I've been thinking a lot today about just how to do this -- how to swing the finances?  how to execute on the plan?  strategies for success?

Probably the biggest thing that occurred to me is this--  I want to take specific, concrete steps toward voyaging with my family every day until it happens.  My intention is to do that and blog about each day's progress.

Another strategy that occurred to me is to envision us in the midst of glorious success -- say, making landfall at Hiva Oa after a 3-week crossing from the Canal -- and working back from there.  What will we have done in those 3 weeks?  What challenges will we have encountered and overcome?  The girls will have had a great experience and will be starting to be distinctly salty.  They will have learned about astronomy, navigation, physics, history, finances, sealife.  We will all be new shellbacks.  How will we have prepared?  What will we have brought along?  What will we have purchased and repaired and planned and done in advance?  It's not that I expect to be able to plan the thing in minute detail, just that I hope that by looking at it from another angle I will have shed light on aspects that I might otherwise overlook.  So maybe I'll attempt a series of posts about the crossing I hope to make and see what comes of that.

Still no brilliant insights on swinging the finances, but I do have a number of half-baked ideas swimming around.  In a post in the not-too-distant future, I'll get them down in writing which will hopefully help me bake them a little more. In the meantime, here's a great collection of real cruisers' accounts of their expenses: http://thegiddyupplan.blogspot.com/2011/04/cost-of-cruising.html

So, today's concrete steps?  It's early days, so I'm going to go ahead and take credit for reading through Behan's account of the 20-day crossing from Mexico to the Marquesas as having been highly instructive and inspiring.  Also, lots of informative browsing and data-gathering on the web today.  And, of course, writing this post, an exercise which, if nothing else, bolsters my resolve, but hey, maybe some financing could someday come of having written this here little blog.

Finally, some more great new links I've come across today: