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.
So in the workshop that is my mind, as the realization dawns that for the first time in years, I really don’t have much to do, I find myself thinking of all sorts of “interesting” ideas.
Dauntless is out of the water; resting and getting ready for the long cruise to come. Last winter was spent going back and forth between Dauntless in Ireland and home and friends in the USA. The year before, it was preparing to cross the Atlantic, before that, it was finding the right boat, then, taking care of my mother and oh, yes, even working for “the man”.
As Dauntless and I find ourselves on the beach. I think of ways to keep busy. Yesterday, I finally decided to reorganize the three computers and their directory systems. Really not that complicated, but Microsoft has spent the last 20 years trying to obfuscate what is where, having followed the Apple view that without a place called “My Documents” we would be too stupid to find anything.
A few asides:
Just saw Senator Graham on CNBC’s Squawk Box. Actually a voice from Washington that sounded reasonable. He made a lot of sense, check it out.
Here is an ad that popped up while I was reviewing MS-DOS commands. I like the new Kadey Krogen ad campaign.
The new Kadey Krogen Ad
In the coming weeks, I’ll reorganize my blog, Dauntless at Sea; make new boat cards, and go to a casino. I’ll spend most of December in Italy, may go to a boat show in January and Spain in February. Finally, in March I will be able to get back to the real work, get Dauntless back in the water and finish some minor projects that have lingered for too long.
In the meantime, ideas like rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean or whales in the Southern Ocean, will have to be kept in the workshop for further review.
I found this picture of the narrow passage that I was afraid to take. Thought I would include it just to show I have some sense.
So, it took two car rides, four trains, one bus and two airplanes to get home, having spent the last month in Ireland, Germany and England.
It’s great to have the ability to travel; it’s great to visit my wonderful, generous friends and it’s great to be home. None are mutually exclusive. Just the way I like it. I’m just an inclusive type of guy.
So, sitting here, with Squawk Box on CNBC in the background, I thought I would write about the evolution of our plans over the last few weeks.
This link is one of the Chrome tabs that open on my computer each time I am on-line.
I like getting a sense of the general weather patterns over the areas we will be traveling. Also, it gives a sense of how the situation changes or not, from one day to another. In this case, I’m concentrating on the western coasts of France and Spain, as well as the trade winds that will whisk us back to North America and all the way through the Panama Canal.
The long range plan has never changed; but as they say, the devil is in the details.
Before we even acquired our Krogen 42, the overall plan was:
First summer in New England, Nova Scotia
First winter back to Florida and Bahamas
Second summer crossing the North Atlantic
Wintering in northern Europe, the Netherlands.
Third summer in the Baltic
Pretty much as gone according to plan; Ireland replaced the Netherlands and has been the absolutely best choice.
This past summer has taken a bit more money, energy and bruises than anticipated.
This link shows the movement of Dauntless since July 2014. (Note: As you zoom in, the level of detail increases as to the actual route).
As I had already mentioned: first time is nice, second time is great, third time is an anti-climax. So as wonderful Ireland is, both in the people, the country and the cost; it’s time to move on.
Attending the Krogen Rendezvous in early October, helped us decide to keep Dauntless in Europe one more extra year through 2016 and much of 2017. My recent trip to visit sailing friends, Andreas & Annette in Germany and John, Jenny & Ben in England, have further revised our thinking:
First, my original plan of getting Dauntless’ bruises fixed and back in the water ASAP, was scrapped. I came to understand that time out of the water was good and it also made the work schedule for the boat yard easier and therefore less costly for me. So Dauntless will be on the hard until March.
Assuming all is well, then in April we will start our 2016 cruising season, which right now, may not end until we get to South Korea in August 2018 at the earliest.
So right now this is what the general plan looks like:
Year
Season
Locations
2016
Spring
Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Orkneys, Shetlands,
Summer
???, west coast France
Fall
NW Spain
Winter
Portugal, SW Spain
2017
Spring
SE Spain? Med?
Summer
TBD
Fall
Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands
Winter
Lesser Antilles, Panama Canal, Costa Rica
2018
Spring
When winds allow moving North along west coast to SE Alaska
Summer
Cross Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, Japan, Southern coast of Korea
So that’s it in a nutshell. 20,000 nm, (36,000 km) in 29 months, 700 nm/month. That’s seemingly a lot, but there are some very long legs, with about 10-12k miles over only three months. Also the last 9 months of the trip will take us halfway around the world. Ummm, that’s a lot. So it may happen that we will add a year in there probably in the Pac NW or British Columbia.
This allows the first 20 months, from April 2016 to November 2017, to be cruised at very comfortable pace.
So stay tuned. Mark your calendar and if you want to do more than just read about our adventures, drop me a line. There will be a lot of miles and days that are better done with company than without.
Sunset over Southern Sweden, Anchored Next to Island
But before talk about the upcoming cruise 2016 and & 2017, we need to take a step back and look at what for me, made this summer so successful, my friends/crew who joined me and made the trip fun and interesting.
With Julie’s limited cruising time, but with us wanting to take advantage of seeing as much of Europe as we can while Dauntless is here, having friends, and even strangers aboard, makes the traveling fun.
I like the company, not only to pass the time, but also to teach. And I even eat and drink better with company.
So my goal is a simple one: I want my friends/guests/crew to enjoy themselves, have a bit of doing something different, that they would not do at home, like even watching Korean Dramas and learn some skills about running our Krogen 42.
Julie and I did a 4 day trawler school a few years ago. Then I joined the USCG Aux and learned the basics of being on a boat crew. I also got my USCG Captain’s and Master’s 100 ton license. So I hope my friends leave with some of those same basics that I have
Karla waiting for the water to return
learned.
Ivan securing lines. He was cold.
So our cruising ends up in part like being in an extended trawler school.
To that end I have been relatively successful. People like helping and learning the basics, like line handling, navigation, etc. And everyone leaves with a little more knowledge than at the start. Some couples, like Karen and Jason have been with us three times.
Docking is by far the most stressful time on a boat. I continually strive to do a better job of communication with all on the boat. It’s important to describe beforehand exactly what will or can happen and lay out possible courses of actions. Included in that is the best and worst case scenario and what we will do in case such and such happens. Also, to make sure everyone understands how to handle contrary instructions from those on the dock trying to “help”.
So let’s talk first about those who were on Dauntless this past summer.
Dauntless Finds a Buddy Too
In a nutshell, I had people with me from the time I left Ireland in late May until the very end of August.
I am very grateful to all those who spent time on Dauntless. Everyone contributed something. Here is the gist of time spent. Of the 125 days of the cruise from May 25th to Oct 1st, I had someone on board for 90 of 125 days. Of those 90 days, couples were on board for 60 days, I had singlets on board for almost 40 days.
That is further broken out in chronological order:
Larry and Karla, from Waterford to Honfleur, France
Pierre-Jean, helped me move the boat up the English Channel, from Honfleur to Oostende. He lives in Paris and had contacted me just to spend some time on a Kadey Krogen. I was happy to oblige. He also brought me some exquisite wines and cheeses. It was also his misfortune to spend the two roughest days of the whole summer.
Ivan and Bas along a Dutch Canal
Ivan, the youngest at 14 years old, grandson and son of my Italian friends, met me in Holland in June. The good news is that Ivan, after having spent 28 days aboard going thru the canals and locks of Holland, Friesland and Germany, returned home with most of his limbs and body parts intact.
Bas, oldest son of our Dutch friends, joined Ivan and I in Friesland, the province of his father. He left us after the Kiel Canal (Ost-See Kanal) passage, at the end of June. I’ve known Bas for all of his 25 years and it was a joy being with him in his father’s birthplace.
With their help, I got to the start of the Cruising Association Baltic Rally on July 5th in Rugen, Germany.
Martin fixes my charger by plugging it in
Eve and Nigel, joined Dauntless as the end of the Rally on the same day that Ivan left to return to Italy after an exciting month on Dauntless. Eve and Nigel then left after 10 days in Gdansk, where Julie joined us.
The time lines for these three weeks were largely built around Julie’s vacation time and our desire to see the Baltic States, Latvia and Estonia in particular.
Karen and Jason then met us in Riga. This is their third cruise on dauntless having also joined us previously in the Bahamas and Maine.
We ended up spending a lot of time in Helsinki. Far more time than it was worth. I was disappointed in that it was
Eve and Nigel in Poland
the plan I had made up. But Karen and Jason left from Helsinki, Julie left a few days later and Dana and Peter arrived from New York.
Dana and Peter only cruised in the one country, Finland, as the weather was not conducive to return to Tallinn as I had planned originally. We cruised east and west of Helsinki. At the end of their 10 days, they took the fast ferry back to Tallinn and Leonie and Martin arrived on the ferry from Tallinn.
Leonie and Martin then cruised with me in Finland, the Aland Islands and Sweden, two weeks later they left from Stockholm and I was all alone for the first time in three months.
Julie and Dauntless in Liepaja, Latvia
I already commented on September above. It’s interesting to read that now and know that as unhappy as I sounded, it was actually worse.
Finally a month later, Jennifer, daughter of my dear Alaskan friends of 30 years, spent the last week on Dauntless as I got back to Ireland. I have no pictures of her on the boat because they were lost when my phone died cruising up the river to Waterford.
Having spent the month of September alone, I was really happy to have someone for the last week of the trip. It makes it a little easier to finish everything up. It was a great way to end the summer, as we flew to NYC together and she stayed with us in the Bronx and we even had a great Korean dinner the next night in Flushing.
So the trip ended where it began 4 months and 6 days earlier.
This is probably the last time for quite a while that we will go full circle. From now on, we will be making slow, but steady progress towards a destination.
What I had done this past year was to make a tentative plan, then send it to anyone who had expressed any
Peter and Dana in HelsinkiThe Stars & Stripes over Estonia
interest in joining us at some point. As plans were solidified, I built the final plan around my guests as they bought plane tickets, made vacation days, etc.
I know it’s not good to cruise on a schedule, but it was not so bad and the times we had to make minor adjustments, everyone understood. The main problem was the pressure I put on myself, which is something I must work on. This coming year, I’ll probably let people lock in the time they will be on Dauntless, but not the exact location for arrival and departure. I’ll give a country and probably port, but make sure all know it’s subject to change.
Julie watching her eyelids. She loves the KK42 because of its Pilot House
We averaged 1,100 nm (2,000 km) a month this past summer. Too much.
My goal and tentative plan will be closer to 600 nm per month, once cruising season starts in April and ends when we get where we are going.
Leonie & Martin and our $100 solution to getting off DHelsinki Ferry Terminal. Not a Crew Member
Jennifer and I in Waterford. That’s her hand. I’m not clear why she was not included in picture.Leonie seeing only blondes in Helsinki
The Harbour in Hamburg. What? This isn’t Waterford. Not even the same country! Stink’in Ferryman
Yes, I know; “don’t pay the ferryman until get gets you to the other side!”
A little wear and tear
How many times have I heard that sage advice in the last 30 years, certainly more than a thousand!
But you know me, follow convention, but with a twist. OK maybe more than a twist. Maybe simply unconventional, so of course, I will try to see what will happen if I dare to pay the ferryman too soon.
What’s the worst that could happen I asked myself?
Dauntless being hauled in New Ross
Well, the worst happened.
Dauntless sits naked in Ireland, out of the water in the boatyard in New Ross; with her bottom is full view for everyone to see. I hope there are no Kennedy’s around to see her.
Her hull and keel do show some signs of rubbing on harder things than herself. The red splotches are old anti-fouling paint showing through. It’s clear that the new stuff on top stuck not so well.
The work this winter will be repairing those places were the fiberglass (GRP) is showing, as well as patching the numerous nicks and gouges the gelcoat and rub rail acquired since leaving Rhode Island.
Dauntless is very good hands in the New Ross Boatyard. Stephen, Michael, Tomas and Gary are both caring and meticulous. They will get done what needs to be done at a price I can afford. I’m fortunate I found them. It just adds to the great experience I’ve had in Ireland. Virtually every interaction I’ve had in Ireland has ranged from good to great. Even going through security at the airport in Dublin is an almost pleasant experience.
Berfranks Cafe on the Quay in Waterford
So the worst part of the Krogen being out of the water is that I will not spend as much time this winter in Ireland or Waterford. I’ll miss that. Waterford is a great town, full of wonderful, warm people. I’ll miss the bakers, the butcher, my barber, Aiofe (see the link for the background of that name, http://www.visitireland.com/aboutireland/normans.asp) Berfranks Café, a delightfully cozy little place,
Carmel, Peter & Joan at their dry cleaners/laundry, the guy playing the flute with his dog outside Dunn’s and all the others I see routinely that makes Waterford such a nice place to be.
So now, all of a sudden, I find myself in Germany. Why not. I had a week to kill before going back to America and flying Ryan Air is relatively cheap. (I actually visited Ryan Air during my stint as Product Manager at Jeppesen in the late 90’s. We were already giving them weather forecasts for the Galapagos, so I was on the hunt for more sources of weather data for that part of the Pacific.)
I’m in Hamburg; it’s been 30 years since the last visit. Much like New York, it’s traded its edginess for gentrification or better yet, Disneyficatin, which makes the whole family want to visit. The rough and tumble seaport (think Amsterdam) that made it quite different than the rest of the large German cities, is now tamed.
The hardnosed seagoing folk have been replaced by the engineers of Airbus, with Airbus’ second largest (after Toulouse) workforce here in Hamburg.
Flying down the autobahn at 100 mph, on my way to the home of friends I met this summer in Riga with their sailboat Bagatell, I thought about how my life has evolved. I used to live for fast cars. I did the passing, hardly ever having to yield to a faster car. Now, even at 100 mph, I ‘m content to stay out of the left lane, as cars much faster pass, even SUV’s going over 140 mph.
OR maybe it’s not me that’s changed, but simply the circumstances, knowing that this poor rental car doesn’t have much beyond 110 in it in any case.
Another nice feature of the roads in Germany is that in addition to the normal rest areas, with gas, food, etc. every 30 to 40 miles, they have little rest stops, just parking places every few miles. These spots are sometimes quite near the road, but also there are some a few hundred feet way with NO lights. In other words, dark, enabling a tired driver to get some sleep. Being far enough form the road, the noise was also minimal. Now, I wouldn’t be going for a walk there, but to have a peaceful place to stop was really nice.
Important facts About Waterford
So, I was able to sleep a few hours and got to my friend’s house at 07:30 in the morning, feeling relatively good.
I’ll go to England on Tuesday, also visiting English sailors I met in Riga. Then it back to Dublin and NYC next week.
Listening to the pitter patter of rain against the windows brings a warm, comfortable feeling to my entire being; or perhaps it’s just the Soju I’m drinking.
Probably both. A night like this demands a few glasses of good wine or a green bottle of Chamisul, a Korean soju, the original of course, now called “classic”. Maybe old guys like me would rather be called classic than original.
Now, it’s getting dark at 4:00 p.m. Europe changed from Daylight Savings Time this past weekend. They call it Summer Time by the way.
But I like these dark, windy, rain swept days. The only thing better is snow. Why else would I have lived in Alaska for so long? It certainly wasn’t for the baked goods!
No, these cozy times call for a drink to warm your innards, sit and think. Think about where we have been and where we are going.
A Rock in Norway covered with red leaf vines
Once again I find myself plotting the general route for this spring and summer, but then the mouse has a mind of its own, and keeps on plotting waypoints. Before long, the summer becomes the fall and then the winter trade winds take over and swoosh the mouse goes marking a path in seconds that will take a year to do.
I tell myself it’s too much. I need to stop and smell the roses; all is well and good it is; until it strikes.
What strikes you may ask? If I get struck with a case of wanderlust that can only be cured by listening to the sea as Dauntless cuts thru the waves. The gentle hiss; the curl of the water making an endless pipeline wave, calls you to jump right in and feel what the dolphins feel.
We did 4400 nm this summer, a little more than 1000 miles per month. A hard pace. But I knew it was pushing it when I planned it and all in all, I got back to Waterford within a day of the plan I had made in April, 6 months earlier. Would I do it again? Of course I would if the same situation presented itself; A chance to explore beautiful lands off the beaten track. Meet wonderful new friends. Get even closer to old friends. One can not ask for much more than that.
So, just for “shits and grins” a favorite USAF saying, I laid out a 16 month, 14,000 mile trip. Honestly, I keep hoping the miles had somehow gotten less. Doesn’t everyone nowadays talk about how the world is shrinking? Seemingly not on Dauntless. The route stays pretty much he same every time I look at it.
I do pore over the Jimmy Cornell book, “World Cruising Routes” hoping to find the tiny wormhole that will transport us from the Canaries to Northwest Asia in a blink of an eye. At least that’s how long it took in Deep Space Nine.
But the people I’ve met along the way call to me like the Sirens of Odysseus. No wonder it took him 10 years to get home.
The Krogen along the wall in Gdansk. The marina is on the right. But our price was right!
I’ve written about many aspects of the Dauntless’ Summer Cruise 2015, the good, the bad and certainly the ugly. How ugly I’ll find out next week. But now, I thought I would share a few more mundane issues that I think will be of interest.
Let me say up front, that if you have any questions or comments you would like to share privately, please email me. My contact information is somewhere in WordPress.
A few interesting tidbits. No, not Tim Horton’s Timbits, (Sorry New Yorkers, even if you have visited one of the Tim Horton’s in NYC, it is Tim Horton’s in name only. The version sold in New York is owned and made by the same person who owns the Dunkin Donuts franchise in NYC. Needless to say, the only thing they have in common is the name).
Type of Overnight
Days of Trip
Percent
Cost
All
128
100%
$ 2,562
Marina
59
46%
$28.15 / night
Dock or wall
32
25%
Anchored
17
13%
Tied to land, with stern anchor
8
6%
Dock in Canal (Scotland)
5
4%
Underway overnight
7
5%
I merged the two categories of marinas and docks because I was a bit arbitrary during the course of the summer. Generally a marina means a marina as we know it with amenities like: an office, a secured dock (but not always), showers, laundry, etc.
Dock or wall is just that, a dock that is floating or a wall . Sometimes I paid, sometimes I didn’t. In general the prices were cheaper since they had little or no amenities.
But again the line between the two types, dock or marina is not that large. A good portion of the marinas had no security; while some cheap docks did. The last dock we stopped at, Arklow in Ireland, was free, and within 30 minutes, two different guys (fishermen) came by to tell us the security code of the gate.
Since we are talking bout security, maybe in the first weeks, I felt a bit apprehensive with the no security, but I’ve been in Europe enough that after I bit I did not even notice. Much of the Netherlands was like that. The river, canal wound through the center of town, there were bollards placed in which to tie. You then found the nearby post, the same as one uses to pay for car parking. You paid your 12 Euros and placed the sticker on your boat. This included electricity that I usually did not bother with.
The far west and far east has the most expensive marinas. The Channel Islands and the first stops in France were $50 per night for a 12 meter boat, as was Tallinn. Helsinki took the prize for the most expensive marina at $60.
The rest of Scandinavia was really good. Stockholm was only $35 and while Copenhagen was more at $45, the small towns I stopped in Norway ranged from $15 to zero.
In the middle, Germany, Poland, Latvia were all great places to visit and inexpensive; in all three of those countries marinas cost about $25.
Poland and Latvia turned out to be our favorite places. In Gdansk, Poland, were right downtown and our Krogen must have been featured in a thousand pictures. We were on a wall right next to the marina. The wall was free, in fact, the second day, the Bosman, the person in charge of the marina, came by to ask us if we needed electricity, telling him no, he said were welcome to stay on the wall since it was free. I was happy.
The Poles love Americans. Like virtually the entire trip, so many people in seeing the stars and stripes came by to say hello and hear our story: “yes, we took it across the ocean on our own, yes, we are from New York, No, it is not a Grand Banks, it’s a Kadey Krogen”
It was also in Gdansk that I met a couple from Stockholm on their catamaran. Like virtually everyone we met on the water, they were so helpful. They also gave me good advice about Navionics charts in that “Europe HD” was detailed enough to use and there was now no need for paper charts.
And all that for $87.
I always run with two different navigation charts, since last year, Navionics and Jepp’s C-Map. I like the color rendition a bit more on the Navionics, but I must admit that I have not seen any significant difference between the two in Europe.
Speaking of navigation, I found it easier than the ICW, in that it is not critical to know whether the channel is going to or coming from the ocean. Instead, in the skärgärd they will declare “pass red on the left or green on the right” or vice versa. Now in that situation, it is different in that once there was a red of the left and a green on the right of the channel meaning I could NOT go in between where the rock was.
In Riga, I was doing something in the engine room when I felt someone get on the boat. Thinking it was my friends, I kept working; but not hearing their voices, I came up to see this couple having their wedding pictures being taken on the fore deck.
Cute. Latvians loved us too.
All in all, we averaged $28 per stay for the 90 odd days we stopped. Not bad considering a hotel room in many of those cities would have cost 10 times more.
Now you do not have to pay for fuel for that hotel room, but even with fuel, the daily cost is only $76 and with fuel at today’s price it Ireland, that daily average would have been $7 cheaper at $69 per marina.
And it’s sure nice seeing the wonders of the world pass by your living room window.
Being back in Waterford is so much like coming home; though I just left home to fly here.
Umm, maybe I have two homes: wherever Dauntless is and wherever Julie is. That’s simple enough!
So I’m back in Waterford to make plans for what needs to be done for winter. Dauntless and I want to be ready to leave Waterford, probably forever, by early April. Seems like months away; it is months away, but everything on a boat takes longer.
Dauntless at low tide on the Waterford waterfront. The crane in the background is still used.
So this morning I made my rounds. Also walking in Waterford, being surrounded by friendly, warm people is the perfect antidote for the last day’s fiascos. I have described Irish as like Italians and Spaniards, but they speak English; but have now come to the conclusion that they are on a level all by themselves. Unlike pretty much everyone else in Europe, the Irish never had an empire, not even the inkling of one nor even the desire.
They use more terms of ___ then anyone else and they truly mean it. Need something; everything stops while they try to solve your problem.
And they curse more than New Yorkers also! Not like “F—k you”; but more like the exclamation, “can you believe we had a whole f—king day without rain!” And they drag out the sound so it is more like “foooking”.
Cute.
At 3:15 p.m. the streets are full of uniformed kids of every age coming from school. It baffles me how Americans, who pride themselves on being egalitarian, can’t see how important uniforms are for kids. Umm, I wonder why those expensive private schools in New York, ($40k per year) make their kids wear uniforms and even limit technology in the classroom. Worst of all, they even make their kids learn the multiplication table. There should be a law against that. But I digress.
I made my little circuit of the town this morning deciding that I was going to make a wholesome dinner today. Yesterday, arriving from New York, I had my coffee in the morning and an ice cream bar, a Magnum Black, for dinner.
My bread from Hickey’s Bread on the left, my butcher on the right, John Molly’s, is hidden behind the truck.
I like cooking for guests, but today I had decided I needed real food. So my first stop was the butcher where I got 4 lamb chops and Brussels sprouts. Then, the baker, where I got some crusty Hobbit bread. Then the second baker, the cupcake guy, as I love his apple pies.
Master of Cakes, Cupcake Couture
I just finished making my coleslaw, No secrets there, real mayonnaise, vinegar, salt, pepper and a tablespoon of Korean hot pepper paste with vinegar.
My Laundry. How could I miss it!
And in cruising through the World Wide Web, I found this link about mayonnaise which I thought to the point.
Well I suppose our Baltic Cruise did have other objectives, but let’s not minimize my fondness for morning baked goods, in particular Danish.
Now, you all know the capital of the Danish; no, not Copenhagen, but New York. And of course, we are talking about the morning pastry, not the people.
New Yorkers think they invented the Danish. That flaky, layered pastry filled with or with a dollop of fruit or cheese in the middle.
Never packaged in plastic, and not made from a lot of chemicals and artificial crap, that one gets in the rest of the country. Yes. It was hard duty living in places like Seattle, Denver and of course, the city with the lowest average annual temperature in the USA, Fairbanks, Alaska. But someone had to do it.
A Honfleur Cafe just off the Bow of Dauntless
No our Danishes are always fresh. Places that try to sell day old stuff in NYC don’t last long; unless of course, they are in one of those “new’ neighborhoods, like Battery Park City, that is full people from west of New Jersey, who don’t know any better.
By the way, speaking of Battery Park City, this large deluxe apartment complex, built to the west of the World Trade Center largely on landfill from the WTC and other projects of the 60’s and 70’s. So during Superstorm Sandy, the Weather Channel had their goofy looking reporters in Battery Park City, watching the water rise to almost street level, as its inhabitants walked their dogs and babies, like every other rainy, windy day.
A Wonderful Restaurant in Honfleur
In the meantime, in Brooklyn alone, more than 500,000 people watched their cars float away in 8 feet of water! The water getting as much as a mile inland. Power in the Trump Village buildings, some of the buildings that made Trump senior rich and his idiot son think he “earned” his money just by being born, was lost for a week. Cars were left were the water dropped them for months. It was more than 6 months before banks and food markets were able to open again.
But since the Weather Channel did not show it, it must not have happened. This scene was repeated along the coast of Staten Island and much of New Jersey.
My point is that television seldom can give even a representative picture and never the whole story.
So, back to my quest for the Danish.
I ate a lot of ice cream
At $135 a day, this 120 day quest could have seemed like a waste of money. But, my attitude about money and Dauntless is simple: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. At least until after the fact, as my last post shows.
Ummm
Our quest started in France, the town of Trebeurden. After the mile walk uphill, the offerings were a big disappointment. The little pastry places with coffee and wonderfully baked goods were not to be found.
Next country Belgium, Oostende, only 30 miles from Holland, but finding coffee in the morning was also not so easy.
Then Holland, Zuid Holland to be exact. Pastries much like I am familiar with both in NY and from 30 years of visiting the Netherlands. Delicately done apple and cherry turnovers, but layered far more than in the US. Also far less sweet than in the US and of course, made with mostly natural ingredients and not crap. Flakey, light croissants, almost as nice as the best of France. The coffee is also very good, and the prices are reasonable.
And not yet realizing how much I took for granted those Bäckerei und Konditorei would be open by 6 a.m. and always around.
Two Krogens in Holland
Honestly, after three weeks winding my way thru the Netherlands, Holland, Brabant, Gelderland and Friesland, I was really spoiled. By far it would end up being the most convenient in terms of where the boat was and were the people were. I got very spoiled. Great pastries and coffee every morning. Always warm and fresh and costing not more than $5 to sit, drink a cup of java and enjoy at last one pastry (though I usually always got two).
Germany was next. Bäckerei und Konditorei. The western half, like the Netherlands, only slightly more dour, the people and the food. Not surprisingly, the eastern half, of the DDR, was noticeably more dour. Much like the dwarfs of Tolkien’s Middle Earth; but taller.
Pannekoeken in Brabant. We’ve been coming here for 20 years. Very tasty.
Poland was a treat in every aspect. The 8 days we spent in our four stops in Poland, were the absolutely best for eating. Morning was more about donuts and fried, filled things, but really good, really fresh, tasty and cheap.
Dinners were sublime. Every dinner was fantastic. Beef cheeks, pig ankle, herring tartar; all so exceeded our already high expectations. Prices more reasonable than lands to the west.
I had already planned a 2016 trip back, but Julie point out that Ryan Air would cost about a billion dollars less than taking Dauntless again.
Poland Black forest cake. It’s even better than it looks.
Sad, but true.
Bakery in Liepaja. If you look closely, you can see that those cakes are around 3 Euros.
After avoiding the Russian minefield, Latvia was next. We stopped in Liepaja and Riga, one of our goals for almost 10 years. Again, not enough time in a wonderful place. Riga was much as we expect, but Liepaja was a very pleasant surprise. Extremely inexpensive, one of the few Euro countries those prices did not rise overnight upon the birth of the Euro. The markets, both indoor and outdoor, were fascinating and full of stalls with berries.
More berries than you ever thought possible. In Riga, there were over a hundred stalls just selling baskets and buckets of berries of every kind. Tasty and cheap, after easting the berries of Latvia, you could never eat those cardboard tasting blue berries that are ubiquitous here.
Bakery in Liepaja. this repast, including the THREE bags on the table, and the two coffees cost $8 U.S.
Estonia was the last stop on the Baltic Republic hit parade.
More expensive then Latvia, but lacking some of the warmth we got from the people of Latvia, let alone the genuine warmth and friendship se experienced in Poland.
While the pastry choices were limited, the coffee was very good and they had a loaf of bread with butter and knife to cut bread, which was free for one and all. Right up my alley.
Warsaw Pork Knuckle and Beef Cheeks
Coming up: Rocking and Rolling and Rocking in Scandinavia, I am Curious, Yellow and of course, Danishes in Denmark.
Dauntless in LeipajaAnother stop in Holland. Dauntless likes being Downtown so everyone can see her!
This is the table for our Summer 2015 Baltic Sea Cruise on Dauntless
OK. Sorry about the black background, but I have spent too many hours today just f…ing with this “picture” imported from Excel via Word.
Some of the things that jump out at me:
While the Fuel cost was a third of total costs, it wasn’t more.
Eating and food costs were also a third of total expenses.
My morning treat of coffee and some kind of pastry, is not an insignificant cost at almost a thousand dollars.
It really helped that my friends/guests/crew paid most of the marina fees.
By the time I got to Germany, I realized that fuel consumption was actually running much higher than anticipated, around 1.75 gallons/hour. So I made a conscious effort to run at an “economy” speed, about 1400 to 1500 rpms, for the rest of the trip and it clearly worked. I was able to average 1.35 gallons per hour and 3.84 nm/gal at an average speed of 5.2 knots.
By contrast, crossing the Atlantic, the respective numbers were 1.59 gallons/hour and 3.6 nm/gallon at an average speed of 5.7 knots.
All these numbers speak to the efficiency of the Kadey Krogen and the KK42 in particular. We love this boat. She is a tough little girl. Far tougher than me. I really don’t understand why, but I am more, not less, prone to sea sickness than last year or even our first year.
Maybe the weight of responsibility weighs on me more? Maybe I am going out under more adverse conditions? Who knows?
I did get back to NY 5 pounds lighter than when I left in early May. That is nice. But my sense is that being alone on the North Sea for three days will make anyone lose weight. Maybe Oprah should have invested in Dauntless instead of Weight Watchers.
Still to come: I hope to write a summary of the entire cruise; talk about the recent Krogen Owners Rendezvous I just attended and lastly, get my Instagram account up and running so, even if I am not posting, I can at least post pictures with a few snappy captions. Or is that snippy?
30 September 2015, 13:10 hours, we passed the track off of Dunmore East that we had made leaving Ireland 4 months and 5 days earlier on the 25th of May.
Bost in Vadrarfjordr. The Only City in Ireland that Kept its Viking NameDauntless in her New Spot in Waterford
As I motored slowly up the River Suir, it is impossible to describe my feelings. Much like crossing the Atlantic, this was another 4,000 nm, 7,200 km trip milestone completed.
Spread out over four months instead of one, was both a blessing and a curse:
A blessing in that time is spread out, so schedules are more flexible and the scenery is constantly changing, as is the places visited and the foods eaten.
A curse in that it’s almost exclusively coastal travelling and the stress that entails, rocks, narrow channels, and worst of all, expensive marinas.
And much like the Atlantic Passage, coming full circle was a culmination of years of dreaming and planning. As soon as the Atlantic was planned, still years before we actually had a boat, I had moved on to phase two, the first full spring and summer in northern Europe. So of course that meant the Baltic and those lands of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia that were almost totally new to me.
Arklow Inner Harbor
For the most part, if the plan has been well thought out, events unfold as planned. As I look at the Dauntless Cruise Plan that was finalized in April, I pretty much stuck to the plan into September.
Arklow Inner Harbor
Sadly, as I cruised up the Suir, I was occupied with trying to get my cell phone on. It had gone to sleep and never woke up. No sign of life, even when being charged or when I changed its battery.
Today, 48 hours later, I have accepted that its demise is permanent. And sadly today, I just realized that I had not downloaded any pictures since the end of August.
Still of the 600 that were on the phone, I had uploaded a few pictures and videos to WordPress and I have the hundreds of pictures I took with the Samsung K-30, but I like the Note for its ability to take good panorama shots. All of the pictures I post with these blogs came from the Note. That’ll change now.
Now the previous week, I had talked to Johnny, the Waterford City Council guy in charge of the marina and I think a bunch of other things too, to find out where to tie up as the docks were almost full. We had planned that I would call again coming up the river. But now I couldn’t., which always adds to the stress since knowing the spot I was going to is one less thing to worry about.
Trawler unloading in Arklow
Spotting an empty spot at the end of one of the three floating docks (pontoons in British English) there was a sign saying it was a private spot, but any port in a storm, is a lesson I have learned the hard way. Also, there are a number of these marked spots on the dock, but they are not necessarily up to date and the owners had moved on long ago. I was in such a spot all last winter.
Thus I took it, got tied up, changed to my street clothes and then the owner of the spot motored on up, with his wife and two daughters.
Oops.
I went out and apologizing profusely, asked him what I should do, telling him that I had not been able to call Johnny and dreading the response, to move to who knows where?
BBQ in Arklow
Instead he was really nice and said no problem at all; he would just raft outside of Dauntless until I found my place. I thought that was particularly gracious since it meant he had to hang around until I got things sorted out.
Just then, I look down the pontoon, and who do I see walking towards us was Johnny, himself. Now, I was surprised, knowing how busy Johnny is, as well as the fact that the marina (dock really) is just a small part of his job, very small.
Turns out while he had not heard from he, he had spotted Dauntless coming up the river on AIS.
What a relief. I did not want to inconvenient my new found friend Danny any more than I already had. Johnny did have a tight spot for me on the inside of the pontoon, one that I had not considered knowing the water was very shallow on the inside, but in this case it was deep enough.
So 15 minutes later, we were retied to the spot we are currently in. Johnny also called the boat owner in my previous spot to confirm they were pulling their boat this coming Saturday, so I could move back there then.
A wonderful welcome back to Waterford. There are simply no more friendly people than the Irish. Virtually every encounter over the last 13 months had been of this sort. Always willing to help, always friendly to all boaters.
Stopping over in Arklow, the evening before illustrates the point:
It’s a small fishing town. Everyone is so nice. We just stopped in Arklow for a few hours to wait on the tide to turn in about 5 hours.
There was a big sailboat tied to the wharf wall, a commercial dock, with large rubber tires and old timber. I told the sailboat skipper I just needed to stop for 5 or 6 hours. So he suggested I raft (tie up to his boat) next to him. As we were tossing lines, a guy came by on Kayak to tell me the hammerhead on the dock in the small inner harbor with fishing boats was open.
So realizing that was better I moved the boat there and after getting tied up, two different guys, working guys, came by to tell me the access code for the gate and we had a discussion about the tides and currents and the best time to leave.
And of course, this dock was free.
One thing you see in Ireland is that they really like everyone on a boat.
You don’t see the class warfare you see in many places. Fisherman always wave and talk with you. When I spent last September rafted to fishing boats in Castletownbere, Dauntless fit right in, in both size and the lines of the boat. (I wrote about this in the post, “Now It’s Miller Time” sometimes we were rafted 4 or 5 deep.
So my welcome home was better than I could have even hoped.
The Krogen Cruisers have their annual rendezvous next week, so of course I am going to that. I like talking to other owners about our boats and its amazing prowess.
So Tomorrow I fly to my real home, but I’ll be back in a couple weeks to sort out what needs to be done this winter.
In the next weeks and months, I will backfill these posts with the events of the summer that I never had time to write about such as: Cruising with Another Krogen in Holland, Estonia, Finland and Sweden and single handing thru Denmark, Norway and Scotland, the Caledonian Canal and of course, Crossing the North Sea.
Have you ever been unreasonably angry? You know you have no cause to be angry, thus “unreasonable”, but you still can’t shake it.
Maybe not angry; just f…ing irritated.
So I’m sitting on the wrong side of the last locks before town and Neptune’s Staircase.
Maybe because while I understood that I would not get out of the Caledonian Canal system today, I had looked forward to being in town. In the last week I have spent too many days, nights, alone. No one to talk to, no internet, no Wi-Fi, no nothing.
So, I sit here, looking at the beautiful scenery, but disappointed that I’m not in town.
And it’s certainly quiet out here.
The View From Dauntless
But hark; I hear a sound, I go investigate. Alas, it is but the refrigerator compressor.
Welcome to my world.
So, since we last talked it’s been 4 days and 400 miles.
The two day crossing of the North Sea became three days.
A long three days, exactly 72 hours.
I’ve been too tired to write about it. Maybe tomorrow.
Tomorrow is here. Now I’m really tired. Neptune’s Staircase took it all out of me. And then we still had another three locks and a bridge or two to go.
Finally, at 14:00 hours Dauntless is on the sea heading for Oban.
And being at sea you know what that means? Winds of course. 25 knots on the nose. Knocks about a knot off our speed, but I am keeping the rpms higher than usual, 1800 rpms, because the engine has been running cool the last few days have spent basically two days at idle.
I wanted to get this posted, but the pictures had not uploaded and you need pictures to understand what I write some times. I’m not the best when it comes to descriptive detail.
My hands ache from handling cold, wet lines for two days.
It’s Thursday morning, cloudy, rainy, and of course windy, but Dauntless and I are sitting snug in the harbor of Egersund.
Egersund is a medium fishing town and the little central area is just a minute away. We are tied to the endo of the dock near the SAR boat. The marina itself is all finger piers, so I may be to move later, but prefer not to be in a finger.
We entered the fjord just after sunset and then it was another half hour coming up into the town.
Yesterday went as well as I had hoped. Maybe better.
One of the biggest drawbacks to being alone is not the physical stuff, or even docking, but it’s the stuff in my head, and being alone I dwell, maybe obsess is a better word, as my imagination goes crazy.
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Not a Bad Day
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With people around me, unreasonable thoughts come, hang around for a few minutes and then the interaction with others snaps me out of it.
If you watch Cesare, the Dog Whisperer, he’ll make a sharp sound or tap the dog, to get the dog’s attention away from whatever the dog is obsessing about. That’s exactly what I need occasionally.
Before yesterday, I had looked at the route to Scotland 50 times. But even the evening before I left Mandal, I got out of bed to get the tablet to look at the route again. I was looking for an excuse not to leave Mandal. Any excuse. I was in the grip.
But no matter how I looked at it or how many times, it was still clear that if I went direct from Mandal to Scotland, I added 50 miles on to the trip, that’s 8 hours. And it made no sense to add 8 hours to a trip that was already above 40 hours.
I had to leave Mandal and the only weather window I seemed to have was yesterday.
I got off a little later than expected; as I spent some time helping my Danish sailors move their boat. They, in particular, the wife, were so helpful when I docked in Mandal. Besides the ubiquitous wind, there was a current and a vicious steel ladder near the end of the dock that I initially wanted to tie to.
They were not only quick to understand I needed someone to receive the lines, but also, as the boat was getting more and more out of shape, she could see I was getting stressed and gave me some calm, encouraging words. It helped and we were tied up minutes later.
So, leaving the dock late, I then had to go get fuel, which was right by the entrance to the harbor. As I am getting closer, a small skiff pulls up to the dock and I had to wait 10 min for him to finish, but then as he is pulling out another boat jumps in. Another 10 minutes of me making circles in the harbor looking at the crashing waves outside the harbor.
Well, I finally get to the fuel dock and got 500 liters of fuel for $5.20 a gallon, $1.35 per liter (double the price in Ireland, which is a major reason I did not want to leave the boat for eh winter in Norway)
So at 10:35 I FGFU. I’ll let you guess at that.
Within minutes of being in the open water, I realized I got my MOJO back.
Having spent much of the previous day getting ready for action, Dauntless was ready.
I put things away that I had not put away we I checked all the stays for the paravanes and went through the boat from top to bottom making sure everything was secured.
That made all the difference, so when we encountered our first big seas, 6 – 8 feet, 2-3m, everything was tight.
The first few hours were in somewhat protected waters, but then I had 5 hours with the wind and seas on the beam, 6 to 12’, 2-4m.
And that’s when I remembered how well the paravanes work under these conditons. The paravanes are most effective in a beam sea. As the wave approaches, the boat rolls into the trough, just in front of the wave, but then as the wave lifts the boat, the paravanes stop the boat from rolling to the lee side. So as the wave goes under the boat, the boat rights itself and stays that way as the wave passes under the boat.
Now I knew all this, but I had forgotten about it. So I just sat in the pilot house marveling at how nicely that boat was handling all of this.
Depending on the wave period and other things, sometimes the boat would roll to the lee side, but again when that happened, the paravanes stopped the oscillation that would result without the paravanes deployed.
SO now I am waiting in Egersund for a weather window. I’d like two days, but it’s late in the season for that. Right now, I thinking late Saturday or certainly Sunday, arriving in Scotland Monday night or Tuesday morning.
I’ll watch for the next days. I’d like winds less than 20 knots and seas not more than 4 meters and the winds and seas can come in any direction from 80° to 280°, with the bow being at 0°.
I won’t go with any head wind, seas, component.
I’ll try to post some videos. I should get a Go Pro.
I will even drag my 37 pound laptop to the café so you may hear my last words, just in case.
No, I’m not worried about dying; I’m more concerned that one of my faithful readers will die because I left them in the lurch too long. Not my fault. This marina in off season charges $5 per day, yes, that’s five dollars, but for your five dollars you do not get internet.
However, you do get the best laundry I have experienced in 4 months. Only $2 and the dryer actually dries in 40 minutes.
And I’d get free electricity and water, if I deigned to squeeze into the finger piers; I don’t.
Even though I have bene having battery issues the last weeks.
So just a few days ago, I discovered on of the 8D batteries was low on voltage, so it’s out of the program. Today I checked the cabling of the other three. After this weekend’s run, the truth will be revealed.
Norway has been a great experience. I am not saddened with leaving only because it has always been in the plan to return next spring and summer. It will be May and June next year, make your reservations early.
So, a little follow up about weather.
While I have distained weather forecasts, I do look at them. I just don’t trust my life, my health or my boat on them.
So for example, in this case, I have been watching for more than a week. Winds over the North Sea have been as high as 50 knots in the last two weeks making 9 meter, 27 foot seas. Forgetaboutit.
So I’ve been looking for the best two day window I can get at this time of year. A few days ago it looked like Sunday and Monday and maybe Tuesday. Winds 10 to 15 knots out of the NNW or South.
I can live with that, as I have said, I just don’t want a component on the bow. If tomorrow the winds are NW, I will go SW, accepting some extra miles.
Now, I have noticed today that the winds are less than forecast, in fact, down right mild, 8 to 12 maybe.
On one hand that’s good, as it will let the North Sea settle down, but on the other hand it could mean the forecast is a day behind, the next storm system could be coming across the UK not Tuesday, but maybe Monday.
In any case, I am still going, became to me it’s about what is happening now and not in the future. Therefore, as long as I don’t have strong winds on the bow, I leave. I would not leave if I must hope for a change of conditions. .
Dauntless at Sea 