Say hello to our newest crew member, Ursula Mae Elmquist!

She’s already shown herself to be a real trooper, so she’s a welcome addition to our team!

The other new crew members this year are Muscongus and Ignatius E. Normous:

“GusNIggie.jpg”

They’re already getting to be HUGE – no idea how they’re going to fit on the boat!

We miss our dear sweet Normie, Felis P. Normous, officer in charge of morale, who passed away in December of 2006:

“Felis
When we met Norm, he was recovering from a very traumatic experience – he had been abandoned – and with no one to treat his thyroid condition and his kidney problems, well, he was in bad shape. The kind folks at Animal Kind Veterinary Hospital were caring for him, but they knew that they couldn’t provide a permanent home – so we invited him to come stay with us.

Our Chef, Sailmaker and Costume Designer is Francine “Frankie” Elmquist.

“Frankie
Fran comes from a real seafaring family – she has ancestors who were sea captains, and she herself grew up sailing on Long Island Sound and on the coast of Maine (where muffins, too, are rampant). Her parents are members of the Portland Yacht Club, where they keep their Ericson 35, Paper Doll – and her brother, Peter Pendleton, is a SERIOUS yacht racer – he was in the last Volvo Ocean Race, surfing down the giant seas of the Southern Ocean! With this, it can be said that seafaring is indeed in Fran’s blood, way before high-tech vessels and
href= “http://www.casino.com/” >online casino started coming out.

Fran is an architect by profession, and her love of meticulous detail extends to her baking.

Skipper and muffin taster (and webmaster) for the voyage is me – Tony “Skipper” Elmquist

“Me”
I’m from Minnesota – I grew up sailing small boats on Green Lake and bigger ones on Lake Superior. This trip is following in a great family tradition; my grandparents built their boat Alcyone (now owned and sailed by Bob Nose) in the 70’s to head for far horizons, and ended up settling in the Virgin Islands, and my parents headed out from Bayfield, Wisconsin on their little boat Prickly Heat in 1992. They, too, ended up in the Virgin Islands, where the loss of their boat in Hurricane Marilyn in 1995 made St. John their more-or-less permanent home.

We were just friends, as members of the band the Irreversible Slacks, when a far-too-close brush with the events of September 11, 2001 made us reevaluate some of our priorities and start planning this adventure. Who knows how far we’ll get – but at least we’re trying!

Oh – did I mention that we got married?
“Laughing