Back in Trinidad and on our way today! Yahoo…

I began this post a few days ago but it’s now Monday and we are about ready to head north to St Lucia, the first stop on our run to Antigua to meet the Salty Dawg rally fleet. There is little doubt that they will arrive first as most of the boats are hunkered down in Bermuda waiting for some nasty tropical stuff to clear out.

I have been back in Trinidad for over a week almost a week having arrived at Pandora in the very early hours last Saturday. The flights to Trinidad from JFK are not expensive but they leave around 7:00PM and don’t land until a bit after midnight. I’m thinking that they make a turn to the Caribbean to some of the more high paying “tourist” islands, where the passengers pay more and expect to be on the beach in the afternoon. Then he crew flies back back to JFK for another run, this time to Trinidad for the “locals”.

I arrived at the airport, JFK, more than three hours ahead of the flight, dropping off my rental car and taking the tram to the terminal. I had three bags, one at exactly 50lbs, a mixture of clothing and lots of small boat items. A second smaller bag with my computer, camera and a third, a box that was very sturdy, which it had to be because it contained a 50lb transformer that was to be installed aboard Pandora so she can hook up to European 220v in the Med next year vs the 110v that she is set up for. This is an expensive and sophisticated piece of kit as it also has to change the phase of the power from European 50Hz to US 60Hz. Making the change in voltage is easy but the change in Hz is the hard part and critical to electric motors. The AC compressors can handle both but other motors aboard may not so it’s not worth the risk.

Anyway, I arrived at the airport with the voltage converter nicely packaged in a sturdy box and learned that Jet Blue does not accept boxes for international flights, only luggage. That meant that I had to find a duffle bag to pack it into. Ugg…

I went to a luggage store in the terminal but the largest duffle was a simple backpack which was way too small. After that I spoke to someone at the “oversize luggage” drop she was able to identify and “abandoned” duffle that was almost big enough. I took it and then “borrowed” a roll of tape from another baggage check and proceeded to rip up the box and find a way to pad the unit and stuff it into the bag. It didn’t even come close to fitting in the duffle so I taped it shut as best I could and wrapped the unit in tape every which way. I also had some sturdy ratchet straps that I used to secure the whole thing and provide a handle.

I held my breath and took it to the luggage check. After a few moments they took pity on me (it was the same guy that lent me the tape and surely saw me spending a half hour wrapping it up) and accepted it. The package weighed in at 55lbs, five over the limit. Surprisingly, he did not nick me for the extra $100 that an overweight bag requires. So, now all I could do is wait and see if it came through in one piece. It did.

The flight was packed and I’d say that perhaps half the flight was folks returning home and the rest visiting relatives. Not a lot of beach goers.

After making my way to Pandora at nearly 3:00AM on Saturday, I was exhausted and didn’t get much done for the rest of the day. While the flight arrived around midnight, the customs arrival process is very tedious and had to go through both immigration and customs and then was pulled aside to be questioned about all the “boat parts” that I had brought along. Anything assigned to a visiting yacht, or “yacht in transit” is considered duty free but they had to be certain that all my paperwork was in order.

And to add insult to injury, the driver then had to take me to visit the coastal customs office before heading to Pandora. This made for a fourth stop. The office appeared to be closed but the driver insisted that I ring the bell. About 5-10 minutes later a customs officer, looking a little sleepy, came to the door, took my papers, disappeared for about 15 minutes and then returned.

After the paperwork was done he wanted to open up the packages and look at what I had arrived with. I had declared that I had “stuff” for the boat. After a few minutes of cutting the layers of tape from the transformer he lifted a corner of the package and peeked in only to say “ok, go ahead” and that was that. I guess he wanted to go back to bed.

As I mentioned when I was last here in May, It’s hot, in the mid 90s at noon and very humid. With the AC aboard, it gives me a place to retreat to when I need to rest. Many of the workers try to stay out of the direct sun in the middle of the day and then work on deck early and late in the day. The amount of water that I have been drinking every day is stunning.

On Tuesday I had to turn off the AC for the entire day as they were applying two coats of epoxy barrier and a third of epoxy primer followed by two coats of antifouling bottom paint. That process took all day and I wasn’t able to turn on the AC again until after 5:00 PM. Down below it reached 100 degrees.

The reason the AC had to be turned off was because the entire boat sweats when the humidity is high and the boat, with AC cranking, is a bit cooler than the outside temperature, just like a cold drink does on a hot day. If that were to happen, the epoxy barrier coat on the bottom would not adhere properly and the entire job would be ruined.

Well, that’s all done now and after two coats of barrier epoxy, one epoxy primer and two coats of antifouling, she looks great and ready to launch.

Not so fast, the list of items remaining were dozens, most small but a few large.

I won’t go into too many details except to say that when Amos told me a few weeks ago that Pandora was 98% done, what I did not anticipate was that when I arrived there was just how painful that last two percent was going to be.

My crew, Bob, arrived on Thursday in the wee hours and since then we have been struggling to get everything put back together. This isn’t to say that Amos’s work isn’t anything but wonderful. However, after any job that takes months, there a many, many tiny details that really don’t happen until the very last minute.

Pandora is gleaming.

When I left in the spring I cleaned up the dink and with it covered all summer, all set to go. On launch day, yesterday, they used a forklift to gently lower her into the water.

Even her prop looks good with new zincs and antifouling. I did that myself to keep the process moving.

The cabin paint, newly set glass in the dodger and canvas look great. Most of the canvas glazing was replaced as it gets nasty in only a few years of tropical sun. The sail cover also received a lot of TLC.

Forward, the repaired decks are “all better now”. Quite an understatement given the amount of time it took to replace over 40′ of deck with all new material.

I worked with a local welder, Mitchel, to build a custom boom break to better control the jib boom which has a tendency to slam around a lot in certain conditions. I designed this after years of thinking and asked Mitchel to bring it to life.

First he took some heavy stainless wire to make a template of the shape of the boom.

He then went to his shop to work up a rough template and check-fit it to the boom. Even in the initial stages it fit remarkably well.

Much of the hardware was removed from the boat in preparation for painting and while much of it was reinstalled when I arrived, a good deal was left to be done. Sadly, many of the fasteners were jumbled in a mix in a box full of dust and other stuff. One problem was that the “car” that holds the aft end of the jib fell off the track when it was being removed and lost all of it’s ball bearings. Many of them were swept up from the deck but I had to bring in a rigger to “load” them back in place. This is a very exacting process and requires a small piece of track, identical to the track on the boom. After the car is fully filled with ball bearings, the loader is lined up with the track and the car is carefully slid over and onto the big part. Gary was very exacting.

However, the process was slowed down by the fact that he did not have a proper sized loader. In true island style, he fashioned one from a piece of teak. That was a remarkable bit of engineering in wood.

I also had difficulty hoisting the jib and fortunately there was a local sailmaker who fixed it overnight. Good luck getting someone to do that in the US on a weekend. Now all the sails are in place and reefing lines set. That was big job in the heat, taking hours. That was only one of dozens of other tasks that had to get done.

Earlier in this post I talked about the voltage converter that I will need when Pandora is in the Med and getting this installed has proven to be quite a nail biter. Here we are, on the eve of launch, scheduled for Monday morning, and the electrician is still finalizing things.

On Saturday night they were here until 11:00pm. Krendol, the electrician, was late arriving that day because his wife, pregnant with their third, had an apt with her Ob/Gyn so I can’t complain that he showed up later than expected.

In spite of all the work over the last week, Bob and I did find some time to have a bit of fun Most evenings cruisers gather on the dock to watch the sun go down. It’s a nice way to end the day.

Thursday was a national holiday here in Trinidad with everyone celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. There are many that live here that have roots in India, perhaps the largest concentration outside of India proper and they make a big deal out of Hindu holidays.

The manager of Powerboats Marina put on a wonderful celebration and invited all the cruisers to come to dinner. It was a very nice evening. I particularly enjoyed the lighting of the candles, lined up carefully on a split bamboo pole, splayed out in all directions, with the ends of each section staked into the ground. At sunset, dozens of candles were lit.

It was magical. I understand that there are entire villages on the island were every yard has candles on display. There was a tour organized for many cruisers to go around and view the displays.

Bob and I enjoyed an outing early on Saturday morning to a huge outdoor farmer’s market. There was every imaginable type of fruit and vegetables along with, beef, goat, chicken and lots of types of fish.

Row after row of vegetables and spices.

How about fresh shark?

Or perhaps land crabs for dinner? These puppies are about the size of a grapefruit, all tied up like a string of garlic. They were alive and wiggling. Brenda would have loved it. Not…

So, Sunday, on the eve of launch, there are still a few items that need finishing. The electrician still had more to do and his work continued until we were actually on the way to the water and motoring over to the slip.

The reconditioned life raft finally arrived on Monday and I will admit that I was not expecting that it would actually show up on time. We also got the propane which had been delayed from Saturday to Monday.

So, after months of being “under the knife” Pandora was nearly ready to go.

After an arduous clearing out process with Customs and Immigration, made a bit easier with the help of trusty Amos, Pandora was finally picked up by the travel lift and off to the water we went.

But wait, the projects were not done as I still had the electrician on board finishing up the installation of the 220v to 110v unit. He was working away as they moved the boat and ended up staying aboard in the slip, finishing up, until well after dark.

Amos also stuck around to help install the boom break, which looks beautiful. Here he is working on the final install with some help from Bob. Note Amos in an “official” Pandora crew shirt. I had one made up for each of his crew, 9 in all. I hope that Amos can get a “group shot” and send it to me.

After years of imaging how I would design a proper boom break for the jib, here it is. Ta Da! I hope that it performs as well as I imagine. Mitchel, who clearly takes great pride in his work. If “beauty is as beauty does” than this should prove to be a great piece of equipment.

So, here we are, afloat again, and we will be heading out early this morning but not until I finish up on this post. Pandora all snug in her slip, AC working happily.

Off to St Lucia, a run that should take about a day and a half and we expect to arrive there around mid day Wednesday.

So far, so good.

Oh yeah, you can follow our progress on “where in the world is Pandora” above.