Welcome Sailors to St Pete / Clearwater and the 2022 F18 World Championships!

Let me introduce myself, my name is DeAnn Hittinger, concierge and travel agent for this event. I have been a Florida licensed travel agent for 8+ years, and love everything Florida has to offer.

With just a few days left, I am sure most of you have secured your travel arrangements & accommodations and are looking forward to the race and some Florida southern hospitality.

If you have any final travel needs or are looking for things to do while in Florida, I am here to help. Below are links to help start your search for location activities. However, if you would like personalized service for your vacation extras, feel free to contact me at ChecklistTravels@gmail.com or call/text 813-990-7683.

If you are wanting to visit Disney or Universal, please let me know as soon as possible. Due to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween and Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, these theme parks are at capacity on certain dates. Let me help get you and your family into the theme parks while you are here.

I will be in the main event area throughout each day of the 2022 F18 World Championships & look forward to meeting you all. Feel free to come by and chat with me anytime.

Safe travels, and all the best to you and your family during your stay in the Tampa Bay area.

Clearwater = https://www.viator.com/Clearwater/d22457-ttd?accountid=TJGLB1I&mcid=58086

Orlando = https://www.viator.com/Orlando/d663-ttd?accountid=TJGLB1I&mcid=58086

Tampa = https://www.viator.com/Tampa/d666-ttd?accountid=TJGLB1I&mcid=58086

As many of you know and have seen images of on the news, the Southwest portion of Florida has been more than devastated by a Category 4, just 2 knots shy of a Category 5(the worst) hurricane. This hurricane has been one of the largest and most powerful in US history. The devastation is shocking with massive storm surge damage. This area was never in the predicted area of destruction. It was suppose to be the Tampa Bay area and Clearwater Beach, where we are and where the F18 Worlds will take place. WE WERE COMPLETELY SPARED AND ARE IN GREAT SHAPE. As a result, in part of being taken by surprise, many down South did not have the means or the time to get out when the storm unexpectedly turned.

Over the last couple of days, the waters have continued to rise and continue to destroy homes, business, properties and most importantly, the lives and livelihood of so many people. For most everyone who lived in one of the mobile home communities. their homes and all their possessions are destroyed and gone forever. Many of these people don’t’ have a nest egg of savings to help them. Too many to count yet, who had propper houses and condos have also lost everything. The before and after shots of the Ft Myers Beach and surrounding areas are unrecognizable. Many of these people will be living in shelters for a long time as everything sorts out, particularly those who do not have family to go to. The houses that are left have no water or electric or working infrastructure and will not for a long time.

In our last message announcing that the F18 Worlds were going on, we also announced that we were going to host a raffle at the event and raise some money for the Hurricane Victims. Daniel Hearn has volunteered to run our special raffle we will do at the event. We have invited everyone to participate and even make some private donations to supplement what we raise. If you know of someone who would like to donate items for the raffle, we also welcome that/. We have had several people pledge to chip in to the cause. Our next task is to decide what charity to provide the funds to and how to disperse the money. THIS IS WHERE YOUR OPINION COMES IN.

We want to make sure that if we donate the money to a charity that this money will go directly to the victims. There are ways to help ensure that which we are looking into. We have had some suggestions already to entertain. If you plan to donate to our collection with cash or raffle items, please make sure this is done by the conclusion of the event.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. We want everyone to be a part of this process.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A PLEDGE to this project, you can keep it private and notify us or if you want to show your support, comment with the amount or the raffle items that you would like to donate. There is no amount that is too small or too large!

As you may have seen on the news, we were projected to be ground zero for a very dangerous hurricane. Fortunately for us, we were spared as the storm came in South of us in the Ft Myers area.

Clearwater was basically spared BUT, it is horrible for our friends and family in the path of the hurricane area and our thoughts and prayers are with them all. There are complete towns that have been wiped out. The level of devastation is unimaginable with some areas leveled.

It is hard to have good news along with bad news but we are happy to say the Immunolin F18 World Championship IS ON! We are going to make this event a fundraiser for the victims and donate money to a charity to directly impact the people who need help the most in the hurricane area in the name of the event. We hope you will be a part of this effort. We are going to incorporate our raffle in this effort as well. Over the next several days, we will research which charity to donate to that will provide the most help. If you want to participate with a private donation, we will be happy to facilitate that. Our goal is to raise at least 5K.

Please review the web site for any news. Also, please make sure that you follow Red Gear Racing Facebook as we will be posting all things F18 Worlds on that site. We also ask that you familiarize yourself with the arrival and departure plan. IT IS IMPERATIVE that you follow directions. We will not expect you until after 12:00 on October 6th and you will enter through the Sand Key Park, which is just to the North of the Sheraton. We will have signs directing you. After 18:00, those signs will be directing you to the back side of the Sheraton where we will store the boats for the night and roll them over to the park in the morning.

Just in case it is not crystal clear….DO NOT DRIVE ONTO THE BEACH AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON and DO NOT ROLL YOUR BOAT ONTO THE BEACH WITHOUT APPROVAL OF THE BEACH CAPTAIN. This is very serious and can results in fines from the county. Please do not be THAT person.

GOOD MORNING! Our phone has been ringing off the hook seeing if we are safe here in Clearwater. We are SOOOO lucky! What started off to be a devastating prediction ended up being totally incorrect. Very fortunate for us but very unfortunate for our friends and family to the South near Punta Gorda and Fort Myers. The damage down there was more than devastating as basically a Cat 5 storm came ashore. Most of the people there really did not have much time to prepare properly. This storm affected most of the state and Clearwater fared almost the best with very little damage.

We still have 30-40 knot winds for most of the day. Prior to the storm, we moved 20 boats with several being moved into an airplane hanger and the rest staked down in our hard and just outside along the fence. SO FAR SO GOOD! The only damage we have had is the back panel of our 20′ tent blow out which had needed to be replaced anyway.

We are expecting the beach to probably open soon. It had been evacuated and closed as a precaution for the storm. Once it is open, we will double check but we expect minimal damage. We have had several Tropical storms here and that is basically what we ended up with.

Once we have had a chance to check everything out we will be updating everyone with regards to the Worlds.

Florida’s leaders have done a fabulous job staging all kinds of people to get things up and running quickly. They have 43,000 linemen staged and countless rescue, national guard, vehicles and boats, rescue helicopters, temp cell towers staged that are already operating. They are going in FULL FORCE! The next 24 hours should be pretty amazing for our Southern neighbors.