And so it begins.

Departure time This is the heap we hope Qantas will carry to SFO today. Then Alaska Air to Portland. It’s the first shipment of gear we’ll need in June for the race. Dry suits, sails, boom tent, wet weather gear, all the little gizmos like VHFVery High Frequency radio. Short range radio equipment for voice and other applications such as AISAutomatic Identification System. An automatic tracking system used on ships and by vessel traffic services (VTS) for identifying and locating vessels.., PLBs and satphone, plus arctic sleeping bags and survival gear. Even some warm clothes, but they are squeezed in last – we’re going to raid the Portland thrift shops when we get there. B2’s old faithful Panasonic Toughbook laptop will be along for the ride too but we may have a problem cobbling together a power supply for that and there are a couple of GPS handhelds just in case. Hard copy charts and tide tables when we get closer to the start party. In keeping with Berrimilla tradition, we’ll be keeping a low profile. We will try to keep these updates bland, factual and bereft of BS. No faffing about how pretty we look in our daggy wet weather gear, just boring stuff about what works and what doesn’t. If we make it to Ketchikan and onwards to Homer, then maybe we can faff just a bit. But probably not.