{"id":7922,"date":"2017-11-17T15:52:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T20:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=7922"},"modified":"2017-11-17T15:52:14","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T20:52:14","slug":"preparing-for-the-royal-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=7922","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for the Royal Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now, there’s a title that I never thought I’d be using in a post.\u00a0 Let me explain.<\/p>\n

As I prepared for the Salty Dawg Fleet to visit Antigua I reached out to many contacts here in Antigua about marina visits, special events and shopping.\u00a0 Along the way I spoke with Ann-Marie Martin, the commissioner of parks.\u00a0 She oversees, along with other areas here in Antigua, Nelson’s Dockyard, historic home to the British Navy,\u00a0 now restored as a very popular spot for visiting yachts to tie up for a visit.<\/p>\n

I had been trying to connect with her for several days since I arrived with Pandora but had not had any luck in setting up a time for us to meet.\u00a0 Finally, after stopping at her office yesterday I received an e-mail from her apologizing for not being available as she was “really busy preparing for the Royal Visit”.\u00a0 Royal visit, you say?\u00a0 \u00a0Indeed.<\/p>\n

It seems that Prince Charles is arriving in Antigua today and will tour, among other sites, Barbuda and Dominica, two nearby islands that were devastated by last summer’s hurricanes.\u00a0 \u00a0I have been told by those in the know, that he will be touring the dockyard on Sunday afternoon.\u00a0 We don’t know the exact time but it would be fun to catch a glimpse, that’s for sure.\u00a0 I guess you’ll have to stay tuned to learn more.<\/p>\n

The last few days since arriving have been really hectic for me, as well as those preparing for Charles.\u00a0 However, things have come together nicely and we have already had a number of fun events and there’s something going on nearly every day through next Thursday, Thanksgiving, when Brenda and I fly back to the US for the holidays.<\/p>\n

Our “official” venue has been the lawn at the Admiral’s Inn overlooking English Harbor and we have had wonderful evenings there already.\u00a0 Here’s a group shot from last evening’s party.\u00a0 \u00a0It’s a pretty good group in spite of only half of the fleet having arrived.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"Mike, from the Antigua and Barbuda Royal Navy Tot Club spoke to the group and has invited all of us to participate in one of their ceremonies, held tonight in the dockyard.\u00a0 Stay tuned for more on that in a future post.\u00a0 \u00a0\"\"The Admiral’s Inn is in a lovely setting set among the ruins of an old sail loft.\u00a0 Boats loaded with sails from warships were brought into this slip and the sails were raised up through a hole in the floor of the sail loft that once was on top of the columns.<\/span>\"\"There are lovely views everywhere.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\"\"I particularly enjoyed this small water garden.\u00a0\"\"There is much to do in the Dockyard and that’s where Prince Charles will be visiting on Sunday afternoon.\u00a0 Brenda and I are going to try and catch a glimpse.\u00a0 Fortunately, we have some pretty well connected friends so perhaps we will get lucky.\u00a0 \u00a0“Charles, want to stop for a beer aboard Pandora?”<\/p>\n

So, back in Falmouth harbor, Pandora’s on the dock for one more night before we move out to anchor with the rest of the fleet.\u00a0 It will be nice to out in the breeze and surely way less expensive than slip and electric.\u00a0 \u00a0 Here’s Pandora, front and center.\"\"Also, sharing space at the dock is a school of Tarpon, each over 4′ long.\u00a0 \"\"I can only imagine what it costs to keep a boat like this 220′ sloop Anatta<\/a>, launched in Holland in 2011, on the dock.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"The scale of these yachts is amazing.\u00a0 \u00a0How big can a boom get?\u00a0 \"\"Or the electric bill for this.\u00a0 \u00a0I was told by the marina manager that some boats use over $1,000 of electric every day.\u00a0 Imagine?\u00a0 I can hardly wait to get my bill.\u00a0 \u00a0I got fuel and learned that the largest order recently was for 100,00o liters.\u00a0 It took several days to pump it all aboard.\u00a0\"\"Up on the top deck are two… Elevators?\u00a0 Popcorn makers?\u00a0 Can’t figure it out.\u00a0\"\"We saw this very unusual yacht, Adastra<\/a> in St Martin last winter.\u00a0 Looks like a Starship to me.\u00a0 We met the captain and he’s agreed to let me come aboard later in the week to take some photos.\u00a0 She’s a remarkable yacht built to very high standards. It seems that she will soon be available for charter so they are here for the charter show and he said that the owner is open to some publicity.\u00a0 Will be interesting, that’s for sure.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"So, here we are in Antigua and so is Prince Charles.\u00a0 I guess I’d better wrap this up so I can get ready for a “royal sighting”.<\/p>\n

Yes, that would surely be a bit different, wouldn’t it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now, there’s a title that I never thought I’d be using in a post.\u00a0 Let me explain. As I prepared for the Salty Dawg Fleet to visit Antigua I reached out to many contacts here in Antigua about marina visits, special events and shopping.\u00a0 Along the way I spoke with Ann-Marie Martin, the commissioner of […]<\/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-7922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7922","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=7922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7936,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7922\/revisions\/7936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}