Dauntless track in magenta showing the jog we did to avoid one of these large ships. This was actually midnight, but I put the screen on “daylight” because i needed to make sure i understood the situation.
Plan B did not last very long. Once it got dark, surrounded by giant behemoths, I knew I needed a new plan, ummm let me think, let’s call it Plan C.
So let’s recap:
Plan A. Run for 12 hours, stop for 12 hours, do this for three days straight.
Plan B. Run continuously for 36 hours through the day, night and another day.
its dark and It’s near midnight.
There are lots of ships all heading for the same point around as we are all heading around the same point of land.
There are six ships in sight, not counting the trawler that I had to go around a few miles back.
I have a new plan.
There is too much traffic not to pay constant attention. It was busy enough in the afternoon, but now that it’s dark, it has become really taxing.
The Navigation Program, Coastal Explorer with the Maretron display on the same monitor
One must correlate with what you see on the radar, then with the AIS depiction and what you actually see out of the window. The last four hours have been constant scanning, the radar, the nav program (with AIS), what do we see out front, and on the beams?
And most of all, what do we see behind us? These cargo ships are going at least twice my speed and Dauntless barely shows up on radar.
I must constantly go from side to side in the pilot house, open the door and check to make sure of what is behind me, then return to the radar and AIS to make sure I am seeing everyone. And they can see me.
Without AIS there would be a whole different problem, more like something like this, when small boats meet Giant Behemoths:
AIS display at 19:34 I’ve been able to get to the far right side of the fairway (just like a highway, with a center line (the white line just to the right of Dauntless, whose track is depicted with a magenta line.
I will anchor just on the west side of the Skagen peninsula. I will curl around to the west and anchor just offshore in about 20 feet of water. Now, the only problem is that is still 25 miles away, more than 4 hours. I probably won’t get anchored until after 04:00, but it’s better than being run over.
P.S. In writing this, I apologize for not having more pictures to help me describe the situation better.
i thought I did, but in the heat of the moment, I was just trying to get run over or run into someone or something,
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 
I loved the movie… wish I had some popcorn.