While I’m cooling my heel in Vietnam; a great place to do so, while Dauntless waits for better weather to head north this coming summer and fall, I seem to hear the sirens calling.
The problem is, after having moved south and west for the last 12 months and 7,000 miles, passing west thru the Panama Canal and up the west coast of Central America, with Alaska, the Aleutians, Japan, Korea and Taiwan in our sights, the Sirens are calling be back with a distinct Irish brogue.
Your thinking WTF, what the F do you think I’m feeling???
I’m the one who put in the miles, the time, the big ass seas and certainly the money to get where we are.
Yet, I can’t watch a Harry Potter movie, an episode of Borderland, the Fall and certainly Jack Taylor, without missing Northern Europe, Scotland and Ireland. For my tastes, certainly the best cruising since leaving New England.
Is it nostalgia?
Or just the realization that in my last 20,000 miles of cruising, the longest lasting relationships (excluding Krogenites, of course) have come from the Baltic and the Celtic areas of Galicia, Ireland and Scotland.
Waterford
Coincidence? or the Sirens?
I have a tendency to think it’s the latter. What else could explain my obsession with Europe, while I still have Asia and a few more oceans to cross at best??
So where do we go from here? I’ll do what I do best, think and plan.
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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6 thoughts on “Sirens Call”
will you becoming into the Puget sound on your way north ? would love to have a beer with you
We hear the call to return to Ireland as well. 🙂 Tis a strong call.
I am now reading three Irish newspapers plus some Irish websites. 🙂 Somehow, I have found out that the quay Dauntless tied up to in Arklow is near a boat builder that has been building boats since the 1860s. I wonder if this is the same people who built a certain wood fishing trawler tied up in New Ross? Back in the early 1980’s they built a wood sailing ship used to train young Irish sailors. Beautiful work they did but the ship sank in the Key of Biscay in 2008 after hitting something in the water. Shipping container?
The crew of Dirona is now in Dublin and it is killing us thinking about the places we saw and missed. We walked by Saint Patrick’s but did not have time to go in since we were on a mission to find St Valentine’s bones in another church. We walked down a close and saw a simple little sign that said Marsh Library. Found out from reading the Irish papers that the library was opened up in 1701 or there abouts. The sign made me stop and wonder what was in the library but we were on a mission to find St Valentine’s bones, which we did, but I really wish we had gone into the library. The photos I have seen look like the library in the Harry Potter movies. 🙂
Seeing the tracks Dirona crew is leaving around Dublin is killing us. They are walking where we walked, and worse, places we wanted to walk! 🙂
This guy we know went on and on about the Irish being so welcoming, nice, and friendly. If anything, he was wrong since they were far more welcoming, nice and friendly than even he said. Hard to believe but true. 🙂
Ireland has a strong, strong call but there is more of the world to see. One can eventually return to Ireland. 🙂
And now being an ocean plus away, having stopped in 100 places since, the call only gets stronger.
But I have so many people and places still to see before the return.
Maybe the ice will melt faster in the Arctic.
My matriarchal family is Scottish and I long to visit one day. Our Kadey is strong and true but her endurance exceeds mine ! When next I walk those beautiful isles my mode of travel will be in the clouds.
Dauntless at Sea 
will you becoming into the Puget sound on your way north ? would love to have a beer with you
Of course.
We should even have our own little kk rendezvous in the pac nw
We hear the call to return to Ireland as well. 🙂 Tis a strong call.
I am now reading three Irish newspapers plus some Irish websites. 🙂 Somehow, I have found out that the quay Dauntless tied up to in Arklow is near a boat builder that has been building boats since the 1860s. I wonder if this is the same people who built a certain wood fishing trawler tied up in New Ross? Back in the early 1980’s they built a wood sailing ship used to train young Irish sailors. Beautiful work they did but the ship sank in the Key of Biscay in 2008 after hitting something in the water. Shipping container?
The crew of Dirona is now in Dublin and it is killing us thinking about the places we saw and missed. We walked by Saint Patrick’s but did not have time to go in since we were on a mission to find St Valentine’s bones in another church. We walked down a close and saw a simple little sign that said Marsh Library. Found out from reading the Irish papers that the library was opened up in 1701 or there abouts. The sign made me stop and wonder what was in the library but we were on a mission to find St Valentine’s bones, which we did, but I really wish we had gone into the library. The photos I have seen look like the library in the Harry Potter movies. 🙂
Seeing the tracks Dirona crew is leaving around Dublin is killing us. They are walking where we walked, and worse, places we wanted to walk! 🙂
This guy we know went on and on about the Irish being so welcoming, nice, and friendly. If anything, he was wrong since they were far more welcoming, nice and friendly than even he said. Hard to believe but true. 🙂
Ireland has a strong, strong call but there is more of the world to see. One can eventually return to Ireland. 🙂
Later,
Dan
And now being an ocean plus away, having stopped in 100 places since, the call only gets stronger.
But I have so many people and places still to see before the return.
Maybe the ice will melt faster in the Arctic.
My matriarchal family is Scottish and I long to visit one day. Our Kadey is strong and true but her endurance exceeds mine ! When next I walk those beautiful isles my mode of travel will be in the clouds.
We’re not getting any younger. Go before you can’t.