The weather looks good on Friday but, according to sailor lore, it is bad luck to begin a voyage on that day. We depart on Saturday. The new plan is to head north. We’ve had some amazing experiences but rushing to get places has not worked very well so we are making this leg of the trip more about the journey than the destination. There is no timeline – just moving on when we are ready and as weather permits. Although I would have loved to cross an ocean, what I realized is that I would have loved being able to say I did even more. That realization, coupled with the fact that the boys cannot last more than two days on the boat without needing to run on land plus the fact that they do not want to be dragged to castles, art museums and churches, makes crossing the Atlantic to Europe much less appealing (there is also the small matter of my sailing skills). During our literal and figurative June meltdowns, Matt and I had seriously discussed ending the trip. I even considered setting up an online Doodle poll so that all five of our blog readers could vote on whether we should end the trip or forge ahead (oh, fine, all three of my readers if we take out my mom and Matt’s mom). I do think ending it now would be worse than not having started it at all. So … we are heading north in search of whales. From there, we shall see.