Other considerations

So, now I have outlined the major steps we have taken to get to where we are – just under a month from leaving. What I didn’t talk about was all the other little things that we have had to think about and organize. Those are the things that have taken up much of Kevin’s evenings and a little of my days off. These things include:

How to make the necessary repairs to the boat. This has been tricky primarily because we have to get all the necessary tools to the boat when it is located on an island that has minimal resources. It has required several trips by Kevin to the boat along with ‘coercing’ people to joining him and many heavy duffle bags on flights. Unfortunately, when you bring tools into Grenada to do the repairs, this also means paying customs. This is despite the fact that these tools were bought elsewhere and are not in fact staying in Grenada but rather staying with the boat.

Organizing home schooling. We are choosing to home school our children rather than put them in distance learning. So when we leave Victoria, we will be responsible for the children’s curriculum. Then, when we return we will have to re-registered them in the school system. We don’t have to follow the BC curriculum, but we plan to. Our resources are sources of education materials are varied because we are going to be teaching 2 children in elementary school and 2 children in middle/high school. Kevin has done a load of research on online resources, but we have also conferred with his mother, who was an elementary school teacher, about paper resources and books to use. We will write more about this later.

Organizing banking. We need to be able to access our money from anywhere in the world and to ensure we manage our money appropriately to stay on our budget. Yes, we have a budget and it is tight!

Organizing insurance. So many types of insurance!! First, we wanted to update our life insurance policies But then we also needed to consider travel medical insurance, insurance for our stuff in storage and of course insurance for the boat! We will also write more about this later.

Creating our medical chest. Given my profession and knowledge of things that can go wrong, I want to be well prepared for an possibility while traveling. Most of the time we should have fairly readily available access to medical treatment. However, there will be several weeks in the middle of the Atlantic that this will not be true. I have made an extensive list of medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, that I want to have access to. I have also ordered an array of first aid and medical equipment to allow me to treat many of the ailments that might be inflicted on us during our voyage. I will also write more about this later and include pictures of my medical chest.

Organizing how to get the rest of our stuff to the boat. We live in Victoria, Canada and our boat is on Carriacou, Grenada. Just to get ourselves from one island to the other is 22+ hours of travel. We have stuff including; clothing, books (education and resources), instruments, kitchen ware (that isn’t already on the boat), the above mentioned medical equipment, safety equipment, toys and games, school supplies, a little climbing and sporting gear, communication supplies and some new batteries for the boat that Kevin and Owen built. This amounts to a crate of stuff which we think might be best either put on a crate on air transport or driven across the continent.

Ensuring we are in shape to travel for a year. This includes visiting the dentist and making sure we have healthy teeth before we go. And for Simon, who is definitely will need braces one day, we had to see the orthodontist and he had to have teeth pulled so that he can start the process of addressing his teeth before it is too late. Furthermore, Three of us having hearing aids as well. So we needed to organized new hearing aids (so our old ones were back ups) and spare parts. And finally, I wear contacts or glasses, so I also needed to make sure I have extra lenses, glasses and spare parts.

Kevin and Owen are learning to scuba dive!

And finally, I have had several things to wrap up at the office before being absent from work for a year.

We can delve into the specifics of some of the above more as time goes on. Especially when Kevin has more time to tell me all the research and reasoning he has had to do. Right now he is traveling and away while I work and maintain our ‘normal’ lives until we leave. I will be so ready to have get ourselves to the boat and start our adventure after the next few busy weeks.