{"id":5838,"date":"2016-06-25T21:21:41","date_gmt":"2016-06-25T21:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=5838"},"modified":"2016-06-25T21:21:41","modified_gmt":"2016-06-25T21:21:41","slug":"good-news-and-a-full-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=5838","title":{"rendered":"Good news and a full house."},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Saturday afternoon, everyone has flown the coop and Brenda and I are alone again. \u00a0 Our Gam in Essex that I organized for the Seven Seas Cruising Association <\/a>began a full week ago with guests coming in from all over. \u00a0The three day event was a success with nearly 100 in attendance and we had a full house at Bob and Brenda’s B&B, otherwise known as B&B’s B&B.<\/p>\n

So, now that everyone has headed on their way things should\u00a0begin to settle back to normal. \u00a0In my last post I mentioned that Brenda had been diagnosed with melanoma, a very dangerous form, no make that the worst form, of skin cancer. \u00a0 She had her surgery over two weeks ago and is now beginning to feel herself again. \u00a0 Happily, she had her follow up with the surgeon and they did not find any remaining malignancy which is such a relief.<\/p>\n

The timing of the surgery and Gam were unfortunate as we had a boat load, make that many boat loads of folks visiting Essex and staying with us only one week after Brenda went under the knife. \u00a0That made for a tough week as she tried to keep up the near constant steam of parties and events that surrounded the event.<\/p>\n

The Gam got off to a rousing start the night before the formal events got underway. \u00a0 \u00a0Pandora hosted a dink raft-up out in front of the Essex Yacht Club and ended up with 30 aboard. \u00a0She was riding a bit below her marks. \u00a0We all had a great time. \u00a0Her cockpit was jammed.\"6-25-16aWith plenty of overflow to the forward deck. \"6-25-16aOver the three day event we had a great lineup of speakers including Chris Parker who did several sessions on weather, a topic that can be very confusing. Happily, Chris is very good at making\u00a0complex issues understandable. \u00a0 \u00a0Here he is at the CT River Museum, where we held the last day of the event, standing in front of a reproduction of the “turtle” the first military submarine<\/a>. \u00a0 The original was built in nearby Old Saybrook back in 1775. \u00a0It’s not Brenda’s idea of a cruising vessel.\u00a0\"6-25-16aIt was a thrill to have Chris do his morning and evening broadcasts from my home office. \u00a0Somehow he was able to manipulate his antennas at his studio in FL via the Internet as well as broadcast over the SSB. \u00a0How he do that?\"6-25-16aJake from Life Raft and Survival<\/a> came down from RI to talk about safety equipment and wowed us all by doing a live life raft inflation out on the lawn. \u00a0 How convenient to have him present as he was able to take my raft, which needed servicing, back to the shop with him. \u00a0That saved me a trip and made his trip worthwhile, I hope. \u00a0 I’ll be filming the inspection of my raft up at their shop in the next few weeks and will write about it in a future post. \u00a0That should be very interesting. \u00a0 Let’s hope that’s the only time I see the thing inflated. \u00a0\"6-25-16aTom Whidden gave our keynote presentation at dinner on Sunday. \u00a0He did a wonderful job presenting a mix of high tech racing, including the current Cup competition and shared some thoughts about\u00a0what’s going on in contemporary cruising boat design. \u00a0\"IMG_2028\"Tom has a remarkable background as a member of the America’s Cup Hall of Fame<\/a>. \u00a0He has won the America’s Cup three times and finished\u00a0first in class A in the Bermuda race 5 times. He is a very accomplished sailor and we were very lucky to have him speak to us. \u00a0I’ll admit that it was a bit easier for me to convince him to speak to us\u00a0as he’s\u00a0the current Commodore at Essex Yacht Club. \u00a0Thank you Tom.<\/p>\n

With nearly 100 attending we had quite a mix of cruisers including this couple that brought their trawler up from Annapolis alone to attend the Gam. \u00a0They are both in their 90s. \u00a0 We should all be as spry at that age. \u00a0Perhaps it’s the wine. \u00a0I cling to that belief.\u00a0\"IMG_1976\"There was much more including a talk by George Day from Blue Water Sailing Magazine<\/a> about preparing for offshore sailing. \u00a0Alas, no pictures of George.<\/p>\n

All and all, it was fun to put the event together but I am sure glad that it’s finally over. \u00a0Happily, I had plenty of help from my buddies George and MaryMarie as well as\u00a0others. \u00a0Perhaps I’ll take a few weeks off before I start lining up speakers for next year. \u00a0Yes, time off, good idea.<\/p>\n

A day after the Gam crowds left, our friend Lars arrived in Essex for a visit. \u00a0We had spent time together in Cuba and it was fun to see him on our home turf. \u00a0His boat Luna, has taken him around the world, beginning in Norway, \u00a0over the last 12 years with stops in too many countries to count. \u00a0 Here’s Luna in Santiago de Cuba where we met him back in early March.\"OLYMPUSHere’s Luna on the dock at Essex Yacht Club for a much needed scrubbing down. Perhaps not quite as scenic a spot or perhaps it’s just the angle of the shot. \u00a0Essex is beautiful, for sure.\u00a0\"6-25-16aLars and I headed up by car to Mystic Seaport for the Wooden Boat Show yesterday. \u00a0I always enjoy seeing all of the beautiful boats and hardware on display from the vendors.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Cuba (well I was a few photos ago) there was a boat at the show\u00a0that resembled Pilar, Earnest Hemingway’s boat. \u00a0The original boat is in Havana<\/a>. Unfortunately, we didn’t see her when we were there. \u00a0While the sign on the boat we saw at the show seems to imply that this boat was “the one”, upon close questioning, the owner fessed up that it was not even the same hull design but that the boat was made to “look like Pilar”. \u00a0A nice boat, never the less.\u00a0\"6-25-16aThis was a neat find, a Cape Cod Catboat named Pandora. \u00a0A bit smaller than our Pandora but beautiful. \u00a0 I am happy that our Pandora doesn’t have any exterior teak with the exception of a teak cockpit table.\u00a0\"6-25-16aHow about a cold molded camper? \u00a0Quirky but well made. \u00a0 It even has roof racks\u00a0\"6-25-16aIt comes complete with a galley. \u00a0Sure hope that it’s always sunny when they are working “in the kitchen” as it’s outside. \u00a0 Love the paper towel dispenser.\u00a0\"6-25-16aEverywhere you turn, beautiful boats. \u00a0How about this drake tail stern? \u00a0Lovely.\u00a0\"6-25-16aAnd this beauty built by\u00a0Gannon and Benjamin<\/a>, the storied boat builder on Martha’s Vineyard.\"6-25-16aAnd, magnificent\u00a0details on boats everywhere you look. \u00a0I loved this steering station. \u00a0Terrific bright red cast wheel.\u00a0\"6-25-16aLars and I had a fun day at the seaport. \u00a0He left today to head east. \u00a0It was nice to see him again. \u00a0Hope it’s not too long until our paths cross again. \u00a0 Perhaps Brenda and I\u00a0will visit Oslow Norway (by plane for sure) where his “home port” is, even though he hasn’t been there in many years.
\n\"6-25-16aAnd all of this just scratches the surface of all that happened in the last week, and the “onslaught”\u00a0began only one week after Brenda “went under the knife”. \u00a0No wonder she’s exhausted from all the “fun”.<\/p>\n

So glad that she’s on the mend and that the tests show that she is clear of cancer. \u00a0That’s very good news, indeed.<\/p>\n

I’d say “that’s all for now folks”. \u00a0Oh yeah, one more thing. \u00a0 Did I mention that we had to buy a new car too last week as our 1999 SAAB finally bought the farm? \u00a0Oh yeah, and our lawn mower croaked too and you know how much I just love cutting the lawn.<\/p>\n

Other than that, noting much going on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Saturday afternoon, everyone has flown the coop and Brenda and I are alone again. \u00a0 Our Gam in Essex that I organized for the Seven Seas Cruising Association began a full week ago with guests coming in from all over. \u00a0The three day event was a success with nearly 100 in attendance and we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5838"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5864,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838\/revisions\/5864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}