We departed Key Largo 10 December and returned to Miami, 31 January 2014.
Overview of the Dauntless’ Bahamas Adventure
In those 53 days, I had to leave dauntless and return to NYC for 23 days (I didn’t want to miss the snowstorm).
Total days on boat (not including 23 days I was in NYC) 30 days, of these 30 days, two thirds of our days were spent moving from one place to another. Most were small moves, but we had a third of the time that we had a full day, 6 to 8 hours, or more, of travel. The only time I spent more than two nights in the same place was the 5 days in Nassau, when I came back from NY, as I got the boat ready to return to Florida.
We traveled 700 nm in 135 engine hours, averaging 5.2 nm/hr., consuming 215 gal of diesel. Now, this =1.6 gal/hr., but the fuel consumed includes 47 hours of Generator time. We did have a little Inverter problem, which meant that we had to run the generator probably 50% more time than normal to charge the batteries.
But even with that, if I subtract about 40 gal from our use, the main engine only used about 1.3 gal/hour! Which equals 4 nm/gal and at $4.00/gal cost of fuel, a rough estimate is $1/nm.
KK42-148 has been exactly what we needed and hoped for.
Thank you Dauntless. Now, I do happen to have a few shenanigans to relate.
In fact once I left Nassau, the order of the day seemed to be a shenanigan a day keeps Bost on his toes
I’m an eclectic person, who grew up in New York, lived overseas for many years and have a boat, Dauntless, a 42 foot Kadey Krogen trawler yacht. Dauntless enables me to not only live in many different parts of the world, but to do it in a way that is interesting, affordable, with the added spice of a challenge.
Dauntless also allows me to be in touch with nature. As the boat glides through the ocean, you have a sense of being part of a living organism. When dolphins come to frolic, they stay longer if you are out there talking to them, watching them. Birds come by, sometimes looking for a handout; sometimes grateful to find a respite from their long journey.
I grew up on the New York waterfront, in the West Village, when everything west of Hudson St. was related to shipping and cargo from around the world. For a kid, it was an exciting place of warehouses, trucks, and working boats of all kinds: tugs and the barges and ships, cargo and passenger, they were pushing around.
My father was an electrical engineer, my mother an intellectual, I fell in between.
I have always been attracted to Earth’s natural processes, the physical sciences. I was in 8th grade when I decided to be a Meteorologist.
After my career in meteorology, my natural interest in earth sciences: geology, astronomy, geography, earth history, made it a natural for me to become a science teacher in New York City, when I moved back to the Big Apple. Teaching led to becoming a high school principal to have the power to truly help kids learn and to be successful not only in school but in life.
Dauntless is in western Europe now. In May and June, I will be wrapping up the last two years in northern Europe, heading south to spend the rest of the year in Spain & Portugal.
Long term, I’m planning on returning to North American in the fall of 2017 and from there continuing to head west until we’re in Northeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, where we will settle for a bit.
But now, my future lies not in NY or even Europe, but back to the water, where at night, when the winds die down, there is no noise, only the silence of the universe. I feel like I am at home, finally.
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Dauntless at Sea 