The Plan (updated)

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The Plan

From house, to flat and boat, to living on boat – in just over a year – or it will be by December.  We had always planned to go at the back end of our careers,  when one day in Autumn 2010 when my shoulders were particularly knotted I said – I know let’s sell the house and buy a boat now. He agreed.  And here we are.

So we have 3 years  more to get her ready, learn all there is to know about her and save, save, save.  We will be leaving from the South West Coast, take our time with the coasts of France, Northern Spain and Portugal then into the Med.  Who knows how long we’ll be there or where we’ll go afterwards.  We have friends who have just left for the Caribbean, friends who want to go to the Med as well and friends we have still to meet. Everyone’s at it and we’ll keep you updated as to how we are doing…

 

Addendum One

Well that didn’t take long, After speaking to a lot of people over the last 6 months, we have now decided that we may have to alter our original Plan, its still not cast in stone and is still under heavy discussion, but we may not have a change of plan but more of a change of route, what this space…..

Addendum Two

Well i think we are universaly agreed were heading west! haven’t got a definite leave date cast in stone, but basically once the boats ready and we have sufficient funds were off  around the world!

Addendum Three

Well no so much an addendum, but more of an update. For anyone who has been following this blog, would soon realise that we started this in 2010 with a 3 year plan, so therefore we should have been long gone by now, well at least by 2014. Well anyone that has followed one of these “sail away” blogs knows that when you set a timescale from the start, it invariably gets doubled or even sometimes tripled, somethings always take a lot longer than anticipated. However we are at least from the boat perspective nearly there, just a few little odds and sods left, all the big stuff has been done. All we need to do now is get the lump sum in the bank and we can leave, we have put a new flag in the ground of April 2018. If we leave it much longer than that bits are going to start falling off and i don’t mean the boat!!

Addendum Three (update)

Well thats it the final Plan is now cast in stone, were booked on the 2018 ARC+ from Gran Canaria to St Lucia via the Cape Verdes, we leave Swanwick (our home port) on the 15th April, make our way down the south coast to Dartmouth, attend my nieces wedding in Cardiff in May, then a nice slow meander down the French and Spanish coast, to arrive in the Canary Islands for the beginning of October.

The Route (so far)

We haven’t really got any locations cast in stone, but we know where we would like to stop off on the way and where we would ideally like to be spending christmas 2018.

As we mentioned earlier we have a wedding in May which we have now decided to attend from our home berth and then leave there a little later (9th May) down to Falmouth across to Breast, down the inside of the Bay of Biscay, visiting La Rochelle, Bordeaux and Bayonne (sort of May/June) nip across the corner to Spain, San Sebastian, Bilbao/Santander round the corner into the Rias (July/August) then down the Portuguese coast taking in Porto, lisbon etc(September) and finally across the mouth of the Mediterranean to the Canaries, Lanzarote for the start of October. Then join the ARC+ for our journey to the Cape Verdes (November) arriving in St Lucia early December, with the intention of spending Christmas of the coast of Martinique…… and thats about as far as we have got for now!