Annapolis, Maryland to Sydney, Australia

[Fire Cracker]

Hello,

We have been living aboard our Bavaria 47 for nearly 2 years now. My husband is a certified Captain and Engineer. We've refit this boat to sail offshore and we are Australian residents. I am a pilot at United Airlines and I'm losing my job again, but I have been hired by Qantas Airways. I may have a bit of time between jobs so we're looking at beginning our sail to Oz on 1st Nov 2008. We have a 4 year old daughter who has her sea legs. I just signed up on this forum today and I'm searching for information. But to maximize my limited time home from work I thought I'd just post now and see what advice or links anyone can recommend. I need to get information about insurance (we have a mortgage), routes, extra equipment, Panama Canal, crew, etc. I really need to figure out if we can afford to do this! I'll keep searching the forum but in the meantime, it doesn't hurt to ask.

[sneuman]

Welcome. I am also a liveaboard in nearby in Severna Park. Lived in Asia for many years and worked with many Aussies. If you need any help in your preparations, I am handy and always willing to do anything on a boat -- mine preferably, but anyone else's too. Drop me a line at scott_neuman@hotmail.com

[Hud3]

Hello, Fire Cracker.

Welcome to Cruisers Forum. Sounds like you're in for an exciting career change! There are a number of folks here on the Forum who have made the trip you're contemplating, and one couple is in the midst of the voyage right now. I'm sure you'll get a lot of good advice.

Here are a couple of links to get you started...

The search feature in our toolbar is not very helpful. Use this one instead. You might even want to bookmark it. It's Google-powered and will get you better results: Cruisers & Sailing Forum

Here's a link to the Panama Yacht Club. You'll find further links there to the Panama Canal website and other useful sites. I've been told that the Yacht Club can be very helpful to cruisers planning to transit the canal. http://public.cwpanama.net/~yacht/index.htm A couple of the links are broken. Be sure to try this one: Panama Canal Yacht Club

Good luck!

[Ex-Calif]

When do you start with Qantas? It's a long haul from Annapolis.

Interstingly I met an Australian and an American dead heading from SFO to HKG a couple of weeks back. Both flying for Cathay. There are Aussie pilots all over Asia and now Oz is importing American pilots. Crazy industry.

I am on the supplier side (jet engines).