It’s Wednesday morning and we are just about ready to head out from Red Hook St Thomas.   My newest crew member, Mike flew in from San Francisco a few days ago and between him and George, who has crewed with me a number of times, we are just about ready to head out and get underway.

1,500 miles to go and that is a long way.

The weather for a trip that I expect will take about 9-11 days is obviously uncertain as even the best weather models does not see out much more than 4-6 days with any sort of certainty.  However, the long range forecast that Chris Parker gave us last night suggests that we should not have much, if any, adverse weather which is better than was the case just a few weeks ago when gales were plaguing the waters in the north Atlantic.   The most uncertain part of the trip will be what we encounter north of Bermuda, the second half of the trip.  As we are still early in the season, conditions can be nasty up there and it is possible that a strong cold front will exit the US coast and bring with it a NE Gale.  A lot of this depends on timing so we will be monitoring the weather forecast closely.

The image below is what the forecast suggests as a route for us.  Each line represents a separate forecast model with assumptions about the sailing characteristics of Pandora.

The blue areas are those without wind and red, in the mid 20s or higher.   Anyway, I won’t say much more about all that but the weather right now and into the next week suggests that we should be ok and hopefully can make it all the way to Long Island Sound without diverting somewhere else along the way. One area of some uncertainty is my engine cooling system which has been acting  up a bit over the last week or so with a small drip/leak on the front of the engine.  I have taken some areas apart, tightened a few key bolts and the problem seems to have been solved.  Just for fun, or not, here’s a shot of the area in question.  You can see the red antifreeze puddling slightly.   The engine, in this area looks a bit nasty but hey, it’s an old engine. The leak is coming through a seal that is part of the water pump.  I have no idea if my “fix” will hold but a proper repair is a fairly big deal that will require removing the water pump and replacing some seals and gaskets.  With that in mind, I ordered a set of parts overnight from the US and picked them up at the other end of the island yesterday.

I guess I subscribe to the idea that if you carry an umbrella on a cloudy day it is less likely to rain.  So, let’s hope that with parts on hand it won’t rain.  At least I am ready although making a repair at sea isn’t appealing.  Fingers crossed.

So, all that is left is to stow things properly, fill the water and get everything on deck ready for the run.

I will be posting regularly as we make our way north and may include some photos as well, a first due to our Starlink unit.  Unfortunately, I had a glitch in how I set up the account and used a lot of expensive data already so will have to limit my usage to keep the bill from spiraling out of control.

You can follow along and see how my track is going on the Salty Dawg Homeward Bound Rally tracking page. 

There are also some details on this blog about tracking Pandora individually, under the tab “where in the world is Pandora”.

I guess that’s about all for now as we still have a few items to square away before we head out.

Wish us luck.

I’ll be in touch.

It’s Saturday and Pandora is on a mooring in St John in the USVI. ironically, the same place, and likely the same mooring, that Brenda and I were when we were on our way home to the US during the early days of the pandemic.

Our second crewmember Mike is flying out from San Francisco, to join us for the run.  I was thrilled to find him, albeit at the last minute.  As a fellow SDSA member, he is eager to spend time on the water and after watching a number of my SDSA webinars and following my blog, he’s looking forward to the run.

I am hopeful that we will have an easy one as going north is generally easier than going south in the fall.  Fingers crossed.

George, my crew member from a number of trips, and I did an overnight run from St Martin where we stopped briefly to cut the 200 mile run from Antigua into two legs.   While we sailed much of the 100 miles from Antigua to St Martin, the second leg was dead down wind in light conditions, an easy run under power.

As we approached St John the sun rose in the east.  A beautiful sight. And, the rising sun painted the clouds over St John with a beautiful glow. Nearly there. Last night when I was doing the dinner dishes, I came upon what looked like a small noodle in the dish drainer.  When I was about to remove it, it moved.  It wasn’t a piece of food, but a tiny gecko, just over 1″ long.   This photo makes him/her look large, but trust me, really really tiny.  After dark last night I was surprised to encounter him again climbing up the canvas on the aft enclosure, a long way to go for such a tiny critter.   I wonder if he will complete the voyage with us.  I’ll admit that I am already worrying about his demise on the ocean.   Something else to think about. Great!On passage, we are often visited by small birds but visits by reptiles, not so much.  The last time this happened was years ago when a lizard stowed away on our boat in FL, which we discovered when we were in The Bahamas.   I wrote about that encounter in 2014, so I guess that history repeats itself about once a decade.

In spite of this place being quite beautiful, with very clear blue water, I can’t help but view it with a bit of dread given Brenda’s and my experience here. during the pandemic, a few years ago.  That run, three months overall, from St Lucia to Florida was not a lot of fun.   I wrote a number of posts during that early period of lockdown, March of 2020.  It’s worth following this link to all of my March 2020 posts to see what it was like.

During that time, when we were stuck aboard in the Caribbean, we were chided by friends that thought that we were “locked down in paradise”.  Not!  It was more like being locked down in a tiny room surrounded by water, as beautiful as it was.   In a post that I did when we first heard about what turned out to be the worse pandemic in 100 years, I naively thought that the threat would pull our nation and the world,  together against a common enemy.  Sadly, I was wrong, very wrong.  

As Brenda said at the time, that “cruising (especially during the pandemic) was like being in prison with the possibility of drowning”.  Lovely.

So, here I am with crew member George being chill for a few days while we wait for the right time to head north with the Salty Dawg Homeward Bound Rally.

The official start date for the run is the 10th, so now a few days before we are supposed to depart, we are very focused on the upcoming weather.  This afternoon we expect to get the first of a number of weather briefings from our weather router, Chris Parker.  I’ve been working with him for a decade now and trust his work.  Chris, please order up a nice run for us…

When I spoke to him yesterday he told me that he expects that we will be able to leave on time, which is good news.  The thought of a nearly two week delay like we had in the fall, when we were heading south is not appealing.

The problem now is that the conditions in the North Atlantic are still nasty with strong winds rolling off of the coast every few days.  This time of the year things should be settling down and we hope that this year will also be the case.

Mike should land in St Thomas and perhaps catch the 2:00 ferry to St John.  I look forward to meeting him and buying him a beer, or two, to welcome him to Pandora.

On the 8th, we move into a marina in St Thomas to begin getting things ready for the run.  Provisions for two weeks at sea are always a challenge to organize.

Oh yeah, one more thing.  While I sit here, Brenda is on the first day of her two week fiber tour of Japan with some friends.  We spoke on WhatsApp last night and was really wonderful to talk to her.  It was amazing that the call sounded like she was next door and not 14 time zones away in Japan.  I do miss her and can’t wait to be home again.  Essex in the summer is lovely.

I guess that’s about it for now.

 

It’s May 2^nd and Pandora is anchored in Jolly Harbor, Antigua.

There is a gentle breeze and the sun is just peaking up above the hills. The light is playing on the clouds to the west, giving them a gentle glow.When we arrived at the customs dock yesterday some of the staff had left for the day.  What, it was only 3:00?

Last time we cleared out here a similar situation had occurred, with some staff on hand and others gone.  At that time, I had been told that some had left at 3:30, but that the office was open till 4:30.  Yesterday, the left at 2:00.  I have no idea when they close.

We were told to come back today at 8:30.  Fingers crossed.

George, who flew in a few days ago, and I headed off to a bar to drowned our sorrows in a Carib beer with a fellow cruiser who was also trying to clear out.

It’s been hot since I arrived on Sunday with unusual light winds, sometimes out of the west.

You may have read about the “blob” heading toward Florida, a huge mass of Sargasso weed, the size of a state, RI or CT, whatever, that is being driven shoreward.   We have noticed a huge amount of that floating weed this season, sometimes so dense that our prop fouls as we pass through it.

Well, that west wind blew a mass of it into Falmouth Harbor a few days ago, nearly filling the harbor with brown stuff.It’s prickly and when it washes up on a beach and rots, makes for quite a mess to clean up.  Some beaches we saw this winter had several feet of the stuff lining entire beaches.   It’s nasty stuff.  Here’s what it looks like up close.I’m told that mats of it floating on the sea creates cover for many critters, crabs, small fish and stuff.  For us and others, it’s a nuisance.

Amazingly, when the wind shifted back to the east the next day, all gone like magic.

Yesterday we got fuel in English Harbor before heading here.  The view, a photo I took a few days ago, is quite impressive.  The sleek black bow peaking out is one of the classic J America’s Cup racers, I think Hanuman.  Not sure but she’s a beauty.   This is the harbor where most of the rally boats check in.  I think it’s the most impressive harbor in the Caribbean. The last week has been crazy with meetings and planning for the arrival of the rally fleet next year.  However, the overwhelming issue I faced was learning, a few days after I arrived back in Antigua, that one of my two crew had to deal with a health issue and could not make the trip.

For nearly a week I scrambled to find a replacement, no easy task with less than a week to plan.  I met some crazy characters that were interested in making the run.  A young Antiguan that wanted to enter the US illegally, a vagabond sailor from the Netherlands and a recently divorced woman that was clearly still in recovery mode.  There was even a very nice woman from Maine, a professional delivery skipper that was willing to make the run with me for free, I expect with the hope that I could open some doors for her to get some paid jobs.  Fair enough and even in our brief discussions, it was clear to me that she’d be an asset aboard.  She had actually delivered boats for Dawgs in the past.

I’m sure that would have worked out well as we have a good number of skippers that need to have a professional on board given a relative lack of experience.  I was very pleased with how patient she was with me as I tried to sort through all of this.  I look forward to meeting her sometime. Perhaps next fall.

Finally, and just a few days ago, I received a note from a fellow member of Salty Dawg that had recently retired and was looking to do the run.   Amazing!  He was willing to join us in St John, all the way from San Francisco.  No problem. The lure of the sea!

Lucky me.

Originally, I was going to head to Bermuda and stop there, to break up the trip.  However, when I spoke to Chris Parker a few days ago, and checked the route on Predict Wind, the run looked like a slow one that would likely include perhaps 4-5 days of motoring.  Not the way I wanted to start the trip.

Furthermore, Chris thinks that by the time our rally from St Thomas begins on May 10th, that there may very well be good winds.

So, that’s where we are going now, perhaps with a stop in St Barths or St Martin along the way.   I do need one more dose of France before we head back to the US.

Well, that’s about it for now so I will leave it at that.

Remember, you can follow me on this blog under “where in the world is Pandora”.   In the past I have generally put up a post every day, describing our run and this time, conditions permitting, I plan on doing that.   And if you want to get a “ping” when I post, sign up and I’ll let you know.

And this year, I am hoping that my Starlink will allow me to include photos and videos.  Who knew that within my lifetime there would be affordable, if $250/month is affordable, broadband for small boats at sea.

Ok, enough for now.  Time to make the coffee and relax until the customs agent deem it appropriate to open up for the day.  Fingers crossed for a smooth trip.

The journey begins, well after 8:30 if I am lucky.

 

Last Sunday I returned to Antigua and Pandora after a break at home to get the place ready for the summer.  It was a whirlwind of family visits and a sprint to get the gardens and lawn in shape.

Keeping both Pandora and our home in CT in good order is quite a handful but I have to say that it suits me just (well mostly) right.  Summer in New England and winters in the Caribbean.  That’s not to say that it’s easy maintaining two “homes” but so far, so good.

After focusing on our home in Ct for a few weeks, I can turn my attention to planning for my departure for Bermuda next week.  It’s hard to believe that the winter cruising season has come and gone as it seems like only yesterday that I was focused on getting Pandora to Antigua and participating in the Salty Dawg Rally.

It’s been a busy few days with meetings to organize the arrival events for November when the fleet comes down here again.

Yesterday I was treated to a lunch with the Commissioner of the National Parks and Governor General of Antigua. I spend a good amount of time with Ann Marie of Parks but my only formal interaction with His Excellency, the Governor General was when he presented me with a medal last year.  I was particularly touched that he was able to make time for lunch as he is scheduled to fly to London for the King’s coronation today.   He is a very impressive guy and looks the part of someone who would report to a King.

Our lunch was very nice and took me back to that amazing day when Brenda and I were whisked off to St John to what turned out to be quite a ceremony.   I wrote about that remarkable experience in this post. 

In a week of events, I was also interviewed by the Antigua TV station about Salty Dawg this morning.  I learned about the plan at lunch yesterday and was told to show up in the Dockyard at 6:45 AM.  It was a great experience to be live on morning news and particularly fun to talk about Salty Dawg.    As soon as I get a link to that show, I’ll post it.

As I sit here I’ll admit that I am a bit overwhelmed as I also have to focus on getting all the events, about a dozen, organized for the arrival of the Salty Dawg Rally to Antigua next November.   Our numbers have been creeping up steadily over the years and I expect that we will have 100 boats, perhaps more, leaving the US with about 80 boats making landfall in Antigua next fall.

To make matters a bit more crazy, one of my two crew had to bail at the last minute due to health issues and finding someone with less than a week to go before departure is proving to be a bit challenging.   Fingers crossed as I do have a few options that I am exploring.

Heading home with Pandora this year will be a landmark for me as I plan on stopping in Bermuda.  The last time I was there marked my very first offshore run, perhaps 30 years ago when I helped a friend bring their boat back from the Bermuda Race.  And here I am several decades later marking our 11th year as “snowbirds”.

It’s safe to say that there has been a lot of water “under the keel” since then with tens of thousands of miles and a lot of ground covered for me and Brenda.

Back when we began sailing with Brenda in the late 70s, in Highschool, I never envisioned that this last season would mark the beginning of our second decade of winters in tropical waters or that I’d be entering my second decade as a “retired person”.  And, speaking of landmarks, this year marks the beginning of Brenda’s and my 6th decade together.

Anyway, there is a lot going on here in Antigua and last weekend marked the end of the Classic Yacht Regatta, an amazing event that brings together some of the most iconic classic sailing yachts for days of racing.

On Sunday I attended the awards ceremony and also afternoon tea and gig racing at the Admiral’s Inn.

A group of women with a decidedly British bent, put on quite a spread.  This well dressed woman was clearly enjoying herself and a pastry. Setting aside the food, the highlight was a series of races featuring gigs from some of the classic yachts.   There were hundreds of spectators and plenty of refreshments with a bit more horsepower than tea to keep everyone in high spirits. (pun intended)There was an endless series of heats with a variety of themes.  Rowing with kids, rowing in costume, sculling and all in great spirit.  It was a lot of fun to watch the action.  And at the end of the races, a lovely sight at the dock. In the nearby dockyard, a forest of varnished masts. And an amazing number of beautifully maintained classic yachts.  Some of the biggest boats that would normally participate were not in attendance due to scheduling conflicts but there were more entries than ever, I understand.

From the smallest Caribbean, beach built, Carriacou sloops. The classic Ticonderoga, known as Big Ti, was there, often referred to as one of the finest creations of L. Francis Herreshoff. And a particularly charming boat obviously from the North Sea.  Note the long spar off of the transom. And the Blue Peter, built in Scotland in 1930.  Learn more about her at this link.  She is a remarkable yacht.
And this beauty, owned by Paul Deeth who’s parents sailed her around the world.  Paul and his sister Astrid operate the Admiral’s Inn in Antigua and have been very helpful to me over the years in organizing arrival events for the rally.
Adix was the queen of the fleet at over 200′.  She’s looks like an antique but was built in 1984.   A remarkable yacht.   Check her out here. There’s no shortage of beautiful boats to talk about but perhaps I’ll leave it at that for the moment.

So, where does this all leave me?   As Pandora heads home from a winter season in the Caribbean, and the summer cruising season in the northeast begins, is the season beginning or ending?

For us I suppose that one could argue that it’s been an “endless summer” for the past decade and I am hopeful that our health will hold and that “winter” won’t kick in for at least a few more years.

For now, all I can think about is having a safe and smooth passage north for our next “summer”.

In the meantime, love hanging out here in Antigua and seeing all those amazing classics up close.

Hope I can fill that open crew slot in time.  Wish me luck.

It’s a bittersweet day as I sit here in Falmouth Harbor, Antigau, where we began our winter of cruising a few months ago as tomorrow Brenda an I fly home to CT and our “land home”.

It’s been nearly two weeks since my last post but with our friends Peter and Jane aboard with every day busy sightseeing or moving to yet another island, there has hardly been time to write.

I have to say that I am looking forward to being back on land and getting our home and gardens up and running again after a long winters rest.  The daffodils should be in bloom unless the deer haven’t nipped them down to the ground.  I planted dozens last fall so, fingers crossed.

Peter and Jane were with us for nearly two weeks as we moved Pandora north from St Lucia to Antigua, about 200 miles, visiting St Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Les Saintes and Guadeloupe along the way.   I will admit that it sometimes felt like a forced march as we moved nearly every day and the winds were pretty strong, and from north of east, so we were constantly close-reaching when making our way between islands in the ocean swells.

Brenda did pretty well but yesterday she was uncomfortable as we slogged our way the last 50 miles from Guadeloupe, hit by three squalls that brought gusty winds and very confused seas.

It was good to be back in the calm of Falmouth Harbor.  And, speaking of Antigua, after a winter of moving from island to island and paying generally $5 or less to clear into every new country, I had forgotten how expensive it is to arrive in Antigua when I was presented with a bill for $150 in English Harbor yesterday.

Having said that, I still think that Antigua is the best place to make landfall to begin or end a season of cruising the Caribbean.   And, when things break someone to put things right is just a phone call away.  Unfortunately, on that score, I have an engine guy coming out today to look at my dodgy engine cooling system.  Fingers crossed that the “fix” won’t be too expensive.

I’ll admit that it is particularly galling that the problem, salt water getting into the fresh water cooling system, is exactly what I paid more than $500 to “fix” at the Deltaville Boat Yard last summer, as part of that horrific and ridiculously expensive upgrade to my battery system that went so badly.

If you ever consider leaving your boat in Deltaville there are plenty of yards that do good work.   Deltaville Boat Yard, where I had such a bad experience, generally does good work.  And, you are likely to be happy if you don’t want to hear from them regularly, have months to wait for them to complete the job and are willing to give them a blank checkbook.  Enough said about that I guess.

After a few weeks at home, I will be returning to Antigua to begin my run north with Pandora at the beginning of May, complete with a planned stop in Bermuda.

Being home will be nice as getting things done is always a lot easier on land but I will surely miss the beautiful sunsets and ever changing clouds like this shot that I took in Les Saintes, a lovely island archipelago on the south end of Guadeloupe. And, speaking of clouds, I have written often of the Cloud Appreciation Society and their daily “clouds”, photos of clouds chosen from photos submitted by their nearly 60,000 members.   I have submitted many of my own photos over the last few years and am always thrilled when one is chosen to “publish” when they send it out to all their members.

Happily, a few days ago my photo was sent out, a shot that I  took in the mountains of Dominica when we walked down into an extinct volcano to see some Sulphur vents.  I’m not sure but think that this photo is the 5th or 6th of mine that they have used.  Pretty neat and thrilling to see when it happens.

This spot was high in the mountains and the landscape was made up of giant tree ferns bathed in near constant mist from the clouds that form over the tops of the “islands that kiss the clouds”.

Along with publishing photos, sent to members every day, they provide detailed descriptions of what the photos document.  So, here’s my photo and what they had to say about it.

“Nicknamed ’The Nature Island’ of the Caribbean, Dominica lies in the West Indies and boasts mountainous rainforests abundant with plants and animals. They also host a fair few clouds, like these Stratus spotted by Bob Osborn (Member 54,749), who tells us the island’s mountain peaks are almost always shrouded in clouds. These, Bob explains, ‘keep everything lush, including the giant tree ferns that are abundant here.’ But the flow of nourishment is a two-way street. Not only do the clouds help maintain the forests, but the forests in turn contribute to the formation of the clouds. Trees in rainforests introduce moisture into the air through the process of transpiration. This is the tree equivalent of sweating, when moisture evaporates from their leaves to help keep them cool. The moist air rises and can cool enough to condense into cloud. In time, the clouds release rain and hand their moisture back to the trees, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem in which land and sky support one another. “

So, here we are, heading home again, and for the 9th time in 11 years, I will soon be bringing Pandora back north for the summer.

I’m already thinking about projects that I will do aboard her this summer and hope that we will have some time to do a bit of cruising in New England.  Perhaps we might get really lucky and get our oldest granddaughter Tori aboard so we can introduce her to Pandora.  One can always hope…

Yes, heading home soon and a cloud worth sharing.  Check and check…

Stand by as there is more to come.  And, with Starlink aboard Pandora, my posts on passage should even include photos, of clouds no doubt…