{"id":9181,"date":"2018-10-13T09:36:30","date_gmt":"2018-10-13T14:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=9181"},"modified":"2018-10-13T10:53:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-13T15:53:42","slug":"the-windwards-and-leewards-what-is-it-really-like-armchair-sailors-unite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=9181","title":{"rendered":"The Windwards and Leewards, what is it really like? Armchair sailors unite!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s going to be a long winter with some saying that it’s going to be really, really cold here in the North East.<\/p>\n

I for one, am not happy to be here in the North East when I should be sailing in warmer climes and after spending the last six winters in southern waters, it’s going to be a big deal for me.<\/p>\n

As I have said in past posts, “live it once and tell the story for ever”.\u00a0 And, to that point, I particularly enjoy giving talks about where we have been aboard Pandora and recently did two webinars for the Seven Seas Cruising Association<\/a>, SSCA, one about our time cruising from the BVIs south to Dominica over the winter of 2017 and the other about cruising the waters of the southern Caribbean from Antigua to the Grenadines aboard Pandora in 2018.\u00a0 \u00a0Both presentations are free and you don’t have to be a member of the SSCA to view them.<\/p>\n

Since I retired in 2012 Brenda and I have spent our winters cruising and have covered a lot of ground including the US Intra Coastal Waterway (ICW), the Bahamas, Cuba and most recently the eastern Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Over the years I have given many talks, mostly live and I am often asked if they are available on the Web.\u00a0 Until now, the message was sadly no, but these two presentations have been recorded so you can see them if you are so inclined.\u00a0 And, better yet, aside from the time it takes to view them, they are free.<\/p>\n

These are not just travelogues, those tortuous, “I went 6kts from this island to that and look at what I ate for dinner.”\u00a0 On the contrary, I work hard to give you a good feel for what sorts of weather you should expect and how it feels to interact with the local residents.\u00a0 Of course, I also try to share the wonder of what it’s like to visit these remarkable islands and to spend months at a time afloat.<\/p>\n

Many of you have probably chartered in the BVIs and these talks will give a good feel for how different the islands to the south are from the bustling charter bases that you may be more familiar with.<\/p>\n

Cruising the Leeward Islands, the BVIs south to Dominica<\/a>.\u00a0 There is no charge to view this recording although I am told that there will be a modest fee to SSCA after 120 days, so view it now.\u00a0\"\"The Windward Islands:\u00a0 Antigua and South, “where the REAL Caribbean begins”.<\/a>\u00a0 From Antigua to the Grenadines.\u00a0 \u00a0Yes, this one is free too.\u00a0\"\"I enjoyed preparing for and giving these talks and would appreciate your feedback on what I might do to make them more interesting or perhaps other topics that you’d like to hear.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, one more thing.\u00a0 \u00a0If reading is more your style, check out these articles that I wrote for Blue Water Sailing Magazine.<\/p>\n

Cruising Cuba, a First Timer’s Perspective<\/a> from October 2016.\u00a0 Brenda and I spent two months cruising Cuba and toured the south coast, around the NW point and to Havana before returning to the US.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"Cruising the Windward Islands.<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0This article appeared in Blue Water Sailing magazine in August of 2018.\u00a0 \u00a0It’s a shorter version of the story I told at the SSCA webinar mentioned above.\u00a0\"\"And finally, the cruise that introduced us to the eastern Caribbean in 2017.\u00a0 Into the Leeward Isles<\/a>, cruising from the BVIs south, the northern half of the eastern island chain.\u00a0 \u00a0This article was published in Blue Water Sailing Magazine in February of 2018.\"\"Yes, it’s going to be a long winter but at least I have lots of friends that can keep me posted on what they are doing, cruising in the beautiful waters of the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Yep, I too can be an “armchair sailor”.\u00a0 Not perfect but it’ll do for one winter at least.<\/p>\n

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

It’s going to be a long winter with some saying that it’s going to be really, really cold here in the North East. I for one, am not happy to be here in the North East when I should be sailing in warmer climes and after spending the last six winters in southern waters, it’s […]<\/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-9181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9181","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=9181"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9188,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9181\/revisions\/9188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}