Off the Beach with the Challengers

And so it begins...the incessant clicking to refresh and update the tracking websites on the 2022 Ultimate Florida Challenge...

​Meanwhile, on shore, between laundry, packing up the van, rescuing Care Bears (for reals! stuffed-animal-fetching side-hustle!) and securing the canoe, I ventured out on shopping quest on behalf of the Spawnsters.

Their demands -–– peculiar and specific –– sound  via tense telephone call as if by motivated but slightly dimwitted kidnappers.
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Please, they said: 
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1. We're going to need more socks.
2. And rubbing alcohol.
3. And more batteries.
4. And ratchet blocks.
5. ​Also duct tape. 

What kind of felonious craft project are they creating? 

Part of the snacks: homemade chocolate bark with pistachios, pecans, white chocolate, cherries, and milk chocolate.

Whatever it is, I don't know how long it will take.

Which is the second most asked question I get as the intrepid ground-control for Spawn.  

My usual answer is: "Well, the current record for these 1200 miles is 17 days."  

Then the questioner and I share a moment's silent begogglement before the other person pipes up with some version of, "What the bleeping heckydoodle!?"

I can only shrug.  
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Black sail, white eye of Horus, safety green shirts.

Yes, I have no idea how long I will be fielding peculiar demands from my team on the high sea.

Yes, I don't know when they will arrive at any particular place, or which way they intend to traverse any given set of navigational challenges.  

Yes, I can't say whether they will camp out tonight and eat one of those delicious meals I packed. 

I'm just driving the trailer (and The Miss Patsie) and a box after box of meals, haberdashery, and other diverse matérial for their restocking stops. 

Oh, well, that and rescuing two Care Bears in Animal Suits and a White Bear from the bench by the red curvy slide at the playground by the skipper's meeting pavilion.    

In what might be my most cheering moment of the week, I found the bears and got them back to their youngster -- the daughter of the friend of a former student of a friend sailing a different regatta on the other side of the Bay.

Small world.

​Still wouldn't want to paint it. 

Spawn mobbed by paparazzi pre-start.

That being said, the latest telephone call from our adventuring crew at around 5 on Saturday put them at Checkpoint 1, Cape Haze.  Their report: the wind was at first lively, then flattened in the afternoon. They rowed back toward shore where they caught breeze (brisk, puffy, and of course directly from the direction they meant to go), and had their hands full getting into the checkpoint.  

They sounded wearied but resolute; perhaps the enormity of the event hitting them –– as it did me,  nearly weeping for no particular reason this morning after the start  –– right in the midriff.

Track them directly by clicking on the map below.

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