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…

 

It’s only about five weeks until I head back to Pandora to run her the 1,500 miles from Beaufort NC to the Caribbean.  As of now, that’s likely to be within the first few days of the new year. I have my crew all set and we plan to spend some time in the BVI sailing together once we get there.

The work on Pandora is progressing.  I understand that the new charger/inverter is in and the new port lights are moving along.  The next part will be to deal with the leaking heat exchanger and a general check-over of the engine.  I can’t wait to write some checks.  Not.

And speaking of writing big checks, work on Pandora is pennies compared to the 130′ yacht I crewed on last fall to Ft Lauderdale from Greeenport LI.  I wrote a number of posts about that amazing trip as we made our way south.  Of course, with WIFI all the way.  This post was a sort of tour of the boat.  Amazing.

Anyway, I mention that boat again as Captain Mark told me, when I spoke to him a few days ago, that he will be in the BVI for a while following a month long visit to St Barts over the holidays and we talked about getting together. Yes, that would be fun so hopefully I will get to the BVI before he leaves.  Fingers crossed.  I am also hopeful that I’ll be able to crew for him again sometime next year.  Yes, fingers crossed on both counts.

For sure there’s lot’s happening and I can’t believe that I’ll be heading to the Caribbean and for the first time on my own boat.  We won’t talk about my aborted attempt last year.  This time I actually expect to make it all the way.  I’m excited.

I am also getting pretty wound up about some of the places that Brenda and I will be visiting along the way.  The plan is for me to head back home after Pandora is settled in the BVI for a quick visit to see our soon-to-arrive grandchild (Exciting? yes, yes!!!) and then back to CT to shut the house for the winter.  After that, Brenda and I will head south and join Pandora for a few months of sailing together.

One of the most fun parts of going places aboard Pandora is that we can visit any island that we wish and not be limited to single spot with an airport.  When we visited Portugal (by air, not Pandora) for a month a few years ago, we didn’t have a set itinerary and instead booked each location “just in time” as we went from town to town.  That allowed us to get local advice from folks along the way, a great way to really see a country.

So, as we head from island to island, we will undoubtedly get advice on the most fun spots to visit.  As we have many friends who have sailed for years in that area that we will hook up with along the way, I am sure that we will get plenty of great advice.

One island nation that I am particularly excited about visiting is Antigua, home of Nelsons Boatyard, a colonial stronghold of the British Navy way back when. It’s beautiful and has been recommended to us as a must-see stop.   I found this short three minute drone video tour of the island.  Can’t wait to visit.Interested in learning more?  I was and this slightly longer video talks about some of the attractions of the island.  And, as an added bonus, the narrator, a women, has a voice that, I’ll admit, makes me want to go.One more thing.  This piece is a brief, if slightly irreverent overview of the history of the island nation.   The clip should probably be about twice as long but the narrator is so highly caffeinated that he jams everything into  a brief 7 minutes.   Yikes, he talks fast!!! But, it doesn’t take long to get hundreds of years of history.

Well, there are many, many videos of the islands of the Caribbean but most are terrible, probably as bad as any that I’d post myself and most fit into the “you had to be there to understand” category.

So, let me toss yet another wrench into the mix.  The Salty Dawg Sailing Association, of which I have become more involved, is considering a rally from the BVI to Cuba in the spring.  I know that Brenda would love to visit Havana again to see her new friend Adriana who she met on our visit last winter.  Both Adriana and Brenda do hand-work, lace making in particular.  As Adriana and her group can’t get decent materials, Brenda put out the word to her local guilds here in CT, that she’d like to find a way to get quality materials to the lace makers in Cuba and they sent lots of great stuff.  So, will Brenda meet me there? Will Pandora go to Cuba again?

The problem is that there are just so many months in the year and so many places to visit.  And, for sure, Brenda has PLENTY to do to keep herself occupied here in CT when she is not aboard Pandora.   So, will we head to Cuba again this coming spring?  Who knows, but it’s plenty appealing and there’s all that lace making stuff to deliver.

In any event, the SDSA gang would like me to participate in the rally as I am the only member of the group that’s EVEN BEEN TO CUBA at all so that makes me the closest thing to an expert that they have and that’s not saying much.

I guess all that I can say about that is “THERE’S SO MANY THINGS TO DO”.  So, what’s a cruiser to do?  Not sure but you’ll just have to stay tuned and find out. I promise, when I learn more, you will too.

Yes indeed, so many choices and, for sure, Antigua is high up on our list.

One more thing.  If that caffeinated video about Antigua didn’t totally put you off, you can sign up to be notified when I post again.  Just register on this home page, upper right.   I hope you do.

Until next time…

 

When Brenda and I were cruising the south coast of Cuba last winter we heard that the Rolling Stones were giving a free concert in Havana.  Yes, I have written about this a number of times, most recently yesterday.  However, today it occurred to me that there might be something on YouTube worth sharing about that amazing night in Havana.

Before I get started though, this post tells the story of our bus ride there and the concert.   You will just have to forgive me to putting this link in two days in a row.  Just skip it if you saw yesterday’s post.   There were, by some accounts, a million people there on that sultry night in Havana.  Everywhere we looked flags from around the world were being proudly waved.Some old enough to have grown up listening to the band and some well, not so familiar with the phenomenon that the Stones have been for nearly 50 years.  A mother and daughter (I’m going with that) enjoying the evening.  Waiting for the concert to begin. It was big news and likely the only drug free concert in the history of Stones concerts.  Yes, the Cuban government is very tough on drugs.  This CBS news segment gives a good feel for the excitement we heard again and again from Cubans about change that is coming to Cuba.  Change for the good…they hope. The Stones have put out a feature length movie of the concert.  No surprise on that score. This trailer gives a pretty good feel for what it was like to be there.  A sea of humanity and we were there, if only two specks in that sea of humanity. Ok, Ok, one full length music video.  We were close enough to see but not so close to feel like we were going to be crushed.  It was a remarkable experience.  Yes, an amazing story and one that gets even more amazing with each telling.As they say, “you had to be there” and we were.

Just how cool is that?  Pretty much, totally…