Herd of Turtles, Trotting.

The 2024 Everglades Challenge is off. Around 77 boats pushed off Fort DeSoto beach this morning at 7am (or before 8, anyhow—not all boats were chomping at the bit). 

This is the annual dash from St. Petersburg, FL to Key Largo by human-powered small craft. The 300-mile course traverses the Everglades and has an 8-day time limit.

My favorite skipper, AKA TwoBeers, and his crew Jahn "Moresailesed" Tihanksy made a graceful transition from sand to water.

After nearly a decade of complaints about the spotty SPOT coverage, we switched to a personal tracker that seems to be tracking more reliably.  Garmin InReach.  Hurrah!  And Team Spawn even got it working the first try!

So far (five hours into the event) the WaterTribe site is glitching, so here's another option if you want to track at home...
RaceOwl is the site. Click on the photo below to get to the event tracking page.

Fingers crossed for a pleasant event for all the sailors, paddlers, rowers, and those of us on the shore!