Sail Pandora – Page 222 – A journal of our time aboard SV/Pandora an Aerodyne 47

Paradise found here in Nassau Bahamas

May 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Well, I am sure that there are places that are more wonderful here in the Bahamas than downtown Nassau but compared to “normal life” it’s pretty nice here. I arrived yesterday ia a flight from Hartford to help my friend Bob return his boat from Nassau to Norwalk CT. Bob and his wife Ginny were kind enough to let me arrive a few days early to enjoy the sights prior to leaving on Saturday. We are at a marina between Nassau and Paradise Island, home of the Atlantis hotel complex. While this is the largest city in the Bahamas, it has a semi-third-world atmosphere. What’s interesting about this is that in spite of this being a quite built up area, the water is really clear and blue.

Flying in yesterday from Miami was amazing as we scooted above the impossibly clear water that ranged in color from nearly white in the shallow areas to dark blue as it dropped off to several thousand feet deep in the ocean. I am told that you navigate here by the color of the water as there are no markers.

It’s still early and it’s not very bright out but later I will take some pictures and include them in the post. For now you will have to be happy with a shot of The Abbey in her slip. Interestingly, the link that I put in my last post of a boat like Bob’s is actually his boat and it’s the listing from when he purchased her back in 2001. That was the year that Bob and Ginny first came to the Bahamas, a voyage that they have repeated each year since.

The Abby was built in South Africa in 2001 and is just a great boat. Here are some shots of down below. There is a terrific master cabin aft and 4 pilot berths forward. I actually have my own bed and don’t have to “hot bunk” on this trip.

A view forward in the main salon.

A shot from forward facing aft of the main salon.

What a great galley. This boat is about twice the size of Pandora.

And, of course, the “crew quarters” Mine bunk is to port up top. It’s been a while since I slept in a bunk bed. Not a lot of headroom up there but after getting up at 3:00 yesterday, I slept, as Brenda would say, “like a bowling ball”. Toss me onto the bed, I roll to the middle and don’t move till morning. Actually, the “rental” on the Kalik was up about 5am today so with nature calling, I was up briefly.

Today I will spend some time downtown Nassau and see the sights. On Thursday we plan a snorkeling trip on one of the local guide boats.

When Bob picked me up at the airport yesterday he had to drive through a massive tropical downpour that left the roads underwater with really deep puddles everywhere. As the rain cleared we stopped at one of the local eateries, really more of a colorful roadside shack, that served beer and simple food. Bob insisted that I try a local treat, conch salad, which is basically raw conch meat cut into little cubes and marinated along with chopped vegetables and some spices. IT WAS GREAT!!! Conch is a large mollusk that is very common here in the Bahamas and is on nearly every menu. Not to miss out, last night I tried fried conch for dinner. Great too but not as amazing as the salad. Oh yea, the local Kalik beer is great too.

For our trip to Norwalk we will have a total of 4 crew and hope to leave on Saturday. The weather is looking a bit unsettled with lots of squalls between here and Cape Hatteras so the weather will be a bit uncertain for the next few days prior to our planned departure on Saturday.

Well, I smell the coffee in the galley so I’ll sign off for now.

More to come later today.

Where’s Pandora? Perhaps better to say where’s Bob?

May 12, 2012 | Leave a Comment

For some months I have been looking for a service that will allow me to provide real time location information here on where Pandora is at any given point. This will be particularly valuable when Brenda and I head south in the fall so that family and friends can follow us as we make our way south for the winter. Of course, the natural question that some to mind is “why would we want to follow your trip?”. Well, that’s simple, because you can…

There are a number of services available that will track progress and I settled on a unit called SPOT. This is a nifty device that’s just a few inches long and sends a signal to low orbiting satellites to keep tabs on where the unit is at any given time. With an update every 10 minutes when it’s turned on, it’s an amazingly simple way to keep in touch. This is an amazingly affordable service and you can click here to learn more about this remarkable device. Even more interesting is this overview of how the unit works. As simple as the device looks, it’s part of a system that looks REALLY COMPLICATED and EXPENSIVE.

This video gives a good overview of the tracking function. What an awesome gadget!!!

“Spot” will be aboard Pandora most of the time but for now it will be with me as I head this coming week for Nassau Bahamas to help my friend Bob bring back his South African Islander 56′, The Abby, to Norwalk CT. At least, that’s where I think we are going. Not sure as the boat spends a lot of time in Newport. Well, I guess that will learn more when I head there on Tuesday. I know Bob from my years as a member of the Norwalk Yacht Club and also as member of The Corinthians.

There will be a total of four of us on this trip and we expect to leave on the 18th or 19th of May and will arrive at some point late the following week. As I understand it, we will head out into the Gulf Stream and ride it north. This will allow us to make the trip as quickly as possible given the fact that the “stream” moves north at several knots which will give us a boost in speed as we head up the coast.

Anyway, back to the issue of tracking our progress. With SPOT aboard, there will be a real time record of our progress as we head north. I won’t turn the unit on until we leave the harbor except briefly when I get to Nassau to post an initial position on my SPOT page. You will have to pan out on the map to get a better feel for where we are as the link defaults to a close up view.

It should be fun and I hope that you will enjoy “ride” with me.

More to come.

The wild life aboard Pandora and a Mother’s day greeting.

May 10, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Even though Pandora is still on the hard in Norwalk CT, she’s still a hopping place for some. In this case, the feathered kind. When I went forward the other day to check out the anchor windlass I was surprised by a Ground Dove that had built her nest under the cover. I was loath to interfere but had to attend to the anchor so unfortunately, disturbed her. It was amazing just how brave she was and only flew away when I carefully prodded her with my outstretched finger on her back. However, I did have to give her a poke as I really needed to lower the anchor to the ground for some work I was doing. Most important is that the windless makes quite a racket, something that would surely have sent her “over the edge”. I wanted her to fly away but not forever.She did make a run for it and I quickly snapped a photo of the egg while she was away. I came back a few days later and she was still there but this time I kept a respectful distance.

With Mother’s day less than a week away I certainly don’t’ want to be accused of being tough on mothers. Besides, my own mom might get the wrong idea about me.

Pandora has proven to be a great home for me and Brenda and it seems fitting to have another family living aboard while she is on the hard.

Let’s hope that the chicks fly the coop by early June when Pandora gets launched. So, how fast to doves grow? For their sake, they had better be quick about it.

While life goes on aboard Pandora, I am headed to Freeport Bahamas this coming Tuesday to help a friend bring his boat back to CT. It should be a great trip and I am sure that some fun posts will come from the journey.

More to come and soon I hope.

Finally in Essex and getting back to normal

April 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment

It’s been a long few months with the last several weeks of interminable delays in getting out of our home in NJ with septic and roofing problems and a buyer who wouldn’t close until it was fixed. In any event, with that project finally completed with the help of professional plumbers and roofers like Knipp Roofing services, we finally moved last Thursday and are now in our new home here in Essex CT.

In spite of being here we are anything but settled with many boxes still left to unpack. I would have liked to have posted in sooner but there hasn’t been anything to talk about besides wishing that I was doing something on Pandora to get her ready to launch in late May.

However, this Wednesday I expect to head down to Norwalk to spend several days getting her ready for the season. There remains much to complete including the wiring connections on the watermaker, installing the wi-fi and working on the cockpit enclosure. Yikes, the list remains long.

In spite of it all, I was able to spend a bit of time out on the CT river in Essex last week when our son Christopher visited from NYC for the weekend. He and I took the guide boat that I spoke of in my last post out for a run on the river. It was pretty breezy but warm and sunny and we had a great time. Along the way he took these photos of a pair of osprey’s landing on their nest. As there were chicks/eggs in the nest, they were aggressively protecting the nest from our intrusion. Great shots. He’s a gifted photographer and has the patience to get the right shot. Not sure which this is, male or female.

Just take a look at those pointy talons. I’d hate to be on the receiving end when they are out fishing.

I also think that it’s a good thing that ospreys don’t have 20′ wingspans or sailing would be a bit less fun. “Hey, there’s a nice juicy human that we can feed our chicks. No, be my guest, you go first. Here Bobby, Bobby!!

Hmm, that was a bit random… Never mind.

I guess that will have to suffice for now as I am up to my elbows in boxes and unpacking. I can’t wait for things to settle down so I can get back to serious stuff like sailing.

Wish me luck.

Return of a classic for the Pandora clan

April 2, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Prior to sailing big boats (larger just actually, not BIG like the .001% boys), Brenda and I traveled for vacation to Lake Clear in the Adirondacks as I had with my parents for many years. During the many summers at Lake Clear, near Saranac, I fell in love with the sweet lines of the classic Adirondack Guide Boat, a style of pulling boat designed for hunting guides to take their customers (sports) out on the lakes in the area to hunt and fish. It was important for me to find a good boat supply store who are reliable and provide quality products. Due to the fact that the many lakes were close to one another and yet required frequent portages or “carries” where the guide would have to carry the boat from one lake some distance over land to the next launch area, these boats had to be very light so that they were manageable and easy to handle. While traditionally built out of wood, many of the modern day versions of these boats are built in kevlar, again to ensure that they are as light as possible.

Years ago, nearly 30 actually, I purchased a bare kevlar hull of a 16′ guide boat and finished it myself. The decks, fore and aft, and side rails are made of a combination of cherry, ash and walnut and the seats are caned. I even got ash blanks and made my own 8′ oars or sweeps, to match the design. The hull shape was taken from a wonderful boat Ghost built by a well known boat builder, Durant back in the 1800s and now in the collection of the Adirondack Museum in Tupper Lake which can be found, who would have ever guessed, in the Adirondacks.

Once we got into cruising Long Island Sound, the guide boat went into storage hung up high in my parent’s garage and for the last few years jammed under our front porch. As our new home is just one mile from the Connecticut River, we will once again be able to use our guide boat and for the first time since our boys were toddlers. Now our boys are 26 and 28 years old so it’s been a lot of years since the boat has touched water.

As you can imagine, after so many years in storage, the guide boat was pretty nasty looking as is witnessed by this shot. The under porch storage was very tight and while protected from much of the weather, it was a pretty humid place. Fortunately, the wood chucks that live under the porch hadn’t “chucked wood” or damaged the boat in any way. I did find some leaves tucked up under one of the decks that looked like a comfortable nest, perhaps for some mice.

Pretty nasty but there is beauty in there somewhere.After a bit of scrubbing, beauty… Actually, a lot of elbow grease on this baby.

As I mentioned, walnut and cherry decks. Oh, if it wasn’t clear, this wasn’t a kit, just a bare hull and a pile of locally purchased lumber. Not bad for a beginner. I must have been in my late 20s when I finished her. Amazingly, the varnish hasn’t been touched in all the subsequent years. Nice when you can keep a boat out of the weather.

No, I didn’t weave the cane seats. They are machine woven. CHEATER, CHEATER!!! Yes, don’t be too tough on me, we all make compromises. I was even able to fine hardware true to the original design of Ghost. It’s great to have nice hardware on a great boat. GOD is in the details as is the case in all of life. What amazing lines this boat has. She really moves through the water.

One thing that this boat has in common with our SAGA 43 Pandora, is a fine entry. They both move through the water very easily. Straight on you can really see how this boat would track on the water. Like a knife…Fine, really fine…No, I won’t be distracted from Pandora this summer but what better way to kill a few hours on the CT River than aboard a classic guide boat. There’s even a caned seat back (alas, packed for the move and not shown) for Brenda to lounge against, parasol in hand as we head out on the river.

Perhaps we will want to avoid the whole “dead deer in the bottom of the boat thing” as is in the case here.

No, and I am confident that Brenda will be good deal more attractive and a lot less smelly than the guy who is a passenger in this classic photo from Guide Boats.com. There’s a lot of great information here on the history of this unique North American craft.

In about a week we will be moving out of our NJ home and will be able to begin enjoying this great boat again after what seems like a lifetime ago. So much to look forward to.