Ready to go!

I'm off tomorrow for my 9 day adventure kayaking and camping in the Bahamas. We will be leaving from Georgetown which is in the far eastern part of the Bahamas basically where it runs into the deeper part of the Atlantic ocean. It is on the eastern edge of the Bahama banks which stretches far to the west and is a huge area of pretty shallow water. We will be kayaking from island to island in a marine park and sticking to the Leeward (wind and wave protected) side of the islands. While there we will be traversing and camping through using a "leave no trace" method. This means that when we leave you will not know that we have been there. We will take everything, and I do mean everything, out with us when we leave.

I spent a good portion of today preparing, shopping and packing for the trip. There is a lot of gear for me to bring including common items like food, tent parts, cooking gear and my own gear including a sleeping bag, clothes, rain gear, eating utensils etc. I'll end up with two large duffel bags stuffed with gear.

There is a pretty strict limit to how much personal gear I can take with me in the kayak. For clothes I can have basically 3 shirts, 1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of long pants, 1 rain shell and one insulating layer and 1 swim suit. That should last me for the 6 days on the water although I am guessing I'll be pretty ripe when I get done!

I'm really looking forward to this trip. Uniformly everyone I have told about it has been both supportive and maybe a little jealous all at once. I'm missing a major event at work and even the folks I would normally be supporting for the event have been very supportive of me going.

I was talking to Melissa about it last night and she said that during the tip I get to be not a dad, not a husband, not a marketing executive, not a Californian, not a techie geek, etc. I've thought about that conversation quite a bit and I am not sure how it makes me feel. I don't really know what to expect from the trip, how I'll feel, what it will be like.

I know I am looking forward to "clearing" my head as far as work is concerned. I know I haven't been away like this for a long time. I don't really know the people I am going with so that should be interesting too. I am sure they are all nice people and hope we all will get along. Someone who I know who went on the trip last year said they "had time to think about things they normally don't get around to" so I am looking forward to that too.

I am trying to keep a very open mind with no expectations, which I think is the right way to go.

I look forward to reporting back after the trip with pictures and blog posts.