Our Tales: Pandora Nash-Karner  – The Discoveries of Journey

Pandora on the Louvre in Paris this previous May.

Bon voyage! Safe journey! Welcome house! Like me, I’m certain you’ve needed to reply the query why we journey past our California Central Coast paradise. My reply was verified not too long ago by Pandora Nash-Karner.   

Throughout my 24 years dwelling in Morro Bay, Pandora has been an energetic presence in her hometown of Los Osos. However, once I requested an interview, she stunned me. She most popular to discover her tomorrows as a substitute of yester-years. Her present Facebook web page states Pandora is a ceramic and digital artist.  

“I work with clay and pixels. As an internationally award-winning graphic designer, I have transferred three decades of experience to new media and forms,” the web page states. 

Pandora has all the time been a flexible artistic that has now moved ahead to the following chapters of her life. Those who know her, know she lives life largely pouring her coronary heart and multifaceted experiences into no matter she dedicates her abilities to on the time. An engaged Los Osos resident and group advocate, she is a supporter and producer of cultural and inventive arts, an energetic enterprise proprietor, and a pal to all who take time to get to know her. 

She requested time to ponder my interview request after which to my shock and appreciation I obtained the next reward by e mail one night. It was an indication of her distinctive type as a author and storyteller that I felt I couldn’t enhance upon, so I made a decision to share it:    

“Well, let’s see. I have a Ham Radio license which is current, a captain’s license from the US Coast Guard, and I have sailed 40,000 miles offshore in deep water: from Easter Island to Pitcairn Island, where we got blown onshore for three days. I stayed with a great, great, great, many greats later, Fletcher Christian’s granddaughter (of “Mutiny on the Bounty” fame). It is the one tropical island I’ve ever visited on that I wouldn’t wanna stay on. It was a darkish and ominous place.  

“I’ve sailed by way of the Austral Islands twice, by way of French Polynesia a number of occasions, the Tuamotu Islands. They represent the world’s largest chain of coral atolls, that includes 78 low-lying atolls and islands unfold throughout 2 million km sq. of the South Pacific in French Polynesia. 

“I’ve sailed to the Marquesas Islands which has a superb historical past and proof of llamas in carvings and candy potatoes that arrived round 1000 AD. And the place did these come from? Was Thor Heyerdahl proper after-all? I’d wish to assume so. 

“From the Marquesan Islands, I sailed to the Republic of Kiribati to an island referred to as Fanning Island, most likely one other island I’d by no means need to stay on. From there, I sailed to Hawaii.

“I’ve finished the same journey from New Zealand again up and one from Hawaii down; and up and down the Pacific Coast from San Francisco to Acapulco and possibly a lot of different locations too. This was totally on a 65-foot Sparkman Stephens sailboat (sloop); I had a small boat for 5 years after which a bigger, however nonetheless pretty small ocean-going sailboat for 25 years within the mooring discipline in Morro Bay, which I bought not too long ago. 

“I’ve walked a Camino twice (final 12 months it was the complete Portuguese from Lisbon to Porto to Santiago to Finisterre) 455 miles. And I did it solo. I plan to stroll a Camino once more this 12 months in addition to the Cotswolds in England and within the Alps in 4 totally different international locations.

“I’m touring quite a bit. Last 12 months I used to be in a foreign country seven months. This 12 months I’ll solely be out about 4 months. I’m a twin citizen, US and Canada. That’s most likely all of the trivia you want for now. I’ll ponder a number of the different questions.

“While strolling the Camino final 12 months alone generally by way of the rain from 16 to 23 miles a day I contemplated a lot of issues. And a couple of issues I’ve carried out since coming again.

“Maybe those shared aha moments are your today story. At various times of our lives, we learn change can enhance our next stories when we’ve closed the books on our past and prefer to move on. Hope I’m making sense.”

Pandora’s closing paragraph made good sense to me. I too together with so a lot of my pals are experiencing lives in transition – a special profession path or retirement, relocation and adaption to new pals and actions, empty-nesting, medical challenges or worse – the lack of a liked one. We all of a sudden understand time is dwindling, so we ponder how we need to spend the time we now have left. We query what’s most essential to us and what we need to accomplish throughout our tomorrows.

Pandora’s phrases additionally laser-beamed a vivid gentle on my Bookshelf Writers sister, Kiki Kornreich. She is the mega-traveler in our group and for her January 2026 column, she shared a number of life-lessons she has realized alongside the way in which. Here is one instance she supplied: “My hotel in Costa Rica had a small sloth sanctuary next door, and I was offered the opportunity to help with the afternoon feeding. Holding out a piece of carrot to a mama, I almost fell asleep while waiting for her long, sloooow arm to reach it. The doe-eyed sloth gave me a look of gratitude that was more rewarding than a paycheck. I was reminded that even when I move slowly, I’m making progress.”

In the previous two years, this author and my husband loved two distinctive journey experiences that reenforced to me how a group can also be natural. Change is a continuing inside its lifecycle. Does that imply we glean from different cities’ efforts by copycatting one other group’s engaging belongings? Not in any respect! It means we glance inside to find the belongings we treasure then advocate for what we wish our metropolis to undertaking and supply residents and vacationers throughout our tomorrows. 

In reality, do you know different communities have defunct energy crops with stacks towering excessive into the sky? Like me, a number of vacationers from Morro Bay have seen – even stayed – on the JW Marriott Savannah Plant, a luxurious lodge transformed from a 1912 energy plant, located within the coronary heart of the Georgia metropolis’s refreshed waterfront. Am I advocating for a lodge on Morro Bay’s waterfront? Not essentially! But I consider Morro Bay’s wealthy historical past calls for it discovers extra methods to inform its personal origin tales to our guests, our relocated residents and our personal kids. 

Timing is now that our City Council management has requested for our group engagement to craft what is going to develop into reinvigorated tomorrows for the paradise we’ll proceed to name our house. As they are saying, it takes a village. www.morrobaygov.org. Scroll down to approaching workshops and conferences relating to the waterfront planning and pending buy of the historic Morro Elementary School.