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As I write this, it’s 2pm on Saturday June 12th and we are about 40 miles south of Long Island headed to Montauk.  The winds have filled in nicely from the south at nearly 20kts (one knot is 1.1 statute or land mile per hour).  With the wind behind us and at a good speed, we have been clipping along at a nice rate of speed for much of the day, reeling off the miles as we head toward Montauk, the eastern most point of Long Island.

Being on Pandora when the conditions are like this is quite exhilarating as it was conditions like theses that she was designed and built for.  Today she had bursts of speed at 9.3 kts and steady, hour after hour, speeds in excess of 8kts, a respectable rate of speed for any boat.

On Thursday afternoon I met up with my crew and we made our way to Annapolis to prepare to bring Pandora to CT and her next “home” in Mystic CT where she will be for the second half of June and into late July, when we take her to Maine.

With a total of 4 crew, including me, we would have enough on board to handle the boat if things got messy, and I felt secure knowing that each of them had good offshore experience.  Here’s Burt and Dick, two of the three. One was catching up on sleep down below.

As I wrote in a past post, I did some upgrades to my rig over the winter to prepare Pandora for offshore sailing. When the going gets tough, you have to be prepared to sail under reduced rig and a storm jib is a must.  Here’s a shot of my jib hoisted prior to departure.  Glad that the guys at Quantum Sails got the measurements right.  Now we are ready!

Taking a boat out into the ocean, especially a small vessel like Pandora requires lots of safety gear.  Aboard we have key gear to keep us safe in the event of  a “water landing” as they say on the airlines.  We have a liferaft and EPIRB (a transmitter, registered to Pandora that will alert the authorities via satellite if we get into trouble.  You may have heard that they young teen sailor Abby Sunderland had hers go off recently when her boat Wild Eyes was dismasted in the Indian Ocean.  Her EPIRB was able to alert rescuers and she was found and picked up by a fishing boat that steamed to her rescue.

You can’t be too careful as miles from land you won’t last long in the water without the proper gear.  

Here’s a shot of me sitting near the mast as we headed toward Montauk, clipped on of course, wearing an inflatable vest.   Everyone on Pandora must clip on to the boat whenever they are out of the cabin at night and on deck at any time when we are off shore and the winds are up.  It’s very hard to get someone back on board and especially tough when conditions are rough.  When it’s dark,  the odds are not good at all that someone overboard will be found.

Our trip from Annapolis took s north in the bay, through the C&D canal and down the Delaware River.  The river runs hard, combining tide and current so for much of our run down the river we were making better than 10kts over the bottom even though we were motoring in calm conditions.

However, a few hours before we passed Cape May and the mouth of the Delaware, the tide and current turned against us and our progress slowed to under 5kts over the bottom. The current can make a tremendous difference in boat speed as we were still making close to the same speed through the water.   A combination of current and a freshening wind on the nose slowed us down.

Green power?  Some think so.  It’s a good thing that the Salem nuclear plant is so close to Atlantic City as the lights were really bright in AC when we passed it in the wee hours of Saturday morning.  This plant is the biggest thing on the lower Delaware.

 We passed Cape May just after dark on Friday and began to make our way up the coast making our way toward Montauk point at the eastern end of Long Island New York.

When making a passage we have to keep the boat moving around the clock as there’s no way to just stop and sleep without diverting to a harbor miles away.  In order to make sure that everyone is kept rested and fresh, we divide the crew into watches.  In this case there are four of us so that’s two in each watch.  Beginning at 8pm, there are two of us on deck at any given time, with the off duty watch down below resting and catching up on sleep.  Our watches for this trip last 3 hours which gives a reasonable amount of time to sleep between time on deck.

While we ran the engine all the way to Cape May, a distance of about 100 miles, the wind filled in nicely from the south over night allowing us to sail much of the time.   The wind lightened up considerably later in the morning but ended up freshening again and is now blowing 20kts, a perfect amount of wind for this point of sail.  Of course, when you are running with the wind the actual speed of the wind seems like a lot less given that the boat speed is subtracted from the actual wind speed.   So far, our speed maxed out at 10.3 kts.  Not bad.

 As of now we have been underway from 4:45am on Friday morning, about 34 hours, and have covered 241 miles through the water at an average speed of 6.8kts.  A respectable speed to cover distance.

There’s a lot of ship traffic in the Delaware and this particular ship is one of the more interesting.  I can’t imagine what it must carry given these massive cranes on deck.  Imagine how she rolls in a seaway?  Perhaps they are put down on deck when the going gets rough.  The color, not common for a ship.  Perhaps a better color for a Mini Cooper car.  It does show up well thought.

 We expect to reach Montauk in the very early hours of Sunday and will make our way up to Mystic where we will leave Pandora and make our way home.

With all the dredging that’s done on the Delaware, there are piles of fill on each side of the channel.  The constant currents are pushing all the sand around and it requires near constant dredging.  It’s hard to imagine that ships could have made it up to Philadelphia, more than 100 miles from the ocean prior to power dredging.  And, with the currents, what a tough trip it must have been under sail.  

Who can resist a shot off the stern of Pandora to see how wonderful the conditions are.  Even though we are making time, it’s quite calm and steady aboard. 

>It’s been a while since I last wrote about Jessica Watson, the young Australian Girl that sailed around the world, returning just a few weeks ago.  It seems that Jess has been hard at work, and was while she sailed aboard Ella’s Pink Lady, writing her book which is now scheduled to be available in August. 

Her new book True Spirit sounds like it will be a fun read and I for one will have to get a copy. 

You can check out more of what she has been up to by going to this link.  And some more detail about her book, True Spirit is here. 

As any self respecting 16 year old solo circumnavigating sailor would do, Jess filmed a promotional video for her book in the middle of the Indian Ocean that I found on YouTube. 

The book, according to her website…
 “she details the extensive preparation she and her team made for the big voyage, her journey and the battles she fought along the way – against sleep deprivation, gale-force winds, mountainous seas and the solitude most of us can only imagine. When she sailed back into Sydney Harbour on 15 May 2010, after 210 days at sea, she was cheered in by a huge crowd that included Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. To many, Jessica was our newest hero. She disagreed, saying she wasn’t a hero, “just an ordinary girl who had a dream and worked hard at it and proved that anything is possible”. This is her story. About Jessica: Jessica was born on 18 May 1993 on Australia’s Gold Coast. She left Sydney Harbour on her quest to become the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world on 18 October 2009 and arrived home triumphant seven months later. “

Further, somewhat random, details about her voyage are…

Some facts from the book:
• Jessica sailed more than 24,000 nautical miles in seven months
• Her favourite meal on the journey was steak & kidney pie heated in the onboard pressure cooker
• She suffered six knockdowns (when the mast goes underwater) during her journey, including four in one particularly bad storm off the Falkland Islands during 70-knot winds and 10m waves
• Jessica took with her 32 tins of spam, 150l of milk, 64 tins of potatoes and 160 popper drinks

Meanwhile, Abby Sunderland, another teen trying to sail around the world, had her voyage meet an unhappy end with her boat Wild Eyes was dismasted during a storm in the Indian Ocean.  Fortunately, Abby was rescued by a fishing boat and will take several weeks to find her way home.  She says that she is writing a book too.  I’ll bet she is, and it should be an interesting to read given all of the difficulties that she encountered along the way.

Now, all I have to do is to find another sailing voyage to follow. Any suggestions?

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St. Michaels Maryland on Memorial Day weekend. That’s where we have been for the last few days, enjoying the local color, the maritime museum and the views, both aboard and on shore. I have to say that this resort community on the Eastern Shore is a really wonderful place to visit, on season or off. Our last visit here was after Labor Day if I recall and aside from the hotter temperatures, its going to get up to the high 80s today, it’s a really wonderful place. After recalling all of our Memorial Day trips aboard over the years and the stunningly cold water of Long Island Sound, the nearly 80 degree water here, so early in the season, is quite a contrast.

With the summer sailing season just getting into swing up in New England, we’ve been sailing for over a month now. What a difference in mentality with the marinas switching to summer rates as of April 1st. In a short time Pandora will head up to Mystic CT for a month and then on to Maine for August.

I started a new business several month ago with a long time associate from my days at Dowden Health Media. Our business is focused on working with medical societies and university education departments with whom we will be developing educational programs for health care providers including physicians and others.

The reason that I mention this is that my partner Cathy and I are working hard and are committed to keeping the business “virtual” as long as we can. It’s been hard work but rewarding so far. When I say virtual, I mean that we want to be able to work where ever we are. In my case, that means working aboard Pandora some of the time.  

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to work aboard and now I can, at least part of the time.   It’s hard to stay focused when you are surrounded by so many distractions. However, when the fear of new business failure lurking, staying focused is easier than you would think.  Actually, the hardest thing has been the heat but when we are away from the dock, working has been a fairly straight forward affair with conference calls and other activities.  

A big help has also been the installation of a cell phone booster that I had installed over the winter when Pandora’s mast was out for painting. The booster has already proven it’s worth as local cell coverage is spotty on the bay around Annapolis. For example, in the slip where we have been keeping Pandora, I am lucky to get one bar on my phone. However, slip the phone into the cradle and I have three bars. That’s the difference between clear and dropped calls. Something that’s critical when the calls are for business.

Anyway, enough about work. The local sights of St. Michaels are wonderful with shady tree lined streets with historic homes lining the quiet side streets. Here’s a few pictures of some homes that caught my eye.

 Very few brick homes around here.  This one was moved from another location a few years ago.  Really quite unusual for the area.

We have admired this home during past visits. Notice the arts and crafts fans as well as the outdoor floor lamp.  Really a great place to sit and drink iced tea or perhaps an “adult beverage”.

Oh yeah.  Last night we had a bunch of steamed crabs, Maryland style.  What a mess.  When I asked the guy at the fish market how many we should buy to be sure we had enough, his answer was.  “My grandfather used to say “you eat crabs until you are tired, not until you are full”.  That’s about right, as I got tired after an hour of picking and yet could have eaten more. 

I also want to mention a great tip that my friend and fellow SAGA owner Keith told me about getting water without going to a dock.  That’s a particularly important thing for us as we tend to run out of water faster than fuel and going to a busy fuel dock just to get water in the tanks makes us unpopular with some.  Kieth suggested that I get some collapsible jugs and just fill them when I am ashore. What a great idea. It takes just a few minutes to fill four of five gallon jugs and pouring them into the boat with  a large funnel is a snap.  I can’t believe that it took 30 years of sailing to learn this.  Not news to you?  It sure is for me.   Now water usage isn’t as much of an issue aboard Pandora.  Besides, going to a dock isn’t Brenda’s favorite things so getting water this way is one less “career limiting move” for me too. 

Tonight we head back up north to the Magothy river for a visit with some friends and the next day, back home and to reality.  However in about a week it will be time to head up to Mystic as our next home away from home.

>Some terrific clips of the coverage of Jessica’s homecoming.  They are posted as a series.  Fun to look at.

I hope that you are able to take the time to watch this series of videos that takes you from Jessica miles outside of the harbor to her news conference.

The first one is a lead up to her arrival in the harbor. 

The next one is an interview of Jessica’s parents aboard the VIP boat waiting for her to arrive in the harbor.

Edition 3 overviews the voyage and route that she took.

This segment is an interview over the Sat Phone with Jess from local newscasters as she makes her way the last miles to Sydney.

This segment a bit of the story behind Jessica’s decision to sail around the world when she was 14 years old.

Enjoy a ring side seat as Jess nears the finish line after 23,000 miles of sailing.

Jessica crosses the line.

I posted this one the other day and while the quality is not that great as it was posted by someone that just videotaped it off of their TV. It’s the only segment that I was unable to find in the series that had been posted. It’s of her first steps ashore after coming up to the dock at the Opera House. A very emotional moment indeed as she greets her family after 7 months at sea, alone.

Jessica speaks to the thousands who came out to see her at the Sydney Opera House. And, she did so with remarkable style and poise.

Jessica’s news conference after her arrival.

Wrap up of the news conference.

That’s all for now. Now that she has made it back safely, it will be interesting to see what happens next for this remarkable young women.

>My son Rob and I were joined by our good friends Joe and Luke for our “annual Guy’s Weekend”  in Annapolis aboard Pandora.  On Thursday evening we rendezvoused, arriving from NJ, CT, NYC and Pittsburgh to spend a few days together aboard Pandora and see some of the sights of the Chesapeake and Annapolis.   Unlike some past years when we have faced rain and challenging conditions, this weekend had really terrific weather.  On Thursday evening we had dinner aboard with the plan of heading out the following morning.  The weather patterns for the weekend called for moderate to strong SW winds on Friday followed by a shift overnight to fresh NW on Saturday.  With this in mind, we headed out on a reach to Rock Hall on the Eastern Shore, a much different, and decidedly slower pace than near Annapolis.  We dropped the hook around the corner from Rock Hall Harbor in Swan Creek.  

After we arrived, we headed for shore and rented bikes.  This marina just past the mooring field in “The Haven” was a very nice place to get ashore and for $5 each we headed out to explore Rock Hall.   This is a nice shot of the Club House at the marina.

As predicted by the weather service, which called for 50% chance of thunderstorms, we were treated to a fantastic light show from the passing cold front.  This shot of the growing thunderhead to the west was a clue as to what would happen next.  Later in the evening we were hit with some pretty impressive gusts, enough to knock everything that wasn’t secured onto the floor.  I would guess that the brief gusts were upwards of 40-50kts. It was impressive but brief lived.  It’s a good thing that we have a big anchor, a 65lb Bruce and lots of heavy chain.

With a strong NW wind the following morning we headed out to Annapolis.  Our trip was quite lively as the wind increased to a gusty 15-18kt breeze and hard on the wind we blasted along, sometimes as fast as 8.5kts, nearly 10kts with the ebbing current, our way toward Annapolis. 

Annapolis on a busy Saturday is quite a scene and this visit wasn’t any different.  A view up Main Street gives you a feel for how crowded it can be. 

The harbor and out into the bay has all sorts of craft but it’s always busy.  This boat is a sandbagger, one of two, Bull and Bear.  These two identical boats are owned and campaigned by a wealthy New York financier who fancies wooden boats.  He supports these boats, in partnership with The National Hall of Fame and Sailing Center, as they are trucked around for various events. I am told that moving these around is quite an operation.  They are wonderfully maintained and quite impressive.   The program is designed to help expose young people to sailing.  Bull and Bear have a very nice website where you can learn more about these wonderful boats. Perhaps you can even find a way to get aboard for a sail.  Not a bad idea.

We also decided to spend some time walking around the Naval Academy and I have to say that I was impressed with how wonderful the grounds look.  It reminded me of the Naval College in Greenwich England.  I expect that the founding fathers were trying to say something about the young United States by evoking the look of a similar institution.  And, to this day, your tax dollars are hard at work.  What a view of the harbor. 

And, what’s a view of the harbor without a shot of Pandora on her mooring?

 And a shot of the Academy 40 footers, that they race on the bay and further away.  These are not cushy yachts at all.  They are beefy and powerful in every way. 

The buildings on campus are quite amazing to see.  No denying that there is European influence here.

 Several views of the dome on the chapel where John Paul Jones is entombed.

One of the many wonderful old historic homes just outside of the Academy walls. There’s lots to see in Annapolis and no shortage of folks doing just that.