It’s Tuesday morning and raining.  Good thing, as we really need it.  Not that I want to cut my lawn but it’s VERY dry so a few days of rain are a good thing.

Today I head up to RI to pick up a solar panel to complete the installation on Pandora and make her fully independent of engine charging and able to stay functional “off the grid”.  I will say that her engine charging system is first rate and puts back what I use in very quick order.  However, as I don’t live aboard full time, I need a way to charge the batteries when I am able to turn on the engine.

Now that I have spent time aboard I see that her 320 watts of solar are enough to bring her back to fully charged as long as there isn’t any load on the system beyond the fridge, and that assumes that it’s sunny much of the day.  So, by adding another 280 watts, in a single new panel, she will easily charge up, even when “the sun don’t shine”.    The dealer that I am buying the unit and charging regulator from is Hamilton Ferris up in MA.  They are on the Cape which is quite a drive from here.  Conveniently, the owner Ham is going to be in RI today and has agreed to bring the panel in his van so I can pick it up .  And that’s a lot closer for me.  

I won’t have time to put  the new panel aboard for a week or more but it will be good to have it nearby so I can get started installing it soon.  

Anyway, enough of the “gotta do list” for now.

Last weekend was great fun as  good friend of mine Craig, came up to spend some time aboard Pandora.  He arrived late on Thursday night so we could leave early on Friday morning to head over to Sag Harbor.  Sag has some of the most expensive moorings of any place you’d want to visit so it’s good that our club has two moorings there and we picked up one.  Last time I visited there the moorings were $2/ft of boat length and frankly I won’t pay that just to tie a rope to my boat for the night.  However, club mooring available.  Off to Sag Harbor.

There wasn’t any wind at all so we motored the whole way there.  That’s OK as it was a very pretty day.  Sag Harbor is the only reasonable harbor in The Hamptons so it’s pretty pricey and not that friendly to small boats.  They are used to the likes of folks like the singer Billy Joel.  He keeps his boat Alexa there.  I am sure that he has many boats but this is a particularly nice one.  I have seen her before and it’s nice to see that someone with money keeps boats for a while instead of cycling through them like just one more disposable possession.   This is a link to an article about the boat that ran some time back. She’s a very unique vessel.

I had read somewhere that the average time someone owns a mega-yacht is something like three years.  They either get bored with the boat and want to build another, likely bigger one, or are horrified with the cost of managing a yacht and sell it.

Well, Sag Harbor is a beautiful place and it’s clear that folks there have the income to support some pretty aggressive “cycling” through expensive possessions.   Everything there is meticulously maintained.  How about this hedge?To keep a garden up like this would certainly require someone who keeps a “hedge fund”.  Get it, a hedge fund?  “Yes, Bob, cute but pretty lame.”

Look at the dental work on this home.  What a paint job.  The streets were lined with every manner of restored old homes and all in perfect condition. The plantings in this yard were stunning if a bit overwhelming.  Love the trimmed trees.  I guess you’d need a cherry picker to keep trees this big in perfect pruned shape. The iconic American Hotel on main street is a great spot to have lunch.  I say lunch as dinner would be way beyond my pay grade.   Check out the site, they don’t even publish their rates on the site.  I guess if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.  And don’t forget to book an outing on the hotel’s yacht. We visited a local cheese shop and got a bottle of wine for dinner and ate aboard.   What a beautiful place to spend time.

Overnight the wind filled in from the SW and we had a fabulous sail from Sag to Block Island, a run of about 35 miles Sunday.

Pandora really excels in not a lot of wind as this shot shows, if you can see beyond the glare of the light. It’s remarkable to be making these sorts of speeds with so little wind.  To sail at half the apparent wind speed is very good performance.  I had the code “0” and main up and, she was hardly heeling.

As we approached Block the wind had freshened to nearly 20kts and the fog dropped in on us like a cotton wool blanket.  We could only see perhaps 150 yards. I thought that I was going to have to pick my way into the harbor, buoy to buoy but as we got to within a 1/4 mile of the entrance we passed out of the fog as if emerging from behind a curtain.  Within a hundred yards we went from visibility you could measure in feet to being able to see for miles.  It was pretty eerie.

Once in the harbor it took quite a while but eventually we found the club mooring and picked it up.  There were hundreds of empty moorings but we had to pick up one in particular as the harbor master would have shooed us off of any one what we didn’t have permission to use.  I know this as it’s happened to me in the past.

We headed ashore for a walk and took in the sights.  I really like Block Island although it’s very different than Sag.  The property here is very pricey as well but the environment is a lot more casual.  There is an old hotel in town that is quite a spot. We also stopped at the “Oar” a well known bar overlooking the harbor.  The view from the bar commands the entire harbor. Pandora’s in the middle of the shot, just to the left of what looks like an island in the distance.  The dark hull.  This early in the season there wasn’t anyone there.   Just wait a month and every mooring will be occupied.  I expect that weekends are already booked for much of the summer at the dock.

This picture of Craig taking in the view pretty much sums up the mood of the weekend.  Rum punch anyone?Well, I had better wrap this up as I have to jump in the car and go to RI to get that panel.  Yes, the pieces of Pandora are beginning to come together and it won’t be long till we are headed south again.    

For now, I’ll take New England and the beautiful summer that’s now upon us. 

It’s Wednesday morning and Memorial day weekend has come and gone.  The marina parking lot, that had been full to capacity with double parked cars just one day ago, was virtually empty as everyone had gone back to work after the long weekend.

I have been unpacking and organizing Pandora from her run north and trying to sort through all of the gear that we had quickly stowed aboard as well as the stuff that the last owner had left.  As their new boat is a trawler, a big switch from a sailboat, they decided to go with an all new color scheme.  As a result, they left some of the custom touches such as throw pillows and linens which was great for us.

Speaking of the bunk, the mattress is not just a foam cushion as we have had on our other boats, but an actual custom made innerspring mattress.  It’s very comfortable.  They also left custom sheets, designed to perfectly fit the mattress.  I put them on yesterday and we are very pleased with how they look.  Yes, it’s a bit tough to make up a Pullman berth but the results were very nice.  Interestingly, the sheets are custom to the boat and were cut so that while there is plenty to tuck in at the foot as well as along the bottom third of the inside, against the hull, from the middle of the bed to the head, the fabric was cut to fit with no overlap.  Sounds like  a small detail but it means that the made up bed looks very finished without extra fabric bunched up against the hull. Yes, a detail that appeals to an anal guy like me. Last evening Brenda and I went aboard Pandora to move her from the dock where she was for a few days of unpacking to her mooring and enjoyed the sunset over a bottle of bubbly supplied by our friends Rodney and Genie for us to toast Pandora’s homecoming.  What a thoughtful touch.  Sorry they weren’t with us to celebrate the moment. She looked great in the warm light of the setting sun.  Yes, both Pandora and Brenda peeking out from under the dodger, looked perfect.  A very nice evening.   

On Thursday evening I am attending a fundraising event at the CT River Museum (Brenda’s out of town) and I will be offering up Pandora for a luncheon cruise for 4 in the silent auction.  I’ll be putting a few photos together, with a description of the outing, with the hope of making the offering as inviting as possible.  I’ll also put Pandora on a mooring off of the museum grounds so that bidders can see her first hand.

Brenda staged a shot of what the lucky bidders will enjoy aboard.   Doesn’t it make you want to plunk down hard cash to benefit the museum?  Well, it’s not all fun and games aboard Pandora these days as there are still plenty of things that have to get done to make her ready for her fall and winter voyages.

The next step is to install more solar panels aft, on top of the davits.   She already has 320 watts of solar on top of the bimini and it’s been estimated by the folks at Hamilton Ferris, the dealer, that I need around 200 watts more to make Pandora fully functional off of the grid and able to fend for herself on a mooring and “unplugged”.

There is room on the davits for about 300 additional watts so I will pack on as much as will fit and cross my fingers.  I can still put some additional wattage on if needed but I am hoping that a total of 620 watts will do the trick.  And, it’s important that there be some excess capacity to make up for cloudy days and it’s critical that we be able to keep the house batteries up to full charge as I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize, and perhaps shorten the life of  that expensive bank.

I will also have to address the upgrade on the watermaker so that I can increase the capacity to 14 gph from her current 6.5 as we do use a good amount of water.    And the SSB radio also has to be installed.

Yes, it’s becoming clear that Pandora owns us now I had better be sure that I do everything that she asks for.  Between Brenda and Pandora, I’ll be plenty busy this summer.

It’s Saturday morning and the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial, or is it the official start of summer?  One way or the other, a detail.  For many, especially here in the NE, it’s the first weekend for many to get out on the water.

For Pandora, now safely back home, it’s time to take a deep breath after months of sailing to pull her from the water and get some needed work done, both maintenance and upgrades so she’ll be ready for the 2015/16 sailing season when we head south next fall.   And, of course, with a new boat, there’s always plenty to do with the addition of more solar, the SSB radio, upgraded water-maker and shall we say “so much more”.

However, as I sit here I can’t help but think about the real meaning of Memorial Day and those who sacrificed so much to make it possible for the sort of leisure that we enjoy, and me in particular, here in the good old US of A.

For this weekend, Brenda and I are in MD visiting our son Rob and his fiance Kandice for a few days and last night we watched the movie, American Sniper for the first time.  I have to say that it was a very moving story of one man’s sacrifice to serve his country and it certainly gave me pause for thought about what Memorial Day really means, official boating season start date and all.

In case you haven’t seen the movie, check out the trailer.  It’s a very moving and true story, of a real american hero, Chris Kyle.  He was a SEAL and the most lethal sniper in American history.  It is because of people like him that our way of life is even possible. While I was in Ft Pierce FL waiting for the weather window to open for our run north with Pandora, I rented a car and took my crew, one of whom was a veteran, to the SEAL museum, a place that I had wanted to visit for some time.

I have to admit that I didn’t know much about that service but knew that they were some pretty tough dudes.  Well, I was impressed with what I had learned but didn’t have an opportunity to write about our visit until now.  And, given the importance of this holiday and seeing the movie last night, I woke up this morning thinking that the time was right to do this post.

The ‘SEAL museum is in Ft Pierce, once the training ground for the SEALS, prior to their moving to San Diego, where they are now located.  However, given their history, it is fitting that the museum be in FL.  The museum is designed to represent the history and work of the group and it does a very nice job.    Their site gives a good overview of what’s there.

There are some very interesting exhibits with a focus on their “ethos” and what they are all about as a group and indeed, they do amazing things.   There are also special exhibits there commemorating particularly important milestones such as the killing of Bin Laden and the Maersk Alabama rescue of Captain Philips that inspired the movie of the same name.

They also have some great displays of equipment that the SEALS use.   They do have some great boats.  I wouldn’t want to find myself on the wrong side of this baby. And, this go-fast boat would fit right in in sunny Florida.  I am not thinking that they would hail me on the radio and say “Pandora, we’ll give you a slow pass port to port”.  Not likely. One of the exhibits is from the Maersk Alabama and they have the lifeboat, bullet holes and all on display. And, no, I couldn’t find a way to get a better photo of the lifeboat.  In case you haven’t seen the movie Captain Phillips, it’s terrific.  Check out the trailer.One of the displays was this nifty gadget for climbing up the side of a ship.   Much sexier than a hook on a line.   Just stick this magnetic crawler on the side of a ship and it climbs up and drops a ladder.  I can only imagine what sorts of gadgets they have that nobody knows about. “Yes, we have some very cool stuff and I’d tell about some of them but then I’d have to kill you sir”.  Ok, got it.  In the museum store, and you HAVE to visit the store in any museum, I was struck by the message on this hat.  Yep, note to self,  best to skip the hijackings.  The store has EVERYTHING.  They even had NAVY SEAL action figures.  The museum also has a great collection of armament from Desert Storm.  I had always thought of SEALS as a group that worked on the water but most of their missions actually take place on land.  I’d love to go for a ride on one of these across sand dunes.  However, not in the unfriendly areas that these guys go in. I can only imagine what it’s like to be deep in bad guy territory running around in the dark.  Better them than me.   I guess that’s the point exactly.  They do it so we don’t have to.
Well, if a picture is worth a thousand words than this video, one that you can see at the museum, is worth… well it really gives you a good feel for what the SEALS are all about.  And, let’s just say that their experiences on the water are a bit more exciting than what Brenda prefers.All and all, the museum was both sobering and inspiring so, to me, it’s fitting that I write about it to remind myself what Memorial Day is really for and what those in the service do for us every day.

Well done guys…

It’s Sunday morning and as I begin this post we are less than ten miles from Montauk and “home” waters.   It seems like yesterday when Brenda and I thought that a long trip was the 100 miles from Norwalk YC to Martha’s Vineyard or Block Island.   These days, well a little different, when our cruising grounds take us from New England waters to less than 100 miles from Cuba.  Speaking of Cuba, I wonder if we’ll be there next winter.  If we are, I can say with certainty that we won’t be alone.

Well, I am glad to be (almost) home.  This run north has been a long one as my as my crew, Michael and Jim arrived two weeks ago today and I count myself lucky that they agreed to stay this long.  Actually, I am not certain that they actually agreed but being 50 miles from shore made tough for them to say.  “All done Bob, I want to go home now.”

This trip has taken a full two weeks in contrast to my last two runs that took a week or less. and were several hundred mile longer.  When it comes to sailing “when are we going to get there?” is a particularly big question and it seems like the weather windows have been much shorter this year.  Perhaps I’ll ask Al Gore.  He did, after all, invent the Internet and global warming.  “Al, what gives?”

The last two days running from Hampton VA  have been long and a bit frustrating as the wind, while plenty strong for sailing, was from nearly behind us, a difficult wind angle, particularly on a new boat where I am not familiar with the best way to sail her.   With the constant rolling and banging, it was difficult to move around and keep things in order.  However, there is a marked difference in comfort aboard this verses our last boat and having the hard dodger to sit under is clearly an improvement.

However, with a larger and more complex boat comes larger problems and we have had a few on this trip. Oddly, nearly all of them seemed to resolve themselves spontaneously or with hours of tinkering on my part.  “Did I fix the problem or was it just magic?”   Who knows…   Mysteriously,  a few of the electronic instruments stopped working and just as unexpectedly, started worked again.  I guess I’ll leave well enough alone and deal with them if they stop working again.

The plotter at the helm stopped working yesterday (don’t worry, I have two) as did the AIS (alas, only one) and after hours of tweaking at connections and wriggling into impossibly small spaces (Did I mention that the boat was wallowing and banging around as she slogged down wind and waves?) I was finally able to trace the problem to a single tiny brown wire under the aft cockpit that I had not reconnected securely when I was rerunning cables after the work on the davits was completed.  I worked all day yesterday trying to get the AIS to work and after setting aside the problem for a few hours I suddenly remembered a small junction box that I had not checked.  YES!  A teeny, tiny brown wire had come loose and “voila”, fixed but the AIS still wasn’t working.   However, it wasn’t until almost two hours had passed that I remembered to turn on the AIS again.  Hurrah! Now it worked.  Was it the teeny, tiny brown wire or just magic?   I was particularly concerned about having that system working as we crossed the busy NYC shipping lanes.  I wanted to see them and, perhaps more importantly, be sure that the big ships saw me.

Well, it worked and that’s a good thing as I was beginning to feel like Clark Griswold,  the hapless father character played by Chevy Chase, in the movie Christmas Vacation, when he couldn’t make his holiday lights work.  Just plug them in… I like to think that I am better than him.  Hmm…

As is often the case when I am running offshore, we were visited by a little bird that stayed with us for several hours, exploring, and pooping on, every corner of the boat before leaving as quickly as he arrived.  Here he’s (or is it a she?)checking out the little bromeliad that Brenda and I had on board for our trip after picking it off of a tree in southern Florida.   It will be interesting to see how it (the plant, not the bird) likes CT summer weather. Here’s a map of our run from Hampton To Montauk including the windy part inside from below Cape Hatteras.  You can see why I prefer ocean passages.  Pretty straight line compared to inside.  However, it’s a lot tougher to drop the hook for dinner and a cold beverage at night. So, as we round Montauk Point and enter Long Island Sound, I think that the only thing not working is the Engine hour meter.  I believe and hope that  it’s counting away but, for now, here’s to hoping that it’s a “covert counter”.   I’ll also have to decide if I am going to pull the speedo and plotter to have them checked as they both didn’t work and now do.  I wonder if it had to do with that little brown wire?

I guess that’s about it except to say that Michael and Jim have been great crew based on the way that they scarfed down the meals I prepared, won’t boycott Pandora because of the cuisine.   It’s funny how guys tend to descend into decay and will eat most anything, and enjoy it, when they are out of sight of women.

I wonder if Jim will shave  before he gets home.  It’s a good thing that this trip didn’t take a month or he’d have begun looking like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway.  Well, better that than Wilson I guess.Perhaps I’ll close with a shot of the final sunrise from my winter aboard, as we approach Montauk.oh, one more thing…  In case you might be wondering if I just recycled one of my sunset pictures (and you know who you are) here’s a shot of Montauk light.  Sorry Rodney,  I don’t have a copy of today’s WS Journal to hold up to prove this photo was taken today so you’ll just have to trust me on this. As much as I am looking forward to being home, I fear that the lawn will be in quite a state from my neglect.  And as far as the run home is concerned, when it comes to ocean passages, they aren’t over till mother nature says that they are over.  F-I-N-A-L-Y…  Are we there yet?

Let the “honey-do” list commence Brenda, I’m ready, I think…

It’s hard to believe that the last time I was at “home” was the day after Christmas.  In some ways, it seems like yesterday and in others…  Well, let’s just say that it’s been a LONG time and a LOT has happened. 

While we were away my mother went to the hospital and then into a nursing home (a really, really nice one, I might add) from assisted living.  I am very much looking forward to seeing her in a few days.  She’s doing well too. Thanks for asking.

We surveyed (twice) and purchased (once) a new boat and moved our “old” one to her, I hope temporary, home in New Bern NC.    Brenda and I transited much of the ICW together twice and three times for me as well as cruised the waters of the FL Keys and ventured into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time.

We learned, first hand, that sometimes you can very clearly see no-see-ums and that you can ALWAYS feel them.  That wasn’t much of a revelation as we’d been boating for, well, let’s just say that it’s been a long time.  And, I won’t even talk about mosquitoes but I will say that the bigger the boat, the more mosquitoes that will find their way down below and go buzz in the night.  Note to self: Put in the screens.

We saw many sea turtles, caught fish in the ocean and saw an amazing number of Portuguese Man of War jelly fish.

We experienced, and not in a a good way, the fury of a tornado, up close and personal and enjoyed countless sunsets over the water, and posted photos of nearly all of them, my friend Rodney would say.

Our younger son Christopher decided to move to San Francisco and did it within a week, I think.   He’s very happy there, much to his Mother’s distress.  Our son Rob continues to work on all of the details of his upcoming wedding to is betrothed Kandice and works every remaining free moment on their new home.

We  cleaned out 8 years of stuff from “old Pandora” and packed into a rental car, several times.   WE drove thousands of miles in those rental cars and I don’t even know how many hotels we searched for online for at the last minute as we moved between home, boat, other boats, friends and family homes…  Well, we moved around a lot and that’s not even including countless miles on the water under sail and power, mostly power.

We found and (thankfully) removed ourselves from what seemed like every sandbar and shoal on the ICW, sometimes twice.  And, I never even used my towing insurance.  “Don’t jinx it Bob”. Ok, I’ll instruct the jury to strike that from the record.

And let’s just say that our wallets have been smoking for months now from the friction of dollars streaming out and into someone else’s pockets.

OK, OK, I won’t bore you with all the details but such is the featureless grey life of the retired.

Oh yeah, and we didn’t see snow the entire time.  So there.

As I finish up this post we are transiting the channel to pass the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel and into the Atlantic for our run to Montauk point and into Long Island Sound and home.   Not the most exciting pix yet, I admit.  I guess you had to be there. After days of waiting for the winds to turn in our favor, it looks like we will be able to get home the nearly 400 miles remaining in our trip with a minimum of fuss and might even have a good sail for perhaps half of the trip.   Overnight the wind fell away and we are leaving for our run on calm seas. 

As we pass from the protection of the CBB&T I expect that we will be seeing some ocean swells but I don’t think that they will amount to much and will certainly be much less than what we were expecting to see as recently as yesterday morning when I checked the weather.

Before I break, a few photos from our run up through Newport News.  It’s plenty clear that your tax dollars are HARD AT WORK here.  Now that’s a smoking wallet.

How about an aircraft carrier?  And I thought that Pandora was beamy.   It’s hard to believe that this girl can cruise at nearly 50mph.Of course, you need tugs to get everyone in and out of port.  And don’t forget, my crew member Michael is a retired tug captain.  To me, tugs have always seemed to be a nearly perfect example of “form follows function” and are particularly easy on the eye. And in the “you can’t see me” category, a stealth battle ship.  Hard to imagine something this big being hard to see.   Shows up fine here.And all is not not grey in Newport News.  Here’s Highlander, the Fedship yacht once owned by publisher Malcomb Forbes.  Now she’s a looker.  Oh yeah.  Almost forgot.  The speedo is working again.  Thanks Pandora, one less item on the “fixit list”.  Who knew…

I guess that’s all for now.  See you in a few days, really…