Introduction

September 2016: Brad, Lynn, Anna, Isabelle, Avery (and Walter!) leave our home in Swarthmore to sail for the year on Baila!

Here's the deal: in 2012 we sold our Caliber '28 to move up to Baila, our Catalina '42 with the hopes of carving out a year to sail with our 3 daughters.  

After lots of routine maintenance and upgrades to the boat balanced with the typical hectic suburban life and work schedules,  we concluded that this wouldn't happen unless we simply pick a date and do it.  After all, with the age range of eleven to four years old, there is a finite window during which all 3 girls are actually willing to be seen with us.   Are we ready?  Far from it.  Permit me to share a glimpse of our global to-do list: 

-captain's license

-install new chartplotter/radar
-Stabilize arch

-install solar panels  

-install new house-battery bank

-install desalinator/water maker

-prepare for homeschooling our kids

-get the house prepared for rental

-teach the dog how one urinates/deuces on a square of astroturf.  Seriously.  He learns best by example. 

(plus about 200 other 'jobs'). 

The prime directive: Brad, Lynn and the girls on the boat with warm temps and clear water.  The latest working version involves a slow trip down the ICW to Fla where we will regroup in Marathon Key for a few weeks before crossing to Cuba.  After 2 months there we will sail to the Bahamas and hope to get off the beaten track to explore some of the more remote locations in the 700 island archipelago.  And worry not- the girls won't be completely feral. We will be home schooling (yes we still believe in vaccinations) to keep them academically current.   But our real hope is that they learn far more from the surrounding coral reefs, navigational exercises and cultural exposure than they do from their 1-2-3-Math books.  

There you have it.  Lots to do and we are chugging along slowly checking off to-do boxes.  It's a reality now and we're even expanding our kids' culinary repertoire by introducing more bean dishes into home meals (thanks to some cruising friends' report that out of 365 dinners on board approx 361 of them feature some variation of the common bean).   Perhaps we can find a use for methane?  We could be so carbon neutral.  

So, having just checked off another box on the list ('set up blog'),  let me note that we'll periodically update this as we approach our leave date.  We hope for this to serve as a journal of sorts so please forgive our silliness or perhaps overly dramatic entries.  As the father of three girls I have accepted, embraced, ingested and even periodically excreted drama.

Stay tuned (if you want to be updated by email when we post, look to right on the screen and input your email to 'follow'),

-Brad, Lynn, Anna, Isabelle, Avery, and Walter. 

SV Baila