The End is in Sight!

This is a very bittersweet post to begin writing.

Today was my last day with students, some of whom I've taught for two consecutive years. I'm so proud of the accomplishments they made this year, and feel very fortunate to have been with such a great group of Grade 3's. There were lots of mixed emotions as we said goodbye today - still with social distancing and no hugging. I hope that when the students return in August things may begin to look a little different.

That's the bitter part of today - the SWEET part is... the end is very much in sight! Our last contractual day of work is this Friday; so, three more days of work and then... boat life for the foreseeable future!

Just a quick update on where we are at: our plan is to leave St. Maarten (weather, waves, and wind depending) on Thursday, June 17th. We've still got a few t's to cross and i's to dot before then, but things are slowly falling into place. We're tidying things up at our campus apartment, going through car inspections, and slowly but surely making the move onto Panta Rhei.

Our plan is to sail south through the islands, rather than taking a straight shot south from St. Maarten. Our ultimate destination is Curaçao, one of the "ABC" islands (together with Aruba and Bonaire), which is out of the hurricane belt. If we were to set sail directly from St. Maarten, it would take us about 5-6 consecutive days to reach Curaçao. Instead, we're going to "island hop" our way down. Our plan looks a little bit like this:

St. Maarten --> Antigua (91 nautical miles)

Antigua --> Dominica (103 nautical miles)

Dominica --> St. Lucia (93 nautical miles)

St. Lucia --> St. Vincent & the Grenadines (58 nautical miles)

St. Vincent & the Grenadines --> Curaçao (453 nautical miles -- OOOOOFFF!)

Here's a link to our route:

https://on.windy.com/55mjk

If all goes well (fingers, toes, and eyes crossed) we'll arrive to Curaçao within a week(ish) - probably more on the 'give' side than the 'take' side timewise. We'll have four days of day-sailing (of about 16-18 hours sailing each, with a nice short little 7-8 hour sail to St. Vincent) and we have permission to anchor overnight at each destination. We'll fly a Q-flag (quarantine flag) and are not allowed to leave our boat. However, I'm sure that the break and being able to have a full night's sleep will be very much appreciated! For our long trip from St. Vincent to Curaçao we'll be day and night sailing, and will need to take watch shifts. Fingers crossed we will have our sea legs by then and feel a bit more confident (I should speak just for myself!) to pull off a 4-day / night trip.

*Don't worry, we don't plan on smashing into each of these islands with our boat! This is just a rough sketch to show our stops along the way. :)

This Thursday is our big moving day where most of our things will head to the boat, and we'll be out of our apartment and car-less by Monday. Then it's dinghy and boat life for us! We are going to soak up the luxuries of our apartment for the next few days - AC, internet, flushing toilets, showers... ahhh such luxuries!

That's all for now, folks! We'll be sure to post one last update before we leave St. Maarten. Sending hugs to you, faithful reader!

XO

Toni