We head out Saturday on our Beneteau 40 De Life. For week two, we planned on having my daughters and my sister's family join us. While having eight on a 3-cabin monohull is possible, we decided that we needed something, well, wider. So, in week two we'll be on CYOA's Helia 44 'Glad In It' with ten of us.

Not our first time on a cat, but my first time as skipper. We're going to spend the day before our crew arrives out with Kimber as our check out captain. Kimber sailed with us for Cat Fight and I'm looking forward to spending the day with him learning tricks, tips and systems. We'll have all of the provisioning done and the boat ready to load crew and have a gentle start. Glad In It is a loaded sweet ride, so this is a rather gilded introduction for us. Its even more fun since we know the very cool owner of Glad In It and the home port listed on the transom is our home town of McLean, VA. "Did you buy a catamaran" questions have already started.

So, spending a week on a charter cat a year after we bought our monohull? We love De Life and she is great for vacations for up to four people, six in a pinch. Looking to the future, we're considering becoming liveaboards and want to understand the monohull/catamaran tradeoffs.

We'll be doing two counter-clockwise circuits of the VIs flying our TTOL flag. If you see us on De Life or Glad In It pop by for a cold beverage.

Cheers, Rick