It’s Friday morning and near the end of July (where do the days go?) and yet another beautiful day here in CT. Last night Brenda and I went down to the CT River Museum to enjoy one of their “Thursdays on the Dock” concert featuring the USCG Dixieland Jazz Band. These concerts are held on Thursdays in July and August and are a terrific bargain, free to members and $5 for non-members. It was a beautiful evening with a great turnout and wonderful music. The last time I spent any time with the USCG they wanted to see my fire extinguisher and documentation. It was more enjoyable last night. 
A very nice group of guys. One of the guys even had his mother visiting. HI Mom!
I tried to find a video of them performing that doesn’t take an hour to watch but no luck. This one was filmed in nearby New London and features the same guys that performed last night. You should at least watch a few minutes.
Seeing them brought back memories of many visits to New Orleans, back in my days as a “worker bee”. They were terrific and attracted a great crowd to the museum. I have enjoyed spending time volunteering at the museum over the last year. The director, Chris, is a great guy.
Brenda and I will be spending the winter in the Caribbean and I have begun planning my run to the Caribbean and the BVI and am getting pretty excited about it. Making a 1,500 mile ocean run is a bit daunting as it will be the longest that I have made to date. Just over 1,000 miles is the longest so far and I was never more than a few hundred miles from shore. A few hundred miles is still WAY to long a swim to shore but on this run I’ll be much further out on this run and too far to be picked up by helicopter, speaking of the USCG, if things decide to go badly.
Anyway, we plan to make landfall in the British Virgin Islands, Virgin Gorda, home of the Bitter End Yacht Club, and the destination for the Salty Dawg Rally. Not a bad spot. Getting excited!Still lots of details to work out to get Pandora ready for the run south.
Oh yeah, I think I mentioned that the bow thruster wasn’t working properly and had feared that a major repair was in the offing. Well, I went up to Wickford and Pandora this week, tools in hand, ready to perform surgery. Good news, nothing more than a loose wire. And, to make it even better, I found, and fixed, the problem without bringing in the professionals. Well, not yet at least. Let’s hope that the “thruster gremlin” doesn’t show up again any time soon.
Still need to do some canvas work to put a connector between the top of the dodger and the bimini so I’d better get going on ordering some supplies and quit it with this post. That’s all for now.