New Map Page, and a Change in Our Route

We have added a Map page for the Tahina Expedition web site that will let you check on our current position, our past passages, and will even show position reports while we're on a passage which are being made through a Twitter log. In addition, we'll make occasional blog posts during a passage to report on how things are going, and you can follow our Twitter at @GoTahina for short messages about how things are going. Hopefully all the new radio systems will work, so you'll actually see these reports and updates during our first passage starting tomorrow.

After careful consideration of all the factors - including weather - we've decided to make a change in our route. Our goal has been to start in the Caribbean with St. Martin. We have been planning to sail out to Bermuda and stop a few days because often the weather is better if you head toward Bermuda from the US east coast before heading south for the Caribbean. However, we have a weather forecast which gives us the option of heading straight to St. Martin.

Since we were delayed by about a week by weather, we have considered the option of going straight to St. Martin and by-passing Bermuda. Our crewmember Wilson would like to help get us to St. Martin, but he needs to be back home in time for Thanksgiving. If we go straight to St. Martin our route plan shows us arriving in 6 days. This would give plenty of time for Wilson to get home. And, it would give us more time to spend going through the islands on our way south. We plan to be in Grenada for Christmas.

So, we now plan to leave Saturday morning early. We'll still head east to insure the right winds for our route. But, we'll turn south sooner and therefore save lots of miles off the original route taking us to Bermuda. See the map of the two options here:

Keep watching the blog for updates. I'll probably make another post before we leave in addition to the subsequent tweets and posts during the passage.