Monthly Archives: April 2025

Well, it’s finally here. My departure from Trinidad is in a few days and as I prepare for departure, Pandora is crawling with workers. Just today, a welder, canvas guy, electricians and Amos of Perfect Finish who’s group has done a wonderful job of painting Pandora’s hull.

Yes, there was lot of work done last summer on Pandora but after spending the season aboard, it seemed like a good idea to head back to Trinidad and have some last minute work done to get her in as perfect shape as possible before departing on my run to Horta.

The work that Amos and his gang did aboard Pandora last summer was first rate but with any job that big (check out older posts for a blow by blow as they replaced much of the side decks) I had a few items that needed work and decided to bring her back. After all that, it somehow seemed like a good idea to get the hull painted. I do like a shiny hull.

So now, Pandora is in spectacular shape having been worked over from very bottom of the keel, the hull and up to the top of the hard dodger and that really doesn’t begin to cover all that was done.

And now, she’s really shiny and with brand new graphics. I know that soon someone will come up to visit and their dink will chip the name. It happens every year. I guess that’s the risk of having friends. I’ll take it.

And to keep from getting scratches on her new shiny hull, I sewed soft covers on my new huge fenders. Figuring out how to do the pleats was not all that hard but I did have to do a bit of head scratching to be sure that I had it right before cutting the fabric. All’s well that ends well in spite of the fact that it took 3 yards of fabric that was 72″ wide to get the job done.

If you saw my last post, you know that these fenders are a lot BIGGER than they look.

After more than a decade of use, our anchor was looking a bit worse for wear so I had it tended to as well. The shank was a little bent and it was not even a tiny bit shiny. Now it is, thanks to the welder/metal worker, Mitchell. He does great work.

My crew Ken, who I have been sailing with off and on for decades, will be arriving in two days and will help me move Pandora up the islands to St Maarten where I will join the Homeward Bound Salty Dawg Rally.

Once Ken and I depart Trinidad, our first landfall will be Bequia, an overnight, where we will connect with Bill and Maureen aboard Kalunamoo, our oldest cruising buddies. We plan to stop a number of places as we make our run north to St Maarten where I will connect with the Homeward Bound Salty Dawg Rally, heading to Bermuda to prepare for my departure with the Azores rally, departing on or about June 1st.

Well, it’s 6:30pm and the electrician is still aboard. I have had great luck with all of the vendors except this one. He’s a very nice guy and gets a lot done when he is here but it seems that he’s always running out for something and stays away for hours at a time.All and all, I have had terrific value and great work here in Trinidad and of the “army” that has worked on Pandora, I have been overwhelmingly happy with the outcome.

I just can’t wait till everyone goes home and I can begin to put the boat back together again.

Perhaps a good place to wind up this post is a link to a number of webcams for the Azores. There are a LOT of them but you might find something worth looking at. The general site for all the webcams for the Azores check out this link. For a real time look at the harbor in Horta, check out this link.

Soon, out to dinner with a fellow Salty Dawg cruising couple.

Pandora splashes at 10:00 tomorrow morning and it will be good to have her ready to go. In particular, having a fridge and freezer working will be awesome.

It’s been six weeks since I left Pandora to fly home and now I’m back. Sadly, it will be another six weeks till I see Brenda again when we meet up in Horta.

Lots still to do but that’s about it for now. Time for dinner.

It’s hard to believe that I will be heading back to Trinidad and Pandora in two weeks. The month that I have been home has gone buy in a blur. I have been working hard to get things in shape at home as once I leave I will not be back until sometime in the first half of August.

Over the years we have developed extensive gardens and I have no idea how I am going to keep them looking nice when we are away for much of the summer. Oh well. While we see ruins in Europe our gardens will become just that…

When I took Pandora back to Trinidad the plan was to do a bit of “mopping up” on a number of small things that needed attention from her refit last summer. However, as is so often the case with me and boats, it morphed into a much larger plan including painting her hull.

The hull, last painted in 2019 was getting a bit dull in spite of yearly touchups and buffing. A big motivator for “do it now” was that with Pandora in the Med, where I am told, work is a LOT more expensive and I doubt that I would be able to justify the expense, dull or not.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but the paintjob in the US, even though it was six years ago, cost more than twice what I am paying in Trinidad. And to add insult to injury, the US job ended up with a crooked boot top which is being straightened out.

If you are thinking of having major work done on your boat I encourage you to consider a run south to get it done. Even if you are a racer and not a cruiser, there are plenty of major races over the winter in the Caribbean. So, consider running your boat to Antigua in the fall and after a few races, run the boat to Trinidad for work. After all that is completed, run her back north in the spring for a summer of cruising. Just Sayin…

From Trinidad, beginning on May 2nd, I head north to St Maarten where I will meet up with Salty Dawg boats to lead a rally heading to Bermuda and then onto the Azores. The rally from St Maarten will also include a number of other Dawg boats participating in the “Homeward Bound Rally” to points north.

And this brings me to the subject of this post.

Some 2,000 miles and around two weeks later, after leaving Bermuda, we plan to arrive in Horta, the most common place to make landfall in the Azores and, I am told, one of the most visited harbors in the world with between 1,000 and1,500 visiting every year. The small marina is in the distance on the right. Anchoring is on the far end with the commercial port in the foreground.

Nearly 900 miles from mainland Europe, this stunning archipelago is a common stopping place for boats heading to northern Europe or the Mediterranean. Most that make landfall tend to stay for a short time and continue on but we plan to spend a month taking in the beauty before I head to Gibraltar and on to Spain, where Pandora will be hauled for the season.

The map shows Horta, our first port of call, and the other islands.

The weather in the Azores by mid June will be mild with typical daytime highs in the mid 70s, dropping to the mid 60s at night. After 9 seasons in the Caribbean, the cooler temperatures will be a delight, especially for Brenda. However, not a lot of swimming will be in our future, as my skin has become very thin from the mid 80s water we are used to.

We are very excited to spend time in the Azores, and many who have visited there say that is perhaps the most beautiful place that they have ever been.

This short video reviews some of the highlights of Horta. The first segment, a few minutes long focuses on the harbor and it looks very charming. Interestingly, I have heard that the cost of slips in the marina is quite low, about half of what you’d expect to pay for a mooring in New England. I like that.

We do not yet know where we will go while we are in the Azores and which parts of our explorations will be by ferry or aboard Pandora verses moving around with Pandora.

At the end of our visit, Brenda’s flight on July 16th will be from Sao Miguel, the capital of the Azores and the largest island. My crew for the run to Spain will meet me there. This short video certainly paints a picture of a lovely place to visit. I can’t wait.

The last month has been a whirlwind of details as I sort through every imaginable detail to prepare for the run. Visiting a travel clinic to get a variety of prescriptions for whatever might come up on the passage and a medical kit that is the size of a piece of carry on luggage plus. I never imagined that I would have a skin stapler on board, that’s for sure. Happily, one of my crew has extensive medical training but let’s hope that keeping all this stuff on board is akin to carrying an umbrella on a sunny day.

One of the iconic scenes from Horta is yachts tying up on the breakwater, where arriving crew paint a spot to memorialize their arrival.

And, in order to be certain that Pandora’s new shiny paint will not be scratched, how about some jumbo fenders? Yes, I will be sewing some soft covers.

Big enough? I sure hope so.

“So, Bob, how will you pump them up without busting a gut?” Thanks for asking. I’ll use this nifty battery powered pump. They go from flat to fully inflated in less than one minute. And, it can be reversed to deflate them for storage.

With all that is going on I have to admit that I am having difficulty in keeping everything straight. All the details are a bit overwhelming.

And, to make matters worse, I am heading to the dentist for a root canal right before I depart. The only thing that would be more fun than that would be to have the problem crop up mid ocean. Well, this one, at least, should be under control by then.

Fingers crossed on that front and sorry, no pictures of dental work, just work on getting Pandora ready for her big adventure.

My dad, now gone for over ten years, would approve of our plans, not the root canal, as he once quipped, “Bob, wouldn’t it be great to take Pandora through the Straights of Gibralter?” Indeed dad, it would.

However, I have to get there first. And, first, the Azores. I’m all about that…

Editor: Don’t forget that I will be posting plenty while on passage so if you haven’t already done so, and care of course, consider signing up to get a message when I post. And, no, I won’t be trying to sell youT shirts…