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Well, here we are on December 17th, a little more than two weeks until I rendezvous with my crew in Beaufort to, as Chris Parker says, “exit the US East Coast” to head down to the BVI.

I am very lucky to have a great crew for the run.  Leading the charge will be Jim, who’s sailed something like 5,000 miles with me, the most of anybody except Brenda, of course.   And, it was through Jim that I was introduced to Jerry and Dave, also from Jim’s area in VA.  Jim is a cruiser like me but Jerry and Dave are both racers, inshore and offshore so the combined experience will be good.

My plan is to leave CT on January 2nd with a rental car and make my way south. Along the way I’ll likely stop and see my new Granddaughter Tori (short for Victoria) as I make my way through MD.  She was born December 12th in case you were wondering.  Her father Rob, our oldest, told her about my plans to stop by on my way to Pandora.  At first she said “Grandpy who?”. The she suddenly remembered “Oh, you mean my favorite paternal Grandpy!  Yes, I remember him!”  Can you believe that she already knows the word, paternal?   Smart girl.   We had a onsie made up for her that says “Pandora Crew”.  Good to start the training early.  Picture of her in uniform to come soon.  Right Rob?  I know how much she loves being dressed and changed into new clothes.  All that crying is really her trying to say “TAKE ME SAILING GRANDPY”.  Not certain on the spelling of Grandpy.  Spell check only pulls up Granny and that’s not working for me.

Ok, ok, enough baby pictures but I was talking about crew so Tori counts.  Sorry Jim, she’s going to be serious competition down the road.  Actually, by the time she’s old enough… Well, I don’t want to think about that right now.  I’m thinking one of those peddle boats.  Nooooo…..

I won’t think about that now.  So, back to “exiting the US East Coast”.   Chris Parker, the weather router that we use, does daily weather briefings six days a week and broadcasts on SSB radio as well as on the Web.   We are still a bit far out to know what the weather will be the first week of January when we want to begin our run but it’s not too early to look at some high level trends in east coast weather.

Chris told me that there seems to be a pattern of lows exiting the coast about every five days or so and that they are not terribly strong with winds, say in the under 3o kt range.   Yes, a mere zephyr.  That’s not bad as long as the winds are behind us, which they should be.  Yes, something to wish for.

A few weeks ago Chris told me that he thought that my chances of getting out in the first week of January was about 75%.  Soon we will know.

It’s interesting to see how quickly the wind patterns change day to day.  This may be “more than you want to know about penguins” but what follows is a series of 24 hour wind forecasts beginning at 06:00 UTC today.  That’s midnight EST today.

So, beginning today…  Note that the yellow is the strongest wind at around 30kts with stronger gusts and the white 5kts or less.   Today would not be a good day to get going as it’s blowing strong from the ESE and a low is just exiting the east coast south of Hatteras.  You probably know this but the “flags” point toward where the wind is coming from and each full “flag feather” represents 10kts of wind and a half feather, well, 5kts.   The red line would be Pandora’s course and approximate 24 hour run distance.  The Gulf Stream in yellow.  Note that the “stream” comes pretty close to Hatteras and is deflected to the east at that point.  The very shallow waters off of Hatteras make it a particularly nasty place to be when things kick up, especially with a north component wind.    That’s why they call it “the graveyard of the Atlantic”.   Cheery thought. 

On Sunday you can see that the wind is expected to shift more to the SSW.  This would still be a problem as our “apparent wind” (how it feels on board with the boat moving toward the wind) would be pretty far forward of the beam and would feel like 30kts or higher in gusts.  Not even a little bit great. 24 hours later, midnight on Monday EST, the wind has again shifted back to the north.   However, as you can see, the wind drops out about 24 hours into our run.  That’s when we would be south of the GS which goes very close to Hatteras.  still a nasty way to start the run. So, Tuesday the winds are still strong from the NE.  Nope, still not a good time to cross the Gulf Stream. Perhaps Wednesday could be a window to start out if we were ready as the winds are from the NW and not too strong.
Thursday the wind drops out so a departure might work even if it means motoring for the first day or two  Let’s see what Friday brings…Oops.  Friday again brings strong southerlies so the wind would be very far forward of the beam.  Pretty unpleasant and the pattern begins all over again. So, what’s a crew to do?   Well, this analysis suggests that there really isn’t a decent window in the next week.  However, the 4th or 5th of January is still a long way off so we will just have to wait and see what happens.  This exercise shows just how changeable the weather is in the winter months.  The key will be to get across the Gulf Stream and into more southerly waters before the next cold front moves off of the coast.

It is quite interesting to see how different the weather patterns are in the winter verses spring.  I have generally found that getting a week long window with favorable winds heading north in the spring is pretty easy as the prevailing winds are from a southerly direction and the fronts don’t roll off of the coast nearly so frequently.

I guess that’s about all for now and I’ll report back sometime next week to see how things look for the first week of January.  Ten days out we should at least be able to get an inkling of what lies ahead.

Well, I was telling Tori about what it was like sailing in the Gulf Stream with wind from the north and she wasn’t amused.  So,I gave her back to her parents.

I guess that about covers it for now.   Stay tuned for more scintillating updates on weather and getting ready to head south.  I know that my crew is.  Perhaps not Tori but it’s to soon to tell what she’ll think when she’s bigger.

Yes, I know this blog is about sailing.  Don’t worry.

Finally, Pandora’s new and improved cockpit table is done.  It took a lot longer than I had expected but it took a lot less time than the new bathroom which Brenda was particularly focused on this summer.  However, the bathroom deal is another story entirely.

You may recall Brenda’s saying, the whole “six for cocktails, four for dinner and two stay the night” thing.  Well, up until now the “four for dinner” only worked if we ate down below.  And that worked quite well as Pandora’s dining table is generous.  However, in the cockpit, where we prefer to dine when it’s nice outside (of course) only had room for two.   While we were in Cuba was had to eat fresg caught lobster all by ourselves while, you can plainly see, enduring desperate conditions.  However, somehow we somehow managed to survive until now  Such depravity! However, we did somehow survive and we FINALLY have a larger table.  I have fashioned an 18″ extension that I can slip on or off as needed.  Pretty nifty actually as engineering this was not simple and to make it look the same as the Lewmar table that came with the boat was pretty tough.  However, now, we can open it up and there will be plenty of room for the “four for dinner” that we had so desperately longed for.   You’ll have to forgive the difference in color of the new wood on the extension.  Yes, it will fade in time to be more golden.  We can also fold it up for those times when we need the room to put out drinks and snacks only.  You know, “six for cocktails”.  Actually, sometimes we have twice that many and that puny little 24″ table just won’t do. “Bob.   How ever will you keep the two halves together and support the end?” Thank you.  I am very pleased that you asked.   There is a “magic tab” on the back that slides into two channels to support things.  I have to say that coming up with this took some genuine “head scratching” and it wasn’t until I was describing the problem to my friend Craig a few weeks ago that he suggested a sort of well, “tab” to keep things lined up.   It slides into special (don’t they look special?) slots on the back of table and extension. 

Voila!  “Magic tab” in place. Oh yeah, I fashioned some nifty screw-in legs to support the table when it’s in the “four for dinner” configuration.  It just wouldn’t do if one of our guests somehow ended a bit “lit” and leaned too hard on the end of the table.   All those chips everywhere.  That just wouldn’t do. In case you missed the post that described the earlier stages of construction click here.

So, there you have it, Pandora’s new “alfresco” dining table is done so all that’s left is to answer the eternal question “guess who’d coming to dinner”.

I am afraid that I can’t answer that quite yet as she’s not open to entertaining at this time.   Guest dining, for four you now know, will just have to wait until we are all settled in the BVI.

And, with less than a month until I shove off for warmer climes, (Did I mention that I just hate cold weather?) “dinner for four” is not that far off.

It’s hard to believe that I only have one month to the day until I’ll be back aboard Pandora in Beaufort NC.

This week the work on Pandora’s engine was completed.  It wasn’t anything particularly big, just a leak on the heat exchanger.  Fixed now.  I also had a new charger/inverter installed.  I could have done that myself so it’s going to hurt to write a check.  Oh well, only two boat dollars for both.  Ugh…

I am getting a bit anxious about the two big ports in the cabin and the big window in the dodger that need to be replaced as the guy who’s supposed to be working on it hasn’t been responding to my emails and calls.  I did speak to the office at the marina and I believe that they will hunt him down and be sure that the work is done on time.

The problem is that the guy who’s supposed to be doing the work is a sub-contractor to the marina.  However, the folks at the marina did recommend him and have a vested interest in having the work done right so I’ll keep my fingers crossed that everything comes together with a minimum of fuss.  Yes, “double crossed” but in a good way, I hope.

The fact that I am leaving in one month was brought into sharp focus yesterday as I did my first shopping for “provisions” for the trip south.  I am not focused on perishable stuff right now but did buy a lot of items that I’ll need to have on board.  I am trying to get most of the purchases out of the way of anything that won’t spoil.  Besides, you can never have too many packages of “Chips Ahoy” cookies.  Right?

As I’ll be trying to get Pandora completely ready to get underway in only  two or three days once I get to Beaufort, I want to bring as much as I can from home and have been making a list for the last few months of what I’ll need, you know, toilet paper, paper towels, snacks and the like.  I am also bringing along soy sauce and wasabi as I am hopeful that we will catch some nice tuna along the way.  That would be awesome.

Speaking of fishing, at the Salty Dawg Rally events in Hampton in late October, I sat in on a fishing session that suggested gear we should have on board for the run.   Of course, rods and the usual fishing stuff was part of the discussion but they also recommended that we have a hand spool of really heavy line that is run out the back of the boat and pulled in by hand with gloves when there is a fish on the line.

This is a good example of the rig and it’s a lot simpler than all that complicated rod and gear approach.  We have one of these aboard Pandora and it works well.  Interestingly, the spool that you wind the line on is called a “Cuban hand reel”.  Who knew?Want one yourself?  This link will take you to a site with details on how to set one up.  I just went to a tackle shop and they made one up for me.  No, I am not ALWAYS a do-it-my-selfer, believe it or not.

I also heard that it was NOT A GOOD IDEA to use REALLY BIG lures as you might catch a REALLY BIG FISH.  Big lures usually mean REALLY BIG FISH. Not good as there is just no way to deal with a huge fish on board.   Even a small tuna, say under ten pounds, is hard to deal with as you’ll get sick of tuna before you area able to eat all of it.   Too much sushi you say?  Trust me on this.

So, I included a bottle of soy sauce and a can of wasabi powder.  All ready for our tuna.  Time to fish, soon.

The cockpit table extension is done and I am putting on MANY coats of varnish. I’ll post some photos of the completed table soon.  I am very pleased with how it turned out and can’t wait to share the result.  Now we can be true to the “four for dinner” aboard Pandora.  If you don’t understand what I mean by that you aren’t reading my blog.  Curious? Ok, check out this post and you’ll understand.

I also received the calcite water treatment filter which should solve the problem of acidic water that tastes a little funny from the watermaker, RO unit.  I was wondering how I’d be able to tell when the filter needed to be replaced and was pleased to see that the filter housing is translucent so that I will be able to see when the “sand” is depleted.  Unfortunately, the filter housing I have isn’t clear so I may have to rethink that and get a one that is see-through.  That way I’ll know when the filter is out of media.  Don’t know what I am talking about on this either?  Check out this post that goes into more detail on the problem.

I think I mentioned that the Salty Dawg Sailing Association is planning a rally from the BVI to Havana this spring and I have been asked to prepare a summary of some of Brenda’s and my posts from our visit to Cuba last winter as a “primer” on what we experienced.   As they are only going to be in Havana I will be focusing on that aspect of the trip.  Just for fun, here’s what I’ll be sending them with links to some of my favorite posts.

Here you go, Salty Dawgs (and you too)

The Salty Dawg Sailing Association will be hosting a rally to Havana in the spring of 2017.  Well, that’s assuming that the President Elect doesn’t decide to crank down and further restrict travel to Cuba.  I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Hank, who is the organizer for the trip, has asked me to prepare something to share to give you a feel for what we experienced, particularly in Havana.

Perhaps the best place to start is with Brenda’s post where she wrote about what the people are like and let me tell you, they are wonderful.   When you visit Havana you’ll find that it’s not quite as “gentle” as the very rural areas, but still very friendly.  I took a stab at describing how I felt about the Cuban people as well in this post.   In the event that you decide to venture further west of Havana Cayo Levisa, that I mentioned in that post is a wonderful spot to visit.

We spent about ten days in Havana which is probably enough time to get a feel for things but there is so much to see you could easily spend weeks or months exploring the city.  This post, which I wrote up while we were “in the thick” of our visit to Havana gives a good feel for all that there is to see in this vibrant city.  While it is a poor country, there is no shortage of art an music and it seemed like there was always some sort of holiday celebration underway.

This post by Brenda entitled, “Magical Havana” captures the wonder that she felt as we made our way.   Brenda and I visited Cuba under a “journalism general license” with her goal of exploring the fiber arts of Cuba and she really hit “pay-dirt” in Havana.

The arts in Cuba are just amazing and Brenda did a great job of conveying that spirit as she wrote about our very last day in Havana prior to heading to Ft Lauderdale.  Her post “Basket Man”, a street artist that we encountered, is a great example of how vibrant this city is.   We watched him make an amazingly intricate “basket”.   And finally, eating out in Havana is best enjoyed by visiting the many Paladars, small private family owned restaurants that are everywhere in Cuba.   As a general rule, the “tourist hotels” while they are magnificent buildings, have very mediocre, bordering on horrible, food and are expensive.  We did frequent these but did so for an afternoon coffee or drink.  If you want really great food, you need to go to a private restaurant, or Paladar.  We visited a number of these but one, Paladar los Mercaderes, was a real standout.   A great source of information on where to eat and what to see is the Lonely Planet Guide to Cuba.  This post was about that day and our best meal in Cuba.  I thought that the “greeter” was just too cool. All and all, while not nearly as “polished” as many of the islands in the Caribbean, Cuba is a “diamond in the rough” and to go now, before there are “Golden Arches” on every corner, is an experience not to be missed.

Want to learn more?  Check out the 30 or so posts, from March and April of which I have highlighted just a few.  They can be found on this site as well as Brenda’s at www.argoknot.com.  And just like visiting Cuba, they are best enjoyed when accompanied by a glass of good rum (prefereably Cuban) served neat.  You won’t be disappointed.

Yes, go to Cuba!  Brenda and me?  We’re going to somewhere new, the Eastern Caribbean.  Only a month until I head out.  So excited!

 

 

It seems that one of the first things that most “non-boaters” ask about Pandora is “how many does she sleep?”, a question that was always an odd one to me and yet a question that only seems to apply to boats.

To that point, when someone asks about our home, they never ask “how many sleep in your house?”.  Why is that?

I guess that the same sort of question applies to size as inevitably, the next question is “how big is your boat?”.   My answer is always “well, that depends how far from the dock we are.  When we are close, she seems huge.  Far out to sea when it’s rough, very tiny indeed.”  Funny as nobody ever says, “how big is your house?”

Anyway, the point of the title of this post is, sort of, related to how many Pandora sleeps.   Brenda’s answer is always the same when that question comes up. “six for cocktails, four for dinner and two sleep on board.”  That works well for us as most of our cruising friends have their own boats and even at 47′, Pandora’s not much larger than a normal sized bathroom in a house.

Related to the sleeping question is how many eat on board and while we have a generous dining table down below,we usually prefer to eat out in the cockpit.  However, unlike “old” Pandora where we had a good size dining table in the cockpit, “new” Pandora, not so much.  Her table is fine for two but if we are going to live up to Brenda’s saying, we’d have to use salad plates and sit WAY TO CLOSE TO OUR GUESTS as the table is just too small.   It looks lovely all set for dinner but, alas, only for two.   Yes, I realize that this isn’t dinner but you get the idea.So the question was how to enlarge the table and yet have it still fold down like the one that came with the boat?   My solution was to put on some sort of extension, a sort of “leaf” like a “land-home” table might have.  The question was how to do it.

I decided to increase the length of the table by 18″ for a total length of 3 1/2′ and design it in a way that could be slid on and removed easily.   I am using teak to match the “already aboard Pandora” table.  The wood alone, while only a single board, set me back $150 (that’s .15 of a boat dollar).  No room for mistakes. Next I had to include fiddles, like the “old” table,  to keep things from sliding around when the table is in the closed position, say for cocktails when we have the “six for cocktails” thing going on.  This is what it will look like, sort of, in a deployed but “closed” cocktail position.  There will be a slide bracket on the back to keep the two sections aligned and secured to each other. There will be two tapered legs to support what will be a long table.  We don’t want a guest to lean on the suspended end after “one too many” and bring the whole thing crashing to the deck.  Making the tapered legs was a bit challenging using a shop-built jig.   This is a shot of the jig and “blank” of the soon to be tapered leg. Here’s one of the two roughed out legs.   They taper from about 1 1/4″ at the top to a bit over 1/2″ at the bottom.  Magic, a tapered leg!  A fitting will go in the top of the leg that will allow me to screw it into the bottom of the table to support the extra length. Curious about how to make such a jig or how to use it? This four minute video shows how to make a jig and after that, if you just have to know how to actually use the jig, a second short video will come up. I also had to cut in for each of the 4 new hinges so the table will fold into the “cocktail” form.   First I drew them on the wood. Then I roughed them out with an electric router.  I think it took me a week or two just to get up the nerve to use the router “free-hand” and I had to get them exactly right eight times as that’s how many hinge ends I had to get “perfect”.   You can do a world of hurt to a project such a tool.  They can be hard to control and there is no way to repair a mistake.  However, it worked out.   Here’s what they looked like when “rough” after the router. Then I “cleaned up” each hinge mortise with a small chisel.  The net step was to mortise out more wood for the thicker parts of the hinge.  I took out some wood, tried to fit the hinge and repeated the process time and time again until each hinge end fit “just right”. And eventually they all did. I also had to duplicate the details on the original table such as the routed down areas of the corners. That proved to be fairly time consuming.  I did it with a 1″ sanding drum on a drill.  Lots of sandpaper used up on that step but it worked.

Today, if I ever finish this post, I’ll do the final fitting on the hinges and then work out a design for the “tab” on the bottom of the table that will marry the two table sections together securely.  After that, I’ll finish the sanding and then begin applying the many coats of varnish so the new table will look like the one that came with the boat.

I’ll include photos of the finished table after it’s all completed.  While it’s a fairly simple project, getting the details on the new “leaf” hasn’t been easy as I had to reverse engineer the “how did they do that” for much of the details.

Everyone complains about how much thing cost for boats but it’s the “custom” nature of everything that makes them so costly.  It’s a good thing that I mostly have the ability make this stuff as I could never justify the cost of hiring someone else to do it.

So, how many does Pandora sleep?   Now you know and soon Pandora will be able to be true to Brenda’s word “four for dinner” on our shiny new cockpit table.

 

 

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and America is heading to the stores in force to buy, well, to buy whatever.  “Out of my way dammit. I saw that Ninja action figure first and it’s mine!”

For me, well I am going to stay far away from the mall and let everyone else compete for the latest “must have” item as I am more focused on making sure that everything is set for Brenda’s and my time in the eastern Caribbean aboard Pandora.  The arrival of our first grandchild in a few weeks will be a big deal for us and balancing time away without missing out on too much of the new little Osborn’s milestones will be tough.

Yes, our daughter-in-law Kandice is due on December 14th which is just around the corner   However, this site is about sailing not delivering.  Well, not about delivering babies anyway.

And, speaking of “delivering”.  “Nice transition Bob.”  When Brenda and I cruised around Cuba last winter Brenda met a fellow bobbin lace maker, Adriana while we were in Havana.  When we headed to Cuba Brenda had seen a photo of Adriana on a blog post done by someone in Oregon, I think, that had met Adriana a few years back.  However, that was all that Brenda had to go on, a single photo on an old blog post.

As Internet access is very difficult in Cuba, especially for Cubans, there was almost nothing on The Web at all for Brenda to go on in finding out about the fiber arts in Cuba much less finding that one particular woman in the photo.  The only thing Brenda new was that Adriana could sometimes be found at a certain park in Old Havana. Amazingly, Brenda found Adriana and did so on our very first day in Old Havana.  What an amazing coincidence, to find the one woman out of millions of Cubans that Brenda was trying dead set on meeting.

This post by Brenda tells her amazing story of finding Adriana.  We visited her again several more times while we were in Havana and the two women formed an instant bond.

Brenda and Adriana, the lady in green, really hit it off in spite of the fact that Brenda doesn’t speak Spanish and Adriana knows no English.  It seems that the “language of fiber” was all that they needed and a little interpreter help from Dazmira (the one on the right in red) who speaks some English.   So here we are, nearly a year later, and Brenda has been accumulating a mountain (well perhaps a hill, or modest mound) of donated lace materials from members of her guilds, here in CT, to take to Adriana this spring.

The big question is if Brenda and I will make the trip to make the delivery ourselves or if we will hand the materials off to someone else who will take everything to Adriana in Old Havana.

Over the last few years, I have become more involved in a group, the Salty Dawg Sailing Association (I’ve mentioned this before) and the group is organizing a rally to Havana from the BVI in the spring.   So, the plan is for the supplies to be delivered to Adriana by Pandora or by a Salty Dawg rally participant.

It’s amazing to me that this is really happening and surely speaks to the bond that artists have with one another, regardless of nationality.  Stay tuned to see how things develop in the coming months.  I know that Brenda and Adriana have been in touch by email lately so the plot thickens.  Good thing that Brenda has access to Google Translate so she can understand the messages from Adriana.

So, on to the, sort of, topic of this post…  In a recent post I talked about the corrosive properties of RO (reverse osmosis) product water.  You know, a topic that’s on just about everyone’s mind these days, and the havoc that it causes on aluminum and my water heater in particular.   Dear reader, you will recall that I had to replace the water heater as it was eaten away by the acidic water from the RO unit.  Yes, oh so sad…

The solution to the problem, I discovered, is to run the acidic “product water” from the RO unit through a cartridge filled with calcite media made of crushed marble before it ends up in the boat’s water tanks. This process increases the Ph of the water just enough to make sure that it is no longer corrosive.

This is a description of the process…

Calcite is a crushed and screened white marble media which neutralizes acidic or low pH waters to a neutral, less corrosive condition. Calcite is a naturally occurring calcium carbonate media. One of the advantages of Calcite is its self-limiting property as it corrects pH only enough to reach a non-corrosive equilibrium. It does not over-correct under normal conditions.

Upon contact with Calcite, acidic waters slowly dissolve the calcium carbonate to raise the pH which reduces the potential leaching of metals found in typical plumbing systems. Depending on the pH of the “product water” flowing through it, the Calcite bed will have to be periodically replenished as the Calcite is depleted.

The good news is that these calcite filters are available in a standard 10″ cartridge that fit typical water filter housings.  My plan is to put this new filter in-line between the RO unit and our water tanks.   Sourcing the fittings to marry the output lines from the RO unit is proving to be a bit of a challenge but I have found most of what I need.

As an added benefit this means that the water we drink aboard won’t be completely tasteless or, as we have found, sort of soapy.  Not great as water tastes best when it has some minerals in it.  Don’t believe me?  Try drinking distilled water.

Awkward segue or not, about the other title of this post.   One of the best things about cruising the Windward and Leeward Islands is the international flavors of the many cultures in close proximity to one another.

As these islands are heavily influenced by the countries that colonized them hundreds of years ago, to sail between islands, many of which are just a day-sail apart, is to easily visit countries with very different cultures.   The only option that’s more convenient for us to go from country to country is perhaps Epcot in FL although some might suggest (yes, that means you Brenda) that it just isn’t the same.

However, while sailing aboard Pandora, it’s A LOT more practical for us to enjoy the taste of England to France by heading to Antiqua and then on to Guadalupe. Yes, that’s much simpler than if we had to “cross the pond”.  In my last post about places we hope to visit this winter, I wrote about Antiqua with it’s deep British heritage.

Another country we are excited about visiting is Guadalupe as we just love French wines, bread and cheeses.  I was poking around YouTube and found this charming video.  It really got our appetites going.Yes, lots to do between now and early January when I head south aboard Pandora but I am really getting excited.  I can almost taste the fresh-from-the-oven baguettes from the French islands.  Yum…

Well, I guess that’s all for now as I have a few errands to run.  Besides, it’s Black Friday and it just wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a store.  I think I’ll make that store Home Depot.  Yes, I need a water filter housing and, as everyone knows, no shopping expedition on Black Friday is complete without buying a water filter housing.

Attention Black Friday shoppers…