It’s hard to believe that I head to Trinidad in about two weeks, October 25th to be exact, to prepare Pandora for the run north to Antigua and the arrival of the Salty Dawg rally fleet.
Soon many will be following the track of the fleet as they depart from Hampton, VA and Newport RI with most heading to Antigua, where I will be joining them. The link doesn’t look like much now but it will be updated as we get closer to departure.
It seems like just yesterday, May actually, that I arrived in Trinidad with Pandora, a place that I had never visited, to leave Pandora for a major refit. To commit to such a big job, over 2,000 miles from home was quite a leap of faith for me. I was full of questions. Could I be confident that work was being done at all? Would It be done properly? How would I know what was going on from so far away?
Given the scope of the work, I realized that there was no way that I could afford to have it done in the US where labor rates are so high so I had to take her to Trinidad as the only realistic option. With the recommendation of a number of friends, I settled on a vendor last summer and agreed to the scope of work and costs even before I headed to Trinidad. Happily, there have been no major surprises and the job has progressed according to plan.
Amos, of Perfect Finish, who is overseeing the work, has been keeping me informed every step of the way, sending over 100 photos as the job progressed and has also been giving me near weekly video tours of the work on WhatsApp. In spite of the distance, I actually feel better about the communication than I have felt on jobs done in the US over the years.
Amos has a crew of nine that work on his jobs with him and I understand that this season he was fully booked with three major jobs and lots of little projects when he began work on Pandora. These are three of his crew plus Amos on the left. Four of his crew worked on Pandora nearly every day from mid May to August with every detail chronicled in photos and videos sent to me. I detailed much of the work in excruciating detail in past posts if you are curious.
The bulk of the work is now complete and they are now putting things back together again.
The four tempered glass windows in the hard dodger going back in.
Now that things are nearly completed, my only regret is that I did not leave Pandora there in past years as that would have saved a lot of wear and tear on me and the boat as I slogged thousands of miles north and south, time and time again.
As I get ready to head back to Trinidad, I am also reflecting on my soon-to-change role as president of The Salty Dawg Sailing Association (SDSA). My time has been nearly fully consumed by my role of president, as well as, Rally Director and Port Officer for Antigua.
And, busy I have been…
We have a huge number of boats in the rally this year with over 110 heading south in early November. And more than 25 of those needed a lot of extra handholding for the last few months as they aren’t all that experienced. In those cases, I spent hours on the phone with skippers answering questions and helping them navigate all of the details needed to prepare for what would be, for most, their longest run to date.
I advised them, along with support of others in Salty Dawg, on changes to make to their boats, how to evaluate crew, and in a number of cases, required them to do one or more “qualifying passages” so that they would get more overnight experience before they headed offshore with the rally.
And, timing offshore is always an issue and to “practice” during the mild summer months is a good way to prepare for the more challenging weather of late fall.
As the Bahamas is only about half of the 1,500 mile distance to Antigua, I nudged some to head there until they had more experience to make the longer run to Antigua. This advice was generally willingly accepted, perhaps because I often added that “I did not want their first run to be their last…”
Getting a boat set up for a long run, equipment upgrades and arranging for qualified crew, is no simple task and Salty Dawg prides ourselves in helping skippers find their way.
It is very rewarding to have skippers so appreciative of the advice and nearly all that I talked to were very willing to do whatever is needed to prepare for a safe voyage.
later this week I will head to Annapolis for the Sailboat show and the SDSA annual dinner. This event is always popular and will surely have more than 200 attending.
It will be fun to see old friends and to meet many of the skippers that I have spoken to over the last few months as they prepared for their big offshore run.
Going to the Annapolis dinner will be bittersweet for me as I will be giving up my position of President, a major change given how much of my time has been consumed by this position for the last three years.
My successor, fellow board member Mike of SV Exodus, a great guy, will take over as president for at least the next two years and while I will miss being in that role, I am looking forward to having a bit more time on my hands. One thing that has really suffered has been my attention to this blog.
However, I will still have my hooks into SDSA, or them into me as is were, because I will be continuing on as Rally Director, a position that I have had for the last five years. I am very pleased as that is the part of my work with SDSA that I have enjoyed the most. To spend time with so many who are working to fulfill what is for many a lifelong dream has been one of the most rewarding things that I have ever been involved with.
I will also continue as Port Officer for Antigua, which is good as I don’t feel like I have completed my work there.
Happily, we will have the largest number of boats making landfall in Antigua this season. I’m not certain of the exact number as there are always last minute destination changes and in addition to the boats from the US, other boats will be heading north from Grenada and Trinidad. One way or the other, this year we will have a record number, likely in the mid 90s.
My current focus is on getting Pandora to Antigua but that’s actually just the beginning as by the end of the season I will be heading to the Azores from Bermuda.
This short piece only two minutes, gives a feel for the beauty of the Azores.
When I look back to 2012 when Brenda and I first headed down the ICW, I never imagined that I’d be planning a trans-Atlantic run. Here we are, full of hope when we visited the Fayerweather Yacht Club in Bridgeport, where we kept our very first boat, TAO, a 20′ Cape Cod catboat.
And, as we headed down the East River in NYC, we had absolutely no idea where all of this would lead. At that time we had “old Pandora” our SAGA 43 that carried us to the Bahamas for several seasons until we upgraded to “new Pandora” in 2015.
My dad would certainly find this whole thing interesting as I still remember him saying to me, a few years before he passed away, and that was over 10 years ago, “Bob, wouldn’t it be great to take Pandora through the Straits of Gibraltar?” Indeed, Dad, that’s the plan.
After more than 25,000 blue water miles, a dozen winters afloat, time cruising the US East coast, Bahamas and much of the eastern Caribbean, I guess there is still a long way to go.
Perhaps I’ll close with a short video by the travel writer Rick Steves, about visiting the place that I dreamed about with Dad.
I’m excited…