>My younger son Chris and his friend and fellow physicist Mohan from U Rochester joined me for the weekend on Pandora. We rendezvoused in Mystic on Friday evening and had dinner at Mystic Pizza, made famous the the movie of the same name starring Julia Roberts. It’s certainly the only pizza joint in the country showing that movie in continuous loops 20 hours a day. I believe that was the role that launched Julia Roberts career. Chris, now living in NYC, the pizza capital of the universe, declared the pizza substandard but OK. It was made more palatable by the hot fudge sunday that soon followed.

Most lighthouses that we visit are very informally operated but in true New York State Historic Park Service fashion, they had a ticket booth, gift store and a large staff made up of dedicated middle age guides with wireless headsets and uniforms. The staff had everything a National Historic Landmark could want except perhaps knowledge of the site beyond what they got from the site informational flier. I was amused, while at the top of the light to hear one women’s question of “where did the light house keeper sleep” answered by a somewhat perplexed guide “I guess that he slept on the floor here”, pointing to the landing at the top of the stairs. She went on to explain that the keeper’s home was down the stairs and down the road a bit. Certainly he didn’t walk the 100 yards from his home to the light multiple times a day. She also, in a completely authoritative voice stated that the “light was very efficient and didn’t even need electricity to be seen”. A fact not hard to imagine as the light was commissioned in the 1700s, a long time prior to the advent of electricity.

The view from the top of the tower is really something and given the fact that the site itself is on the top of a very high bluff, you can easily see Block Island and CT. Unfortunately, for safety reasons, you can only peek out on the balcony but it’s great none the less.

from the old light unit as it seems that the Frenchman Fresnel did some important work in optics back in the 1700s. This lens unit was a very impressive massive unit of bronze and glass. A true work of art and it must of have weighed a ton as it was over 6′ in diameter. The trip up to the top is not for the claustrophobic.

Another famous visitor to the area was Teddy Roosevelt who’s Rough Riders came to the area following the Spanish American War to be quarantined due to yellow fever and malaria. I guess that’s why there are unexploded bombs in the woods, something that is clearly posted in signs all over the place once you are off the main road. The message is clear and not something that you see every day. Chris and Mohan were terrified.

>While I am between cruises on Pandora I follow a number of sailing blogs and also listen to a terrific podcast from Martinique.

Speaking of Pandora, I am looking forward to next weekend when my younger son Chris and a college friend will join me for a weekend out of Mystic, where Pandora is now. The plan is to head out to Block Island for the weekend. I can’t wait!!

Two world class sailors, Steve and Linda Dashew are prolific writers, designers who have sailed all over the world. They have since traded in their sailboat and are cruising on a 90′ powerboat, the latest in their long line of fast, narrow energy efficient yachts. Their current boat “Wind Horse” is a 90′ very narrow, easily driven aluminum yacht that they are traveling the world on. They keep a regular blog and their most recent posting on June 2nd has them in Norway. Their blog has some really wonderful photos and some great tips on ocean cruising. Check them out at http://setsail.com/category/dashew-blog/ . For some really great photos of Wind Horse, check this out. http://dashewoffshore.com/fpb_first.asp What a boat.

What a terrific looking yacht Windhorse is…

Susan and Tom Maddigan have been cruising between New England and the Bahamas for several years and while they don’t post very often, they do have quite a bit of activity from their time on Brilliant. Check them out at http://www.sailbrilliant.blogspot.com/

Tom and Susan have covered a lot of miles with Brilliant. The are on their way north now.

Listing to podcasts is a relatively new activity for me but I absolutely love Yacht Blast which is a weekly radio show from a station in Martinique in the Caribbean. What a great thing to listen to while thinking of warmer climes. The host Gary Brown covers a great many topics including local sailing news and major events and races around the world. Great fun. You can go to I-tunes or to this link. http://www.yachtblast.com/#/podcasts/4526520265 Gary posts each Monday and I have subscribed by doing to I-tunes and it automatically loads onto my I-pod each week.

I am always on the lookout for fun sailing podcasts to listen to so please let me know of any that you like.

>We covered a decent amount of ground on our first week out on Easter Long Island. Since my last posting the weather improved as we headed from Greenport to Essex on the Connecticut River. That evening in Essex we had a great dinner as guests of our fellow Corinthians Rodney and Genie Devine. Rodney has crewed for me a number of times and is always a pleasure to have on board. Essex Yacht club is a very friendly place, quite a contrast to the clubs in Sag Harbor. This is a shot of the mooring field outside of the club, which is right down town Essex from our boat in the anchorage. Yes, it’s really this quaint.

While our trip over from Greenport began with a downpour, it ended up with a run some 10 miles past Essex in a beautiful afternoon cruise up to Haddam and the Goodspeed Opera House. Along the way we also passed Gillette Castle, the home of an excentric actor who played Sherlock Holmes back at the turn of the last century.

Here’s the Goodspeed Opera House and Gillette’s Castle.

There’s also a small airport at Goodspeed Landing and we were treated to a flyover and touch and go landing by a great little pontoon ultralight. Watching him weave down the river just 50ft off the water was a sight to behold. That would really be fun to do sometime. There are lots of really quaint homes along the river and it’s fun to just enjoy as we motor by.

On Saturday morning we motored down the CT River again and headed East to Mystic, catching a great SW breeze and an ebbing tide. We covered the distance in really great time going some 7+ knots most of the way. We sailed right up the river to pick up my friend Keith’s mooring right near the swing bridge. Keith and Rose own a SAGA 43 like Pandora and they travel South each winter to spend a few months in the Bahamas. Since they won’t be back until the end of June they agreed that we could use their mooring.

After a really great sail it was time for payback when I started looking for Keith’s mooring which had sunk over the winter when the stick he put in place instead of the float sunk. I thought that I was all prepared with a grapple hook to find it but it turned out to be a much more difficult project than I had envisioned. I did find three other moorings fairly quickly it took many hours of dragging back and forth, often in the entirely wrong place it turned out, until I finally found it. Keith was very patient with me on the phone as I called him many times for encouragement and direction finding. I am sure that he would have found it rather quickly. Here’s a shot of me untangling the lines and getting it ready to use.

What a mess.

Anyway, all’s well that ends well and we had a great morning and afternoon in Mystic on Sunday prior to catching Amtrak to Bridgeport late afternoon.

Now Pandora is safely on her mooring for two weeks until I head back up to spend a weekend with my son Christoper and one of his friends. Hopefully the weather will cooperate so we can make a weekend visit to Block Island.

Things are a bit unsettled at work these days who knows what the rest of the summer will hold.

That’s all for now.

>We had our first week of the season on Pandora beginning last Friday when we went from Norwalk Yacht Club out to Mattituck LI. We have visited this small harbor a number of times over the years and decided that we would make this our first stop of the summer. The channel is a long way in and winds past homes, boat yards and osprey nests. It’s very pretty.

While we were there the weather was great. We even walked out of town about 2 miles to visit a vineyard. Shinn Vineyards a great little vineyard on the North Fork of Long Island. We took a tour given by Barbara Shinn who is really passionate about her farm which she keeps in a way that goes way beyond organic. Her current push is to get approval for a large wind generator on the property that will power the vineyard and tasting room. What a great place. Check out this view.

After that we went further out and spent a few days in Sag Harbor. What a contrast with all the big yachts. I counted a dozen over 100′. What recession? SAG isn’t very friendly if you don’t have $$$ to through around. Moorings are charged by the foot at $2/ft, something that we have not run into anywhere else. They are doing an excellent job of keeping their moorings open and unocupied with that policy. Odd as you’d think that they would want to attract more dollars from the “little people” too.

Since leaving SAG on Tuesday we have seen nothing but rain and cool weather. It’s Friday morning and we have been on the dock in Greenport checking out the town. It’s really a very nice town with lots of historic homes. Very nice. We even found a marina that would give us a free (almost) spot to tie up for two days. There wasn’t another boat around due to the weather and the fact that it’s still early in the season.

Very different than SAG Harbor, I would say.

The main street in town isn’t exactly hopping. We were told that Memorial Day Weekend was very busy. You can’t tell here. Also, Claudio seems to own much of the town businesses and is said to be the oldest family owned restaurant in the US. We ate there the first night because of the really cheap doc space. It was the least that we could do.

Hard to imagine a marina with only one boat. Yes, it was just us.

Well, have to sign off now as we are headed over to the CT River for a visit with some friends tonight in Essex.

>

I have not been keeping up with my blog for many months but it’s been a busy winter working on Pandora. I put an automatic Espar cabin heater on the boat, upgraded the jib travler, modfied the companionway steps and completely removed and re-varnished the cabin sole. I did lots of other things that are too small to mention but here are the larger items.

Here’s the cabin sole all laid out in the cockpit prior to the final installation. Yes, that’s 26 individual pieces. I used an interesting product called “Ultimate Sole” to finish it and it’s supposed to be non-skid even though it’s shiny. So far, so good.

Hee is the finished sole in place! I like it.

Here’s the new traveler. The old one came out to the side of the cabin and didn’t provide a good sheeting angle so the new one goes out an additional 16″ or so on each side. The better angle with the wider set makes for better performance. I had to get new brackets made to provide support for the extra overhang but they fit perfectly. I got this idea from my friend Keith and confirmed it with the boat’s designer, Bob Perry. It does make a big difference. The boat’s faster and heels less.
This is a closeup of the new brackets. Really nice work by Klako Marine in Canada.

I also added wedges in the companionway steps so that it would be easier to enter the cabin when the boat is heeled. This gives us a “level” surface to stand on when the boat is on an angle. Very nice to have and gives much better footing.