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Leaving For Good, The Plan and Our Biggest Passage

Nikki Wynn

Nikki Wynn

— 3 min read
Leaving For Good, The Plan and Our Biggest Passage

We’re leaving these docks and we’re not coming back.  Well, at least hopefully not for a few good years anyway.  The plan is to head for Panama but the big question is, which route do we take?

We fill up our fuel tanks one last time and sail south to Miami where we can drop the hook and hash out a plan.  Grab your sunglasses and join us for a short journey and some round table sail planning.

Hopefully that all made some sense to both the sailors and non sailors.  We’ve never been big planners but sailing definitely requires some advanced planning and a whole lot of flexibility in those plans.  Considering this is our first big passage, we’re still figuring out our own processes. But, if you are still in the dreaming phase and wondering what planning a passage looks like, hopefully seeing how we’re going about it gives you some ideas.

Below is everything I could think of that we’ve done to prepare for this leg of the journey.  Resources, links, float plan and sail plan.  If there is something I missed, leave us a note in the comment box below.  If it’s something super important, we may owe you a beer!

Before I go diving in, I have to give a shout out to all our fellow sailors, bloggers, Patreons, and viewers out there who have helped us along the way. Thanks to all of you, we are able to gather information for our journey and share in hopes of making the next voyagers journey a little easier too.  It takes a village and you guys are the best tribe ever!  Thank You!

And a big thanks to the Captains who graciously looked at our route and shared their experiences and knowledge with us (Jan Cluistra, Larry Shaffer, Scott Griffin).

Planning Books

Weather Apps / Communications

Customs/Piracy/Health/General Cruising Info

We look up all the info for each country we have the potential to stop in along the way, but for example purposes, we listed the links to Panama.

The Float Plan/Sail Plan

Creating a float plan is super important.  I hope that we never need it and my only interaction with the coast guard or any emergency services is a friendly wave…but, best to be prepared.

As a risk taking adventure junkie, I realize that if something happens to me, it’s the people I love the most that need me to be prepared.  So, it’s for those I love, as much as it is for myself, that I try to be a responsible adventure junkie.  The best way for me to do that is to have all the information they might need or want on hand.

Of course, I created my own float plan, then found this link for the coast guards.  Go figure.

USCG Float Plan – floatplancentral.cgaux.org/

The USCG Float Plan is fantastic and I highly recommend giving it a look.  However, I am going to stick with my personalized float plan and add in the emergency guide from the Coast Guard version above.  I added additional information to ours such as screen captures of our route, photos of Curiosity (our sailboat), our dinghy Minion, the passengers, along with insurance information that I think will be helpful if there were ever an emergency.

As an extra precaution we uploaded our float and sail plan to the cloud. We added a link to the cloud file to our EPIRB and inReach SOS online documentation. In an emergency the link will be sent to the government officials and our emergency contacts…it’s like information overload!

Cameras Used to Capture This Video

Ok, I think that’s it.  We will send updates from sea using our inReach and Iridium Go.  You will be able to see those on our Twitter and Facebook pages.

Want to know more about Dale and Justin, our current Patreon crew members? You can find them on Instagram and YouTube.

Wish us fair winds and following seas!  See you in Panama!

anchoring in Miami

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