Elise December Cruise - preparation

Christmas frog traveled with us.
Lunch on deck prior to departure.

I like to take my winter vacation when there's no one else around. That way, you can feel like you're sailing on virgin ground 20 minutes away from the Club. The vacation started with a nice Christmas Gospel concert at the Symphony and put us into a very festive mood. The next day brought us back on Earth as we prepared food, clothing, gear and planned the trip after looking at the weather forecast. The first couple of days were supposed to be blessed by 10-20 knot winds so we decided that we should head out to take advantage of the breeze!

Finally, on the Monday morning, we were ready to leave. As you can see below, we travel light.


Really, not much. France is nicely packed, offshore flares, food and drinks, lifesling and MOB pole, our sailing gear, sleeping bags, books, magazines, camera, baby wipes. The strict minimum.

We needed to set up a couple of extra pieces on the boat to make it offshore ready. We take it out when we race around the Bay because it's heaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaavy.
1) flares, drogue, emergency navigation lights, harnesses and tethers etc...are all required
2) jack lines around the boat so we can clip ourselves onto something solid at night or if things get a little rough. That way, if we do go overboard, we most likely only break a few ribs and dislocate our shoulder.
3) lifesling + strobe + MOB pole all attached and ready to be thrown into the water if the jack lines don't do their job
4) extra gas...it's wintertime and it could get very light so we took three full gas cans with us
5) a lot more food and water, just in case, even though we were planning on breakfast and dinner ashore
6) up-to-date charts + GPS

We also took out our racing sails and replaced them with our cruising sails (and our nice new #3 jib).

I wanted to spend this time, the planning, provisioning, setting up of the boat (we did re-seal the end of the shrouds, check the battery, etc...) are helpful. Nathan had gone offshore on Elise already but I missed all these opportunities over the past year. Before I go on the Pac Cup, I want to know every inch of the boat. In an emergency, I don't want to have to use the GPS to locate the flares or run out of food in the middle of the Pacific - and I would like to select the wine. It forced us to plan around the weather forecast, use this knowledge to determine our sail inventory, etc...

There is only one way to get to know Elise - it is to spend a lot of time with her. On deck and sail-related activities are only one aspect of long-distance sailing. We also need to arrange for as comfortable as possible a hotel, and a safe haven.

As I lovingly dressed up Elise, the wind gently invited us out for a magic evening sail.