Well, here I am, back in West End Tortola.  I arrived late morning today after leaving home at 0-dark-30 yesterday morning to head to the airport.    My flight to get me to Tortola was actually to St Thomas where I planned to catch a ferry yesterday to West End Tortola from downtown Charlotte Amalie.  Well, that’s at least how it was supposed to work.

However, as luck would have it, “no-can-do” ruled the day, with delay after delay.  The airport, Hartford, was a mess when I arrived.  Who’d expect so many people would be up at the tender hour of 05:00.  What a mob, a sea of humanity.

No problem, I made it through security with plenty of time left for my 06:30 flight and we left pretty much on time.  We landed in Charlotte and I had 3.5 hours to wait for my next flight to St Thomas, still with plenty of time to connect with my ferry .  However, when it came time for us to board in Charlotte, well, we didn’t.

After a long while we learned that catering, yes the folks that bring the little bags of pretzels, were AWOL and the crew had absolutely no idea of when they would be arriving.   We were on board, the plane was totally packed, and we were just sitting there, for a long time.  How long?  Not sure but it was long enough that the pilot came on a number of time to talk about the delay and finally said, “we’re leaving, catering or not.”  The problem was that while they had plenty of lovely snacks for the run down, they needed food for the run back but that now the plan was to fill up again in St Thomas.  We left the gate, finally.

After that we sat, and sat, and sat and finally the pilot came on to say that we had a mechanical problem and needed to talk to the repair guys.  Ok, I get that as it’s always a good idea to have a “happy landing” at the other end of the flight. However, by the time they crew sorted all of this out they decided we just had to head back to the gate and assess the situation.    We need a new plane! Awesome.

We “de-planed” and were sent to another gate…. at the total other end of the airport.   I was one of the first to arrive at the “new gate” only to learn that we had to be sent back to where we had “arrived” as they had “changed the changed gate again”.  Never mind.

Ok, so we got back to the gate and waited some more, much more.   To their credit, they did bring sandwiches and drinks.   A sort of “peace offering”, I guess.

So, fast forward several more hours and we finally left on another aircraft and arrived in St Thomas about 5 hours after our planned arrival time.   The problem for me is that the last ferry for Tortola had left hours earlier and I had to now find a hotel.  Lucky me.

I had decided to fly into St Thomas as it’s a lot less expensive than flying into Tortola.  Oops.  It didn’t look so inexpensive now.   Hotel at 21:00 hours?  No idea where to stay?  Don’t want to pay much?  Have fun Bob…

The information lady at the airport, who BTW was giving out samples of Cruzan Rum as we entered the terminal.  “Welcome to the Caribbean Mon!”.   Anyway, I asked for an “inexpensive” hotel and she recommended that I call Franko’s Guest House as it wasn’t very expensive.    However, she warned me that she had recommended it to a lady a few days ago and that lady didn’t even get out of the cab and went somewhere else.  Ok, sounds perfect, I’ll take it!

When I arrived, after a stop in the cab at a convenience store to get a toothbrush, Franko’s wife was waiting on the front porch for me.   “Welcome to Ranko’s.”  I thought it looked quaint. Besides, it wasn’t too expensive and anything was better than a nap on a bench at the airport. They have a cute little open air dining area. Believe it or not, he, Franko himself, even took me to the ferry terminal this morning.   Along the way he told me about how, when he was younger, he drank a LOT of rum but after his older brother “gave him a stern talking to” he shaped up and became a carpenter and later opened his B&B.   He does all of the work himself and is clearly very proud of his place.  “I make a little money and fix the place up a little bit ore.”  All and all, a simple place, Franko’s and a very charming experience.

So, I went down to the ferry terminal this morning and as I arrived I spied this terrific float plane.  I totally should have gone in that.   It looked awesome at the dock. Off she went.   I want one of these!I’ll bet that he has to wash things off really, really well every evening with all the salt spray. Yes, really salty. Yes, after all the shenanigans yesterday I should have treated myself to a trip on one of those.   And then he was gone and on his way. So, here I am and Pandora’s looking good and none the worse for two weeks alone.   A few chores and tomorrow I head over to nearby Nanny Cay to take a slip for a few days to participate in the run-up to the Salty Dawg Rally and to wait for my crew.

Yes, I’m here but it’s pretty clear that sometimes you just can’t get there from here.  Or, at least you have to take more than one day.

Finally though, I’m here, back aboard Pandora, and it’s a beautiful day.

It’s Wednesday afternoon and I am just about ready to head back to Pandora in the BVIs tomorrow morning.

She’s been on a mooring in Soper’s Hole, West End, for the last two weeks while I traveled home to visit family and get our home and gardens in order for the coming summer.  After a winter all sealed up, our home was in good shape if a bit overrun with mice.  Fortunately, because I set a lot of traps, most of the mice we returned to were, shall we say, not a threat any longer.   I won’t dwell on that except to say that we seem to be a very popular winter spot for the local mice community.

Anyway, things are pretty well under control and I’ll be flying to St Thomas in the morning and then will catch a ferry to Tortola.  It’s going to be a long day.

This is Pandora on her mooring in West End.  It’s a very pretty spot. In the last few years I have become more involved in the Salty Dawg Sailing Association and will be participating in their spring rally north from Tortola. My plan is to participate in some of the events over the next few days leading up to a planned departure on or about May 15th.  A really neat feature of this event is that you can track the fleet as they make their way north on a dedicated page for the rally.

This link will take you to a shared page that will show all participants.  To see the group, as they make their way north, all you need to do is to put “SDR” in the group section on the left (see below) and then select the days that you want to see the positions for.   Once we leave, you can put in a range of 05/15/2017 to the current day and then see the track of the fleet for the entire rally period to date or just the dates that you want to track the fleet for.  You can also focus on a single vessel on the right and look at that track only.   This is what the page looks like.  I think it’s pretty neat. Anyway, it’s a nice feature and a fun event.  I’ll be leaving Tortola on our about May 17th, after my crew arrives so you’ll be able to follow Pandora on that map too.   The boats in the fleet are going to a number of areas such as Bermuda, Hampton VA, as well as areas in New England so they will be quite spread out.

I also have a dedicated page on my blog “where in the world is Pandora” that will allow you to track our progress with a new position report every two hours while I am underway. Or, you can go right to the shared page/map for Pandora herself by clicking here.  This page includes the track that Brenda and I took over the winter so you can see that we covered a lot of ground.  Here’s a screenshot of what that page looks like, actually. It’s neat that you can also zoom-in and right click on any individual position report and see the actual speed for us at that point.  We may not have much wind, unlike the gales that carried Pandora south in January, according to the long range forecast so we might be going pretty slow.  Of course, as Chris Parker, our weather router would say, “that’s a long way out, so conditions may (probably) change”.

So, that’s the plan and if you check back as we get closer to departure, I’ll report more on our plans.   As always, you can sign up on the home page to get a message when I post so you’ll have the latest.

I also plan on posting to my blog via the SSB radio most days while we are underway so you’ll be able to “be there” with us, minus the motion sickness, and follow how we are doing.

If you are ever considering a trip south to the Caribbean for the first time, or are an “old timer” and do the trip regularly, I really encourage you to join the Salty Dawg Rally to Tortola from Hampton VA.  It’s a great event and the trip itself follows a near week of seminars in Hampton prior to departure.  How about doing it in November of this year?  Join in the fun.   I’ll be there.

Stay tuned as, Yes indeed, there are Dawg Days on the horizon for Pandora.   It should be a fun trip.

 

It’s Monday morning and I am here in MD at our son Rob and DIL, Kandice’s home for a few days.   As I begin this post it’s around 06:00 and I am sitting here with my granddaughter Tori, she lives here too, and she’s none too happy to share me with my post.

Hours later…  Tori distractions and all…

It’s sort of jarring, in a good way, to be in such a different environment after months aboard Pandora with a near constant eye toward the weather.  I got up with Tori our new granddaughter who’s also currently blissfully oblivious to the weather at around 06:00.  Now it’s after 09:00 and I am just turning back to this post.  Somehow I don’t recall the utter inability to get anything done when Rob and his brother Christopher were this young but that’s probably because I realized that it was hopeless and didn’t even try to focus on anything other than them.

I guess I can’t totally blame Tori for not letting me get any writing done as she is quite cute, if distracting.  I was finally able to get this “happy” shot of her by using burst mode on the camera.  With 5 frames a second I got it.  That’s good as in that one second her emotions ranged from absolute happiness to a near meltdown.

Get the picture?  I finally did too.Of course, the reason that I am now writing this post is that her father is up and watching her.

Over the weekend we went to the birthday party of one Rob and Kandice’s friend’s one year old.  It turns out that Katie’s (the mom) father Denny (the grandfather), is involved with a WWII Liberty Ship, the John W. Brown, one of only two operational ships of it’s class left in the world.   There were 2,711 of these ships built for the war effort and an amazing number, 1,554 of them, were lost to enemy fire, the highest percentage losses of any branch of the service. Because of these tremendous losses, there was an urgent need to build these ships faster than the German U Boats were able to sink them.

As a result of these very heavy losses and the need to move troops and materiel to Europe during the war, it was very important to find a way to make these ships, and they were over 400′ long, finished and ready for sea as quickly as possible.  As a result, the building process was streamlined and while it took an average of 11 months to build a similar ship during WWI, using prefabricated parts, these ships were built in less than one month, a remarkable increase in efficiency.

These ships were built at a number of shipyards on both the east and west coasts with the first ship of this class launched, the Oliver Perry, in 100 days in Richmond CA.  This video talks about being able to construct a ship in less than a month.  Later on, there was competition between yards with a record set of launching in 7 days, 14 hours and 32 minutes from the laying of the keel to launch.   The ship was the Oliver Perry.  It’s an interesting story and worth reading.

And, speaking of Oliver Perry, he was a pretty important guy and there is a totally modern sailing ship bearing his name, beyond the first Liberty ship and others, that sails out of Newport RI.   She’s an educational vessel and a real beauty.This brief newsreel from the 40s talks about the process of building the Liberty ships, the first class of ships ever built in a modular way.  On the other hand, and not to be too random but this guy spent 8 years building his own boat. Eight days?  Eight years?  Random?  Yes indeed but sort of neat and he did that in Philadelphia and it’s even near Baltimore where the Brown was built.   Besides, this site is SAILpandora, isn’t it?  So there should be “sailboats” too.  Right?To get things built fast, it helps to have Uncle Sam behind you and the proverbial “ax to grind” with a powerful enemy in Hitler to help speed things up.

So, here we are 75 years later and the Liberty ship John W. Brown is now berthed in Baltimore and is still able to go to sea and goes out on a few cruises a year, mostly locally, for special occasions.  That would be an awesome way to see the Baltimore waterfront.

This is a great tour of her, the best video I found. They also have a simple website for her. . With so much great video footage available, I’d put up a “resource center” to catalog the “best of class” documents and video from the Web on the site but who am I to say.

Anyway, here I am in MD, Pandora’s down in the BVI and I’ll be getting together with my crew this week to talk about our run north.  I sure hope that the run up to CT is easier than the run south was back in January, gales and all.

This video, shot on that run, doesn’t begin to show what it was like and how big the waves were.  As is so often the case, “you had to be there” to appreciate it.Well, once is enough in the “gale department” so I hope that this trip is easier.

I guess that’s about it for now and it’s nearly 10:30 so I’d better get on with my day.  Rob needs help in the yard and Brenda is watching Tori.

Question:  Have you ever noticed that perfectly mature adults always talk to babies in a high pitched voice?   Why is that?

Perhaps I’ll explore that in a future post.  Perhaps not…

Besides, that would be a completely random segue in a post that has already pushed “random segues” to the limit.

It’s Wednesday morning and I am snug on a mooring in West End, Soper’s Hole, Tortola, where Pandora will stay for two weeks until I return.  Yes, I am heading home to CT, but first to MD where I will visit our son Rob, his wife Kandice and, of course, little Tori, our granddaughter.  Actually, Tori isn’t quite so little any more, well at least not as little as she was when I saw her more than two months ago, prior to heading out for the winter aboard Pandora with Brenda.

“Grampy is coming to see me?  Who’s Grampy?”“Whatever.  I’ll get dressed up anyway, just in case he’s nice.  Do these pigtails make me look older?”My friend Craig headed back to work after a week aboard as we ran from Antigua to the BVIs and I have been alone since Saturday although I’ll admit that it feels like weeks. I don’t do “alone” well.  Actually, I haven’t been alone, just without Brenda, which is about the same thing.  “Bob, Bob, you are such a sap!  Pathetic, you’re an adult!”  Yes, I know but it’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

After Craig left on Saturday I decided to head over to St Thomas, Charlotte Amali, the largest harbor in the American Virgin Islands, so that I’d have access to my phone for “local” calls since I was going to be alone for a few days.  As luck would have it, my friends Maureen and Bill of Kalunamoo were there to so I followed them around for a few days.  That was a good distraction and it was fun to see the sights through the eyes of someone who’d “been there”.

The harbor was a riot of activity as there was some sort of week-long festival going on.    There was a nasty wrap-around swell coming into the harbor that made it pretty uncomfortable to be on board with Pandora rocking one way and the other all night long.   During the day there was loads of boat traffic that added to the confused waters in the harbor.

There was a powerboat race one afternoon and the crowds lined up on the waterfront to watch the action.This guy did a lot more “tooing and frooing” (sp?) than was really necessary as he showed off his boat.  Not sure how he did it, but he somehow found a way to make his outboard way louder than normal.   He did look pretty pleased with himself.   I guess if that was my boat, I’d do the exact same thing.  I am positive that my son Rob would be that way also, the “motor-head” that he is.

On shore there was plenty going on with stalls selling drinks and food along with blaring music pumped out of oversize speakers, each louder than the last.  There were also a number of steel drum orchestras, if that’s what you call them, including this “mobile” version with it’s own custom trailer.   I guess that this saves them a lot of packing up time when they need to get on the road.I enjoyed watching this group of kids playing their hearts out.This girl was clearly absorbed in the music.  Love the hair style.  I wonder it hurts to comb it out.If there was any doubt that I was back in U.S. waters with all the racing powerboats, the tricked out cars lining the road made it perfectly clear.   This line of VWs on display was terrific.No, this Bug is not “factory original” but awesome.  I wonder how many sets of tires he, and the owner must be a “he”, goes through in a year, or month?The waterfront is lined with historic warehouses with lovely alleyways lined with restaurants to explore.   A very popular pastime for visitors is to climb the “99 steps”, actually 103 but who’s counting.   They end at “Blackbeard’s Castle” although it’s now the site of an inn and restaurant.  The view of the harbor from up top was beautiful.With gardens and wonderfully restored buildings.
There’s Pandora out in the harbor, dwarfed by the nearby cruise ship.  The water looks smoother than it was.  Did I mention that it was bumpy? I loved this sculpture of three women who led a slave revolt in 1878.  Beautifully done.So, after a few days enjoying the sights in St. Thomas I headed back over to Tortola were I’ll be leaving Pandora while I head home.   Happily, Bill and Linda of Sapphire are here and will keep an eye on Pandora to be sure that all is well until I return.

The plan is for crew to join me here for the run north to CT in mid May.

I am looking forward to being home and then my return to Pandora.  I sure hope that the run north is smoother than our run was to get here in January, gales and all.

But, that’s another story and one that I am not looking to repeat any time soon.

Home Ho! Totally ready.

Nope, not in Antigua, I’m back in the U.S.S.A.   Actually, not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m in St Thomas, Charlotte Amalie, the largest port in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Yesterday I dropped Craig off at the airport in Tortola, capping a week together and a run from Antigua to the BVIs with a stop in St Martin along the way.

It was nice to spend time with Craig and great to have help to bring Pandora the 200 miles back to the BVIs where I will be meeting crew for my run north to CT in mid May.

I was even able to save Craig the cost of a cab ride as I took a mooring near the airport.  So near in fact, that it was only a one minute walk to the terminal from the beach.  That’s close.  I’ll bet that this isn’t a normal view of a walkway to the terminal when you head out to catch a flight.  Me neither.Brenda and I had heard about a “full moon party” that was held in Trellis Bay Tortola, the harbor where I dropped Craig at the airport, put on by some artist guy named Aragorn in a spot aptly named “Aragorn’s Studio”.  Aragorn?  I saw the guy and it seemed to me that he looked more like a “Burt”, albeit with an artist flair.   I wonder if he changed his name?  Actually, his real name is Dick. Hmm.  Surely “Dick’s full moon party” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Here he is working in his studio.  He’s the guy on the left.  He invited me into his studio, sand floor and all.    So much for OSHA safety regulations.  “Don’t worry, you’re in the islands mon.”  This link will tell you a bit about his background.
So, twelve times a year he throws a “full moon party” a sort of cookout in celebration of the full moon.   There are twelve full moons a year and twelve parties.  Get it?  Pretty symmetrical.

So Dick, AKA Aragorn, is a sculptor and makes all sorts of metal sculptures.  His work is very unique.  For the full moon party, he has made some huge open sculptures that he apparently stuffs with flammable stuff and lights them on fire, out in the water.This is what it looks like when the party is in full swing.   Well, I’m sure it looks great, but I guess you had to be there.  Perhaps next winter. And, there is a “full moon guy” too.   As you’d expect, the parties are held on the full moon so they happen on the lunar calendar verses the tourist calendar.  Even though there is a “real” full moon that same night, he provides a large round white sculpture that I think has spotlight projected on it to simulate the, not surprisingly, “full moon” just in case it’s not going to rise at a convenient time on the appointed evening.   As you’d expect, the “full moon guy” faces Aragorn’s (Dick’s) “moon”.   Aragorn is clearly a showman.  I’m impressed.

His studio is out back and is a jumble of materials and partially finished pieces. Clearly, he draws inspiration from nature in the Caribbean. With a marine theme throughout. This piece is about 8′ wide.  While there’s plenty for sale in his shop, the grounds are littered with much of his work as well as that of other artists that share his space. A lot of his work is fabricated from “found” items.  Once a cargo net?  Now, who knows but it is very purple.
I liked this driftwood “lizard”.  Or, perhaps it is a dragon.  I guess it’s up to you and perhaps how many rum punches you’ve had. Certainly, his signature pieces are the “fire balls” that star at his parties and this is how they start out.  He told me that they are mooring buoys and that finding them is getting harder and harder.  He gave me his card and asked me to keep an eye out for more like these.  I’ll bet that there would be an “Aragorn T shirt” in it for you if you find some.
I dropped Craig off and then had to decide what I was going to do with myself for the next five days until I headed back home for a two week visit prior to returning to the BVIs with crew to run Pandora north.   Those that know me understand that “alone” isn’t something that I do very well.

Not to repeat myself, but I really only want to be all alone while I am in the bathroom and that assumes that it doesn’t take too long.  “Brenda, can you come in with me and sit for a bit?  I need company.”

I was also a bit anxious about managing a 47’ boat, Pandora, for anchoring and picking up, horrors, a mooring if that’s the only option by myself.  The constant struggle for Internet and phone access is beginning to wear on me so I was also focused on being in a place where my T-Mobile phone was going to work consistently.  Oddly, in spite of that service having an “international plan” we found that it just didn’t work well in the BVIs or Antigua.   In other islands, it worked fine and provided excellent, if a bit slow, Internet access.

As the American Virgin Islands were only a few miles away I decided to make a run for the main harbor in St Thomas, Charlotte Amali.  Perhaps not the most scenic spot but convenient and provisioning there for the run north will be easier than Tortola, not known as the “gastronomic hotspot” in the Caribbean.  Did I mention that we love the French islands?   Can I have another baguette?

I don’t want to give the impression that St Thomas, with it’s fine T shirt shops, hasn’t got any good dining but I don’t believe it’s chock full of patisseries and I sincerely doubt that I’ll find a fresh baguette for $1 in these parts.  However, at least I’ll be able to visit an “American style” grocery to stock up on food for the trip north.  Can you say “Guys, how about soup for dinner tonight?  No? Hamburger helper?”   What do you expect from a country where cheese “American Cheese” named after the country isn’t even cheese?

So, here I am in St. Thomas and as luck would have it, my friends Bill and Maureen on Kalunamoo are here too.  How convenient and now I have Maureen to keep me on the straight and narrow while I am away from Brenda.   “Down Bob, down Bob, only one ice cream per day for you.”   No, I’m exaggerating, if only this once.   Maureen would never say that.  She likes ice cream too.  It’s terrific to see them again.

My mother always says that I generally luck out.   What are the odds that some of my favorite cruising buddies would be here too?  For me, pretty good it seems.  Lucky me.

When Craig joined me in Antigua, we spent a few days seeing the sights albeit at a faster pace than Brenda and I have been at the last few months.  And, with only one week to move Pandora the nearly 200 miles from Antigua to the BVIs we had to keep moving.

Given the short timeline for our trip we opted to make the 100 mile first leg run from Antigua to St Martin at night.  We had a great run with a 16-20kt wind on the beam and made the run in 12 hours, an average of 8kts.  It was quite a ride and I always marvel at the amazing stars on an overnight passage.

From St Martin to North Sound in the BVIs, a somewhat shorter run, also took us about 12 hours as that run is nearly due west so the easterly trade winds were behind us.  However, we were also able to make that leg under sail the whole way.  It’s great to be able to run 200 miles in two legs and to be able to sail the entire time.   This was Craig’s first experience with “trade wind sailing” and he was liking it.  We even caught a small bonito tuna on our last day as we passed between some smaller islands in the BVIs. It’s much different than sailing in New England where winds always seem to be blowing from exactly where you want to go.

We arrive in North Sound BVIs at 04:00 and picked our way into the anchorage.   After a few hours of sleep we cleared in and took a mooring at the Bitter End Yacht Club, a very nice resort.   It’s very well manicured with paths along the water.  There are also plenty of “villas” up on the hill and plenty of spots to sit and relax. Perched on the hill, some of the villas look more like tree houses. Here’s Pandora on her mooring off of the beach.  We chose mooring “0” as it was the closest to the dock.As the sun set Pandora looked lovely framed by the palm trees. That evening a yacht, more like a ship, pulled up nearby. It was nearly 300’ long.
Savanna, doesn’t have a traditional transom. Actually, nothing about this yacht is traditional and her name is spelled out in cushions on the aft deck.  How trendy.  She sports a plumb bow and looks like she means business.Savanna sports a crew of 20.   A few of them on the dock give a feel for the scale of this boat. So what does it take to be able to afford such a yacht?   The answer is a net worth of $1,000,000,000.  Did I get the number of “0s”right?  That’s a billion.  And they say that when considering how much to spend on your yacht assume that you should not spend more than 10% of your worth on such an endeavor.   It seems that’s exactly what Lukas Lundin did when he had her built as it’s estimated that it cost him $100m by the time Savanna was launched in 2015.

His father was a co-discoverer of a very large oil field in the middle east and he’s now chairman of the company that bears his name.  Good thing as I’ll bet that Savanna has a pretty health appetite for oil.   Before you get too jealous of good old Lukas, he’s divorced.  I guess that a billion dollars can’t buy marital bliss.

However, he does have Savanna and she’s a remarkable vessel.  Unfortunately, she can’t be chartered so you won’t be able to see for yourself.  This article has some great shots of her interior.

So, here I am, back in the good old US of A, sort of.  Unfortunately, while I can make “local” calls on my T-Mobile international phone, I can’t get wifi over the phone so here I sit in a coffee shop typing away.

The harbor here in St Thomas is quite large, with room for many boats as well as huge cruise ships.    This one came in this morning and maneuvered itself up to the dock. As it turned to back into it’s berth it looked like it was going to sweep a few boats away in it’s wake.  It looked precariously close to this powerboat but probably wasn’t.I am told that sometimes there are four of these monsters in residence with one having to anchor out and use it’s stern thrusters to keep from swinging into the anchored boats.

I’ll be here for a few more days and then will head back to the BVIs where Pandora will be on a mooring for a few weeks till I return to bring Pandora north in mid may.

No, I am not in Antigua any more, or Kansas, but I am getting closer to home, inch by nautical inch.