17:00,49 N

61:45,84 W

After 2 years of planning and preparations, it's now less than 24 hours before we set sail on our big adventure!

The fleet of 30 Oysters have gathered in the beautiful old port of Nelsons dockyard, Engish Harbour in Antigua ready for the official start tomorrow at 1pm.

We arrived on the island a week ago and it has been a frenetic few days of preparations. We shopped in the huge supermarket in St Johns where they even have a Waitrose aisle! We filled 4 trolleys incuding 60 bottles of water and some beer,, then to Dominica (just in case the water maker fails!).

The freezer is full and every conceivable space on the boat is filled with cans and tins including under the floor boards.

Oyster have organised a number of events during the week including a seminar on tropical weather and passage planning, and a course on yacht safety and security which have been really useful. The start party on Thursday was great fun, typical Oyster style - wine flowing and dancing till the early hours!

With a start time of 1pm we haven't got enough time to get to our first destination in daylight so we'll be anchoring in a bay just around the corner, so for anyone following the Yellow Brick tracker don't be surpised by our initial lack of progress! On Monday morning we'll set off for Gaudaloupe our first stop, then to Dominica and from there we'll headoff on a 3 day sail to the Dutch Antilles. We've heard reports about safety issues in the Venezualan Islands of Los Roques so we've decided to give them a wide berth and head direct to Bonaire where the diving is supposed to be amongst the best in the world.

There ae some links below to the Oyster site which includes photos which have been taken in the last week, also there is a link to the Yellow Brick tracker.

Missing everybody at home (not the weather!) but really excited about the next 27 months

Harvey and Sue xx

Visit the Oyster World Rally Website

Latest photos  Click here to see them: http://www.oysterworldrally.com/gallery/

The latest news updates can be found on: http://www.oysterworldrally.com/latest-news/

Follow the fleet on http://www.oysterworldrally.com#route  and also on http://yb.ti/OysterWR you can download an app to follow this YB