After an intensive period of preparation, step 1 of our adventure has been taken and that's it ... the flight of Mira and the girls to Toronto for a family visit to Teun and his kids.

The past few weeks have been extra intensive due to the uncertainty about how long the boat repair will take. It has been going on for 4 weeks and is just not finished yet. That is why Toine will stay at home for another week. With a little more time to finish his work properly.

Intensive by the amount of subjects that are playing there. Closely following the progress of the boat repair, completing the work well, leaving our house neatly behind and saying goodbye to family, friends and colleagues with very nice and warm words. Heartwarming and what a wealth that feels like! That too is a special side of going away for a year.

For Eline also pretty intense through a week of sailing camp with little sleep, immediately followed by a week of camping with friends in Renesse and immediately after that yesterday saying goodbye to her best friends. An attack on her body and now she has a severe cold. She sleeps a large part of the flight. Marinthe starts our adventure the most rested. After weeks of fun filled with fruit picking with Tess, participating in a tennis tournament with a second place in DE4 and sailing with the Indian Summer for a few days, she is ready for it. She watches movies the whole flight and has no sleep at all. And Mira, I'm tired because of shorter nights, but don't have the rest to sleep on the plane yet. That will come next week, I guess.

It's still hard to imagine what's going to follow and we look at it step by step. With the strategy (especially Toine can do that very well) not to look further ahead than necessary. And certainly not to go into too much detail on a step that we are far from ready for. Toine doesn't look more than a day ahead in this day and age. That's challenging enough as it is ;-).

Step one is to fly Mira and the girls to Toronto. We arrived at Teun this afternoon. Very nice to see him again and very familiar to be here.

Step 2 is completing Toine's work, leaving the house and of course handing over the boat to the PYD crew. Fortunately, the boat repair goes well. Today and Monday they complete the construction work, including painting the outside. Then they put in the new bow thruster, clean it, put it in the water, put the mast on it and connect all the wiring. We hope that the boat will be in the water on Wednesday and that Toine can make a trial run to Breskens on Thursday to hand over the boat to the PYD crew on Friday. Just in time to come to us on Saturday morning.

Step 3 is also with Toine to enjoy some days in and around Waterloo at Teun. The plan is to fly to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 5th of September. There the PYD crew will deliver our boat in the course of September.

Step 4 is to follow the delivery of the boat (also to follow on our site under the heading 'where are we' (or actually 'where is our boat')) and in the meantime enjoy a holiday at Nova Scotia. We don't know yet how long, that depends entirely on the duration of the delivery and therefore on the weather the crew has on the way. Via Iridium Go a plot will be put on the map every 6 hours.

Step 5 is to take over the boat in Halifax and sail along the east coast of America to Florida in a few weeks, a trip of about 1700 miles.

Then step 6 is really arriving in Florida, Deerfield Beach, to pick up our lives there for a few months. Still a lot of steps to go so before that ;-). Expected no earlier than mid October.

Looking at it all, the collision certainly has its advantages. The boat will definitely become more solid and we have extra free time in Canada.

We're going to start enjoying spending time with Teun and his kids next week!