Decision Time

Our plan was to buy a boat and sail her around the world. We had very little experience with handling any sort of yacht but three years after buying Nadezhda, our 40’ Saltram Saga, we had sailed most weekends from April through December and taken all holidays on the boat. We were not too adventurous but managed to get to the Channel Isles, the French coast, West country and the Scilly Isles.


The overall plan was to wait for 5 to 6 years before departing and there were a number of reasons for this. Felicity and I are both divorced and each of us has a daughter each. Felicity’s daughter would be 22 by that time and my daughter would be 16 years old. However in the summer of 2005.



Fliss and daughter Holly










Bobby - My daughter







Me (Pete)





Our timescales changed due to a number of factors:

• My father had a mild stroke leaving him partially blind in his right eye
• I noticed that my mother was not getting any younger
• My employment prospects turned sour
• Fliss (Felicity) was keen to depart sooner than our original plans

Balancing your own desires to disappear for up to 3 years with the needs of close family and work-commitments is difficult. The problem is that there is never an ideal time unless fresh from college or retired! Fliss and I are 40 and 44 respectively and do not want to wait until possible infirmities wreck our plans altogether and so in August of 2005, we made the decision to depart in June of 2006. This decision could not have been made without our fortunate position that we can fund holidays for the kids to come and see us for extended holidays during our voyage.

So the race is now on to prepare for our departure. You may be thinking that 9 months is a massive amount of time to incubate our plans but it is now November and there is so much left to complete. Our tasks can be very broadly split into the following categories:

• I own a computer consultancy business that owns a rental property. This property needs to be sold to fund the trip
• The boat needs to be prepared with additional equipment to make her ready for extended cruising
• Itinerary and planning needs to be completed and personal matters need to be tied-up and left in the hands of capable people
• Our house needs decoration, renting, contents storing and the cars need selling

This Blog was going to diarise each of these activities on a regular basis both as a keepsake for later life and as a guide of the necessary preparations for anyone wishing to take part in the increasingly popular activity of long-term cruising. So far, this hasn’t happened but the next Blog will catch-up with events to-date and I will hopefully keep it up to date in the future!

Nadezhda