Yup, going to Antigua soon. And how fast can crabs run?

In my last post I reported that my crew had problems with their passports, both of them, with expiration within the minimum required six month window.    However, with some fast footwork and phone calls to Antigua, they were given the “green light” to come anyway.  I fully expect that we will encounter some resistance in Antigua when we check in but we “have names” and will say that we were told that it’s AOK.

Anyway, that’s all set for now.  I guess all I can say is “details to come”.    “Yes, officer, most excellent immigration person, we have flights booked to go home in a few days.  Not to worry we will be gone before our passports expire.”

Today I address the Salty Dawg fleet regarding our arrival plans for Antigua, checking in and other mundane issues. I’ll also talk about the week of events we have planned to celebrate our arrival.   I’m here to tell you that I am really excited about sharing all that.

It seems that we also have a pretty good number of kids on this trip and I’ll be reaching out to my contacts at the Antigua Yacht Club to see what we can come up with to keep the “younguns” happy.  That should be fun.

Yesterday I received a note from my contact Andrew at the North Sails sail loft in Antigua.  He’s putting on a reception for our group which I am sure will be great fun and now it’s going to be even better.  He’s proposing that we have “crab races”.   Yes, crab races.  “So, Bob, what are crab races?  What sort of crabs do the racing and how long is the race?”.

I have absolutely no idea but he sent me this photo of a “race”. As near as I can tell, the pink one is winning,  This sounds like fun and probably even more so after a few rum punches.

We have a full week of events planned and I’ll surely be gushing about each of them here as the week unfolds.  Wish me luck.  I’m all about Antigua.  Can ya tell?

From your end, you will be able to follow the fleet along as we make our way south as each boat will be checking in multiple times a day with a GPS tracker.  The page with all the boats listed will look something like this with tracks of the 70 odd boats that are making the run to various ports south.  The largest group is the one going to Antigua and perhaps after my scintillating talk today, perhaps even more.  That’s me, ever hopeful…

So, the page you should bookmark and refer to day and night by clicking here.  When you open the page put in SDR for the “group” and see everyone or just Pandora under “name”.    You can also select specific date ranges or just opt to see each boat’s most recent position.

Another option is to follow this link to see Pandora’s track alone on my Garmin page as I will be putting up a new position note every four hours for the duration of the trip.  You may have to zoom in to see where I am as the page often opens up with a “world view”.   Once you zoom in you can click on each position “spot” and see what our speed was at that moment.

But wait, there’s more!!!

I also plan to put up posts, perhaps as often as daily, about what’s going on aboard Pandora as we make our way south.  Alas, no photos as my SSB modem is PAINFULLY SLOW so words only.   If you want to send me a note along the way, feel free to send a note to my “at sea” email, WDG5288@sailmail.com.  Remember that this is SLOW connection so please choose your words carefully.  Als0, if it’s rough I may not be in the mood to write.   If you want to get a “ping” when I post, sign up with your email.

We don’t know yet when we will be leaving as the weather picture isn’t clear quite yet.  It is important that we wait for a good weather window to make our run across the Gulf Stream, which can be really nasty when conditions are not right.   Not to alarm anyone, but they don’t call the area around Cape Hatteras the “grave yard of the Atlantic” for nothing.  Don’t worry, we will be careful.

So there you have it and today we begin our daily weather briefings so I expect that I will be able to put up more details soon.

And about that crab racing and exactly how fast can they run?  I guess we will both have to wait to find out.