plus or minus a month) to Hilo. Or a passage to San Francisco, and then a second leg off to Hilo. Or, if things begin melting down (and/or I lose my nerve) a long series of heart-in-throat bar crossings all down the west coast of North America.

Once in HI, mostly I just pull the boat onto the hard for storage until sometime next winter [pleaseohpleaseohplease during the 2010 winter olympics in Vancouver so I can avoid the complete and utter stupidity of such an event], when I work on the boat and get it ready for a family vacation followed by a long passage back to the west coast of Canada (or, maybe, a somewhat more distracted route downwind...)

And she said it would be fine, would work well with some of her goals, as long as I could promise to be back in June 2010 (last kid's graduation from school.)