The Adventure Begins

Preperation - 1st April

There was not a lot of preparation to do as we had sold our house and content 6 months, before, passed on some things to Morgan and Kate, sold a bunch of stuff on Kijjii and put a small amount in storage. We had been living "on-the-road since then". Staying with Cherly's sister Deb on Mississippi lake, Morgan in Toronto, Visiting Cate in Vancouver and Wills cottage in Miskoka.

We packed a total of 6 bags, in these bags were the essentials we wanted to take with us to the boat. This consisted mostly of clothes for three seasons, including sailing gear. A few kitchen items, books tools, etc.

Ottawa, Canada to Larochelle, France - 17th April

Air France is the only airline that flies directly from Ottawa to Paris, this was oiur first experience flying with them on this route. We did try to bid on an upgrade to business class, but they were asking for $5,400 each for the privilege. This was more than it would have cost if we had bought business class directly. No thanks! The plane was new, seats were comfortable, but the meals were spectacularly poor. I would have expected better from a French airline. We arrived Paris early in the morning, collected our bags and headed to the rental care that we would take to La Rochelle. We had rented a mid sized SUV and that had barely enough space to fit our six bags and cary on luggage.

It is a five hour drive from Charles de Gaulle Airport to La Rochelle. The first part is crossing Paris, fortunately we were doing this early on a Sunday morning and so there was no delays or drama! The drive to La Rochelle was very pleasant, nice rolling countryside with everything in full spring bloom. Took us a little while to find our hotel as it was right in the town centre with lots of one way streets in which google maps gets confused.