It’s Sunday morning and a beautiful day here in Essex and I am not sailing or even on the water. \u00a0Not yet anyway as I am planning to do a bit of sailing later with my son Christoper on one of the Essex Yacht Club’s Ideal 12 day sailor boats. As usual, I am thinking about sailing. \u00a0Pandora’s coming along and soon I will begin re-caulking all of the port lights with the hope of arresting some of the leaks that have been plaguing me over the last year. \u00a0Fortunately, the leaks from what I think are the ports, are behind the scenes and no water shows up in the cabin. \u00a0However, I know that the leaks are there and need to be fixed as some water is seeping down into lockers. \u00a0Let’s hope that’s where it’s coming from as removing hardware from the cabin top will be a lot more complicated and I’d prefer not to deal with that. \u00a0Enough of boat keeping drivel for now. \u00a0I’d prefer to think about our next trip to the Bahamas.<\/p>\n
Speaking of the Bahamas, when we were there last winter, we visited a really great anchorage in the Exumas chain, called Compass Cay. \u00a0This is one island in the chain and is home to a number of privately owned islands including one owned by a guy Ed Borsarge, PhD. \u00a0I mention him in particular as I saw a profile about him in a magazine ShowBoats International’s<\/em> June issue. \u00a0Most issues include a profile of someone who owns a massive yacht. \u00a0Unfortunately, most are just puff pieces about some gold chain festooned rich guy with more money than taste. \u00a0However, \u00a0it seems that Dr. Borsarge, while he must have vast wealth, is also a guy who seems to have taste that is proportional to his finances.<\/p>\n For several days I have been trying to find a way to write about one of his yachts, a lovely, huge, ketch Marie<\/em> but have been struggling on how to make it more than a piece about a big boat. \u00a0It seems that the good doctor, who’s actually a PhD in physics and math or some such thing, is involved with a museum out of Texas called the Texas Flying Legends<\/a>. \u00a0This museum, which he supports, has an impressive collection of flyable WWII airplanes that tour the country to put on airshows. \u00a0I am particularly interested in this because I grew up with a father that loves the planes of this period. \u00a0So, what better way to frame a post than to combine a mix of sailing and flying with a dash of The Bahamas tossed in for good measure.<\/p>\n So, I learned that Dr. B owns the island Over Yonder Cay<\/em>\u00a0in the Exumas. \u00a0I made the connection because of a reference in the article that he owned an island in the Bahamas that is powered by wind and solar, something that we saw almost no evidence of last winter. \u00a0You would think that alternative energy would be very popular where there is nearly unlimited wind and sun and there is plenty of both in the Bahamas. \u00a0However, there are no tax incentives to support alternative energy in the Bahamas as there as there are in the US. \u00a0I also was told by someone that hurricane damage is not covered by most insurance policies so owners just don’t invest in alternative energy as they fear that their installations will just blow away in the next hurricane. \u00a0That’s a shame as the wind is nearly always strong and sunny days are the norm.<\/p>\n Pandora gets all of her house power for charging the batteries and making water from solar so we hardly ever have to run our generator to bring up the batteries. \u00a0In any event, his island is totally powered by renewable energy with so much left over that they make something like 20,000 gallons of water per day through reverse osmosis. \u00a0The wind turbines he has installed on this island are huge, hundreds of feet tall, the sort that you generally see electric utilities put in place, not individual owners. \u00a0The “compound” and an amazing facility it is, is available for “charter”. \u00a0The island has it’s own website.<\/a> \u00a0It’s worth checking out. There’s a promotional video that’s interesting as well. \u00a0People having fun.<\/a>\u00a0 Actually, that would be well heeled people having fun. \u00a0You might be wondering what it costs to stay there. \u00a0As they say, “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it”.<\/p>\n His biggest yacht, Marie is relatively new and constructed at the Vitters Ship Yard in the Netherlands a few years ago. \u00a0Check out the yard’s information about Marie. \u00a0<\/a>She is truly spectacular with her massive red spinnaker. \u00a0You can’t miss her in the fleet. \u00a0This video was shot in St Barts, in the Caribbean during one of the “Bucket regattas”. \u00a0I believe that the “bucket” is a bucket with ice and champagne that is awarded to the winner of the regatta. \u00a0Enjoy the tour of Marie.\u00a0 \u00a0The video link below seems to be broken so follow this.<\/a>