It’s the 112th day since our cruise started May 29th.
The Full Moon Rises Behind Dauntless
Dauntless now sits easily in the Puerto Deportivo de Rota. Her new grey paint scheme fits in well being only a mile SE of the big naval base in Rota, Spain.
Rota Lighthouse
We’ll be in this area, between Rota and Gibraltar for the next month, so this is a good opportunity to get my data updated and I’d thought I’d share with you our cruising costs so far this season.
So far, compared to last year, I’m spending about $20 less per day. Overall costs have been about $107 per day, that’s $27 less than last year and almost all of that savings are due to the lower fuel costs. I was able to fill Dauntless with fuel in Ireland at $2.30 per gallon. Upon my return from Scotland in June, I was able to top up the tanks again.
I should be able to get reasonably priced fuel in Gibraltar, but when I top up the tanks in the Canaries, it will be $5 per gallon fuel. I should only need a few hundred gallons; however, the Caribbean won’t be cheap either.
Total guest contributions to expenses have been about 11%; that’s less than last year.
Overall, I am pleased that expenses are staying just below my planned budget. I need to get more proactive about Sponsorships; but that’s another story.
Dauntless will be pretty much stationary until the end of October, as I am going to NY during the first two weeks. Since it will be my last opportunity until spring to visit some friends in Europe, I will go to Italy during the last two weeks of October before returning to D.
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 
Safe travels… land or sea