Dinghy Raft-Up and Concert

Friday April 18th was Good Friday and an official holiday on Antigua.  This meant all the normal cruisers hangouts would be closed.  Stir crazy cruisers is a bad idea.  Plus 3/4 of the fun of Classic Race Week is the social part.

s/v Terrapin crew Molly and Baxter

Luckily some of the seasoned cruisers had the solution.....a dinghy raft up.  But not just your normal raft up.  Oh no.  We had a dinghy raft up AND concert!

Tom, Richard (Rick), Diane

Yes we did!  m/v Bodacious offered up their upper stern deck as the stage and their generator to run the speakers and lights.  Oh yes...we had lights for our dinghy concert.

Night shot with all the pretty lights - oooohhh

Ukulele Pat was first up.  He was awesome, playing sing along favorites from Johnny Cash, David Allen Coe and many more.  Next we heard from the band White Chocolate - aka David and Trudy off s/v Persephone.  Trudy's classically trained voice handled covers from Linda Ronstadt, June Carter many more.

s/v Dream Maker crew Cathy and Bill 

As more and more dinghy's arrived, lines were passed up to tie the new arrivals in tight and the floating island of dinghies grew and grew.  It was tough to know where your dinghy was tied off.   I am not sure what the official dinghy count was but several have said well over 40 dinghies were rafted up.  I believe it.

Put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care

We all brought our own beverages but munchies were shared.  Although I did try to horde a couple of really yummy things.  There was so much good food.

Do I HAVE to pass these on?

Midway through the evening, a dinghy in the middle needed out.  The subsequent untying caused a big section of the dinghy island to break off and start floating away much like a mini ice burg breaks off from the bigger floating one.  Our little island carefully started motors and motored back to the group - in some cases.....like Tom....backward while towing another dinghy.

Dancing to the tunes

A few attempted to dinghy dance - tough to do.  However, to my knowledge, no one fell in.

Whoot Whoot

It was an unusual event and fun was had by all.  HUGE thanks to m/v Bodacious along with Pat, Trudy and David.