{"id":10337,"date":"2019-11-24T08:20:19","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T13:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=10337"},"modified":"2019-11-24T08:20:19","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T13:20:19","slug":"salty-dawg-rally-to-antigua-its-a-wrap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=10337","title":{"rendered":"Salty Dawg Rally to Antigua. It’s a wrap!"},"content":{"rendered":"

That’s it, today Brenda and I head home to CT and some holiday time with friends and family.\u00a0 We can’t wait to see our grandchildren, in particular.\u00a0 I’ll bet that we won’t recognize them after a month away.\u00a0 Excited.<\/p>\n

Pandora is on a mooring in English Harbor for the next month.\u00a0 It’s a beautiful spot.\u00a0 Very serene this morning with a view of the Dockyard.\u00a0 It was unusually still and calm, compliments of the late season hurricane in the north Atlantic that has suppressed the trade winds.\u00a0 They should kick in again in a few days. \"\"The Admiral’s Inn off our stern.\u00a0 \"\"And some beautiful boats off of our bow.\u00a0 \u00a0Notice the Long Tail boat from Thailand, owned by Paul from the Inn.\u00a0 Hold that thought as I was able to get a ride on the his really unique boat a few days ago.\u00a0 Details to come on that outing. \"\"It’s been a crazy week with events every evening and sometimes during the day as well.\u00a0 In addition, I’ve been really busy with meetings including a lunch with the Minister of Tourism that has taken an interest in the rally given the number of boats and crew that we have brought to the island.\u00a0 He feels that cruisers are the highest value visitors to the island as they stay for a long time and spend money with a large variety of businesses, something that isn’t the case with cruise ship visitors or those who visit all-inclusive resorts.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it’s an exciting time to be here and I am really looking forward to next steps when I return to the island at the end of December.\u00a0 In the mean time, I have some homework to do to prepare our thoughts on how to partner more fully with the Government of Antigua.<\/p>\n

After so many events here since the first boats arrived more than a week ago,\u00a0 it’s hard to say which event was the “best”.\u00a0 \u00a0I loved them all but the one event that is particularly special to me is the Tot Club.\u00a0 You know, the group that Toasts the Queen each evening, carrying on a long tradition in the British Navy?<\/p>\n

So, it was fitting that our last “official” even was on Friday in the Dockyard, in spectacular venue, in one of the old historic buildings.\u00a0 \u00a0It was a beautiful space and wonderfully photographed by Brenda who preferred being a spectator to gulping an alarming amount of rum. \"\"The group gathered under the stars. \"\"Mike and particularly Ann, my sponsor when I joined the group two years ago, were there preparing the Tot.\u00a0 \"\"Of course, there were readings from British Naval history.\"\"Introductions of our guests by me. \"\"Bottoms up.\u00a0 Of course, the “tot” must be swallowed in a “single go”.\u00a0 I’ll admit that it burns. \"\"One of our events was an evening BYOB on Shirley Heights, a historic lookout for the British Navy.\u00a0 We went up to watch the sunset, normally spectacular.\u00a0 However, a huge squall came through and brought very limited visibility an many wet Dawgs.\u00a0 I just love this photo of some of the kids from the rally enjoying the view.\u00a0 What a great group.\u00a0 Brenda and I have noticed, over the years,\u00a0 that “boat kids” are universally wonderful and seem to have social skills that are far above the norm.\u00a0 \"\"Perhaps I’ll leave it at that for now as I have to pack to head home to see our own grandchillen.<\/p>\n

All and all, a wonderful week and with so many “atta boys” about the events from skippers and crew from the rally.\u00a0 With all that positive energy, I’m raring to go to plan for some spring events and next fall’s arrival of the 2020 rally to Antigua.<\/p>\n

So, there you have it.\u00a0 The arrival of the 2019 Salty Dawg Rally to Antigua.\u00a0 It’s a wrap!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s it, today Brenda and I head home to CT and some holiday time with friends and family.\u00a0 We can’t wait to see our grandchildren, in particular.\u00a0 I’ll bet that we won’t recognize them after a month away.\u00a0 Excited. Pandora is on a mooring in English Harbor for the next month.\u00a0 It’s a beautiful spot.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10337"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10353,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10337\/revisions\/10353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}