Where the Hell, in the world, is Pandora going now?

If you have been following the Salty Dawg Rally group page I expect that you are scratching your head about my change of course.  Unfortunately, yesterday our refrigeration died and with a freezer full of food and week left until we would have arrived in the BVI, I decided to divert to Beaufort NC where I can (hopefully) get this resolved.  Having said that, it won’t be that easy as the unit isn’t manufactured any longer and repair parts have to come from CA, if they have them at all.  With that in mind, I have arranged for a refrigeration tech to look at the unit tomorrow and he will speak with the tech support person in CA to see if it’s a simple fix or worse.  Fingers crossed…

Oh yeah.  If you were wondering what I will be doing with all that frozen food that I have gone on and on about in past posts, wonder no longer.  I have arranged to have the food stored in the freezer at the marina.  It seems that they have a commercial freezer and are nice folks to boot.   Kay says, “of course we can help y’all.  We wouldn’t want all that good food to go to waste now, would we?”

We will be getting a slip at Port Side Marina in Morehead City for a few days, likely much longer if the fridge unit has to be sent to CA for repair.  With that in mind, I have to believe that the Caribbean isn’t going to be in the picture for this season.  It’s getting late and I don’t expect that there is enough time left to make the run without getting new crew for the run and all the complexities that go along with that.  Of course, there’s always the Bahamas and that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

A number of other little gear issues crept up as it was just so rough and windy in the Gulf Stream. I broke a batten car on the mainsail and also managed to break the handle off of one of the line clutches on the mast when it caught on the luff of the sail as I was shaking out a reef.   I also discovered that the small viewing window in the jib is broken and while it isn’t a major structural part of the jib, it would be best to have that fixed too.

But wait, there’s more.  The main has an integrated sail cover and I didn’t realize that I could tie it to the boom so that it would be out of the way when I put in the reef.  Alas, when I reefed, the luff of the sail tore a number of fastenings on the cover which I’ll need to repair.   Good news, I have a sewing machine on board, and that’s something even I can fix.  Yahoo!!!

A particularly amusing problem (not) was that while we were sailing hard on a port tack for about 36 hours, a good amount of water backed up through the transom vent into the “watertight” locker where the propane cans are housed.  Unfortunately, some of this water leaked into the area under the cockpit where some sensitive electronics are located when we tacked.  Earlier in the season, I had noticed that there was a hole in the locker bulkhead where some wires went from the locker into the interior of the boat, that wasn’t properly caulked.  I should have fixed it but I never thought that it would fill with that much water.  As a result, I will need to clean up the small amount of salt that got on some of the equipment to be sure that no long term problems crop up.  Such are the tribulations of owning a new boat.

Frankly, most of these are all little issues but given the fact that the refrigeration is not working I decided to divert and get everything fixed at once.

Of course, the question that naturally comes to mind would be “what’s next”?  That’s a good question and beyond immediate repairs, and I’ll have to take that up with Brenda first and and my crew second, I doubt that there is enough time to get from Beaufort to the BVI in the two week window that I have allowed so it will certainly involve new crew.

That’s a bummer and to add insult to injury, I have already booked my flight home from the BVI and flights back there for me and Brenda after Christmas.

So, “where in the world will Pandora go now?”  That’s an excellent question but the only thing I know for sure is that we are headed back for landfall and I won’t need my passport to step on the dock, just a credit card.

As is so often the case, it all comes down to food and all I know for sure is that it will stay frozen, compliments of Kay and her good southern hospitality.

What’s next for Pandora?  Beats the Hell outa me, but for sure it’s going to involve Brenda, palm trees and perhaps a Kalik beer. Things could be worse, much worse.