Moving onto a boat involves shedding a great deal of weight from the ‘stuff’ we accumulate in normal life. Space and weight are precious commodities onboard and therefore we have to live a life with less ‘things’ – something we’re actually very pleased to do – even if it does mean that the absence of a potato masher leaves us with lumps.

However, we always need a few things to make the boat and our lives work. The things we have onboard that proven themselves to be invaluable over the last year make it onto our new Gear page which you can get to from the menu above.

We’re not getting any money for these links, nor was anything donated by companies – we’re not that famous! So it is based on our honest experiences.

Written by Jon:

We try to sail without any fixed plans. We let wind and whim drive us from place to place and on the whole try not to tie ourselves to any fixed schedule. However, certain things need to be booked in advance and crossing the Atlantic as a part of an organised Rally is one of those things.

Why bother to join a rally at all? Well, there are a few benefits: sense of community, feeling of security and a sense of commitment to actually GO. But, for us one of the most important drivers was to try to find more kids boats, which is why we chose the Atlantic Odyssey which seems to focus on families, kids and ego/race free cruising.

Once we’d decided to ‘go for it’ and booked our place we started the process of finding more crew. Many couples cross the atlantic alone, even with kids, finding a sleeping pattern that allows them to survive for 20+ days and they do well. However, I felt we needed backup. If everything went according to plan then I’m confident that Mia, Teo and I could handle the Atlantic crossing alone, however we do not plan for ‘everything going to plan’ – certainly not when the passage is more than a reliable weather forecast in length. So, we started looking for two crew to bring us unto four adults and Teo: one experienced sailor and one keen competent crew were my minimum requirements.

With a little help (and reference) from John Neil who helped me find Itchy Foot we found our first crew member, Kevin. A lovely Canadian chap, retired, father of three, experienced sailor and generally a very handy many to have onboard. We got to meet Kevin for a drink at Newcastle train station as he was returning from a vacation in Scotland and immediately got on well with him.

Our second crew member is Tina, a 26 year old woman from Norway with an obvious passion for life and adventure. She has already sailed across the pacific, albeit when we was 5 with her mum and dad. She has strong sea legs with many miles of crew with her dad as a skipper. But more importantly she and Teo seemed to bond immediately when we had a lovely Skype chat with her. We’re hoping that she can even spend a little time talking to Teo in Norwegian to stop it from getting too rusty!

Together we should, weather permitting, be leaving from Tenerife on November 19th. Around 20 days later we should arrive in Barbados: tired, happy and with a great sense of achievement.

Tomorrow morning, all being well, we’ll cast off our lines from Minorca and start our long journey westwards.

Believe it or not, we’re on the radio. Unfortunately, due to the internet, this is a far less impressive feat than previously. Still, how did that happen?

Back in April when we were still in Palma de Mallorca I received an email from a chap who worked with boatradio.net which, as the name suggests, is an internet based radio station that was launching in July covering all topics nautical. I’m not entirely sure how he found out about us, but given the proximity and what we were planning he requested to interview us for one of the segments – This Aquatic Life. I replied, letting him know that we’d be around his way in May and suggesting that we meet up then.

So we met with Mike, a lovely guy, and he came onboard to conduct the interview back in May, which was released to the masses on their internet radio channel in August. Enjoy!

Written by Jon:

We’ve been very quite since we started our adventure and for that we’re genuinely sorry. At first we were just taking time to relax a little after the hectic departure from our old lives in Oslo. Then the hard work and frustration started and we were either too busy, tired or frustrated to write anything at all. We discovered that communication comes quite low on our list of priorities.

The unofficial, incomplete and volatile list of Itchy Foot priorities:

1. Stay friends with each other.
2. Eat occasionally
3. Boat maintenance
4. Teo’s lessons
5. Boat improvements
6. Jon and Mia communications
7. Play with Teo
8. Shopping for food
9. Communication with Grandparents
10. Reading: sailing locations, maintenance, repairs, equipment etc.
11. Paperwork: taxes, boat papers, licenses, insurance, banks, bills, etc.
12. A glass of wine.
13. Sleep.
14. Communication with everyone else.
15. Showers.

Unfortunately for this blog, Facebook, Twitter and social media in general you get the short straw. In fact, the only reason I have time to write this now is because the shop delivering our new boat batteries is late and I’m ignoring Teo’s requests to play with his new magnetic building toys.

While we don’t really expect the priorities to change dramatically there is hope that the amount of time spent on maintenance and improvements will soon reduce and we can free up more time for keeping in touch.

Please stay tuned!

Written by Jon:

Welcome to our blog, Sailing Itchy Foot. I’m sure most of your know why you’re here and what this blog is about, but for those of you who have stumbled across this page, I’ll briefly explain who we are and what you’ll find here.

We’re the Wrights, a family of three who are in the process of selling their home, buying a boat, quitting our jobs and taking a sabbatical from our normal lives. Over the coming months we’ll be using this blog to keep our friends and families up-to-date with our adventures: where we go, things we do and sharing some of the lessons we learn on the way.

Alongside this blog we plan keeping in touch with the following marvels of modern social media:

• facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sailingitchyfoot
• twitter:  @itchy_foot

Feel free to reach out to us on any of the above, or the contact form on the blog. I can’t promise that we’ll be fast replying, but we´ll get there in the end.

If you want to find out more about who we are there is an ‘The Crew’ section in this blog (or there will be soon). There is also ‘The Boat’ section if you want to know more about Itchy Foot our Hallberg Rassy 39 and the fourth member of our little family.