Event Tracker

Hi Everyone,

We will be leaving about November 1 on a 1400 mile passage from Virginia to the British Virgin Islands. We will be one of about 80 boats all traveling at the same time, as part of an event called the Caribbean 1500 Rally. Some of the boats will be racing, but many (including us) are not being timed.

As part of the event, we will be loaned a satellite device that sends a message with our location every four hours or so. You will be able to see a map of our path and current location on the internet, and I wanted to give some instructions on how to get to the map. This is a little bit generic, since the internet site isn’t available until the rally starts.

First, go to the Rally main site at http://www.carib1500.com. Once the voyage starts, there will be a prominent box at the top of the page that says "All about the Caribbean 1500" with three buttons under it that say “News,” ”Photos,” and “Positions”. If you click on “Positions,” you will able to input the name of our boat, Callisto, to see our latest location.

We don’t have any way to share photos during the trip, but we will be in daily radio contact with the rally organizers, so we could get mentioned in the news.

We are getting really excited about the trip. I have been watching the weather closely for a while. We are hoping for highs in the 60s when we leave, and steadily warmer as we head south. The rally will start the morning of November 1, unless the weather is bad. In past years, the rally has started 1-5 days later than the planned dates in about half the years.

If all goes well, we’ll be lounging in the islands 8-10 days after we depart.