So, it’s always been a silly thing to do – but here I go doing it again – publishing our sailing plans for the coming year or so. Since we’re supposed to be in Patagonia right now but are in fact in New England, take this with a HUGE pinch of salt… Plans on Toodle-oo! set in the sand at low tide…
We’re up in New England enjoying the closeness to Laurie’s family and trying to make good on some previous pledges to take various folk out sailing aboard Toodle-oo! We’ve also had a good haul-out which allowed us to do some much-needed maintenance.
We plan to leave New England in mid-September after the Newport Boat Show and basically follow last year’s schedule – down Long Island – and we would like to spend some time in New York City this time – perhaps staying at 79th Street Boat basin as we did back in 2012.
From there we’ll head down to the Delaware and cross over to the Chesapeake by way of the C&D Canal, hopefully arriving in Annapolis in time for the Ocean Cruising Club’s meet, prior to the Annapolis Boat Show in early October.
We’ll head on down to Norfolk at the base of the Chesapeake, ready for the Salty Dawg Rally to the BVI’s at the beginning of November. It all gets a little hazy from here – we might divert to finish the rally in the Spanish Virgins (Puerto Rico, etc.) or carry on to the BVI’s. Either way, we’ll do much as we did last year, heading on down the island chain to Grenada – and hope to stop at some islands we missed out on last winter.
Then… we’re planning to participate in the Ocean Cruising Club’s Azores Pursuit Rally. An interesting concept whereby boats will set off from anywhere in the world (more than 500 miles from the Azores) at a time of their choosing, with the one to arrive closest to 12 noon on June 18th, with the least amount of engine use, to be declared the most seaman-like – or some such accolade. We certainly don’t expect to be very competitive on this – our goal is to go to the Azores again (one of our favorite destinations so far), and the date works great as it’ll give us plenty of time to try again at cruising Scotland! We’ll probably end the year by overwintering in St. Katherine’s Dock in the middle of London!
2019? Hopefully up to Norway’s Lofoten Islands in the Arctic Circle…
Exciting stuff aboard Toodle-oo! and you can follow it right here!!! Do we get any prizes for actually following a plan?