Kadey Krogen – Page 3 – Dauntless at Sea

Phase I is Done

Dauntless after her second coat of primer

Phase I was doing he stuff that had to be done before Dauntless got her feet wet. All done except for salt water pump. For a competent person, this is a few days work; for me about three weeks.

Forward Bilge
1. Complete hookup of New Vetus holding tank, with new fittings and electrical
2. Install new bilge pump (old one becomes spare) with new check valve
3. Make additional fresh water hookup and run hose to forward compartment for Raritan Purisan
4. Check connections for salt water pump (new, hasn’t worked since installed)
5. We found a bare wall bulkhead in front of old holding tank. Gary sealed it and put Gelcoat on it.
6. Check all clamps for the multitude of thru hulls in this area
Anchor Locker
1. Pull all the chain and rode out for both anchors
2. Vacuum the bottom of chain locker
3. Replace two deck fittings for fresh & salt water connections
4. Re-mark and reverse anchor chain
5. Add 90 feet polypropylene to end of chain rode (this is because it floats, making it easier to find should I have to abandon anchor with no time for anything else)
6. Paint anchors
7. Find third anchor for stern
8. Make up a new, longer chain snubber

The Electrical list is untouched, but the first four items a-d, will be done in the next days. The rest in the next two months.

Run new VHF cable to the two radios
Replace plugs for Navigation lights
Add Name Board lights
Install new Driving lights
Add USB ports in salon and second cabin
Add new switch and breaker panel for fridge/freezer in pilot house
Add switch panel for solar panels

Once D is out of the shed we will be able to re-rig the Paravanes and the mast. Gary’s carpenter has made another bird that got broken in the North Sea and has repaired the doors. The Rocker Stoppers are a work in progress.

Restring birds to new line, 3/16” Amsteel, so that I can modify the depth of the birds.
Boat Yard is making rocker stoppers for me to use while at anchor

For the Wood Trim, I can’t oil anything until all the sanding is done. I will do this next week, before we head out of the shed into the hard, cruel world.

Teak “eyebrow” around pilot house has been scrapped and sanded thanks to Leonie & Martin. I will put Tung Oil on it and see how that works.
Oil all the benches that have been sanded

Fuel tank is in the final stages of being done. Sealant has been applied and new inspection ports are ready to be installed. Anti-Foul will be applied the last day, next Friday.

Most of the heavy lifting by Gary and the New Ross Boat Yard are done or will be in the next week:

Port fuel tank sealant and new inspection ports
New bottom job, with two coats of epoxy and one of a tie-coat
New anti-foul by International, a semi-hard coating that is made for slow boats like Dauntless and should last at least a few years.
Painting of the hull from the cap rails down, including the bow pulpit
Fixing on of the side doors that while latched open this past winter the winds ripped if off the hook and broke the entire frame. (winds this winter were higher than 100 knots or 110 mph.
New Bow thruster blades

Getting the forward cabin and compartments fixed, cleaned and put away was the big monkey on my back. It was critical to get done and as long as it was unfinished the boat was unlivable.

I’ll start sleeping on board Friday. It’s feeling like my home again.

My first glass of wine on Dauntless since October. And looking forward to forward cabin.

Gary is just finishing applying the second primer coat. That will get sanded tomorrow, then washed again with an Awlgrip wash (a solvent, like paint thinner) before the first finish coat goes on. At that point we will actually see the final color. I hope I like it!

I literally had my first glass of wine on board, the first since October (I’ve had wine, not just in a glass!). I do have rituals you know.

P.S. Here is a bonus video of Gary applying the second primer coat today. ( I don’t post many videos because it takes hours to upload one video sucessfullly.)

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I’m Excited; Very Excited

Yes, that kind of excitement.

I’ve been playing with the numbers.

I like numbers:

25 May 2016 to 01 November 2017, 525 days
207 days underway; 17,000+ miles
$0.80 per nautical mile & $26 per day for fuel.
4576 gallons of fuel; 17,321 liters
10 oil changes, 145 quarts, 140 liters or 36 gallons of oil,

I like making a plan, executing the plan; sometimes even changing the plan.

Dauntless will have a look befitting her name in just a few weeks.

Then, in the water, fueled up and ready to go.

Friends for the US of A join us for a little jaunt to Scotland mid-May returning to Waterford Ireland in mid-June.

Then around the 4^th of July, I’ll say goodbye to all my wonderful Irish friends in Waterford and New Ross.

Dauntless will turn south, putting Ireland behind us heading to France, then northwest Spain and Galicia. I hope to be in San Sebastian in August, then heading west to A Coruna for September and October.

November will find us heading south, enjoying the fortified wines of Portugal and southern Spain.

Then it will be tackling the Straits of Gibraltar, yes, I have seen the film Das Boot, so I will be prepared.

After checking out the monkeys, we’ll fuel up and really begin an Odyssey.

Spain – What’s Not to Like?

Just got back from a quick, one week, reconnoiter of Galicia in northwest Spain.

NW Spain and Northern Portugal Spent the first two nights in Leon; Then on to Oviedo and Aviles, just NW along the coast, though we stayed in a hotel inland. Then onto A Coruna for two nights and finally Vigo for two nights. — NW Spain and Northern Portugal
Spent the first two nights in Leon;
Then on to Oviedo and Aviles, just NW along the coast, though we stayed in a hotel inland.
Then onto A Coruna for two nights and finally Vigo for two nights.

A great week, that just confirms that the Dauntless adventure on the Iberian Peninsula this year and 2017, will be fueled by fantastic food and wine at prices that even a New Yorker would love.

Everything good, nothing bad, don’t even need any of my usual qualifiers. And that includes two run-ins with the police that were so very helpful, not punitive; an example of what every inhabitant of this planet yearns for.

So much was good, people, wine, food, hotels, costs, etc. So here are just the highlights:

Leon – City of free tapas. We spent 4 hours going to 7 different places, drinking a total of 8 glasses of wine (each) and eating delicious tapas at each place. Total cost 30 Euros or $35. Try that in NYC and the bill will be 10 times more, PLUS 20% more for tips.
Our favorite place in Leon, Meson Jabugo.
Wines & Tapas – I loved:
- Ribera del Duero, Rías Baixas aka Albariño; Ribeiro.
- My favorite tapa, morcilla, simply because it was so good. In Leon, the cured beef, sliced like the Jamon, was also great.
  Cathedral in Leon

We went to check out these two towns in particular because they are large, good transportation access and most of all, the marina is within minutes of the town centre:

A Coruna – The heart of Galicia. Only slightly more expensive then Leon, but Dauntless can’t get to Leon. Galicia is Celtic and the similarity is evident in the people. We took in the military museum after checking out the marina ($300 per month in October). We had gotten to the museum about 5:15 p.m., 45 minutes before it’s closing. Virtually empty of visitors, a wonderful.
Morcilla, eaten with the bread and wine. All this cost $7

Vigo – The largest city in Galicia. Here the cost of the marina for a month for a Dauntless would be around $400, but it’s a year around cost and includes electricity.

Encounters with the police: EEK

Went to get car upon leaving Leon. We had parked
Pizza as a tapa and free.
Total cost here $3

Going down the pass

just outside of the old center, but evidently, on the wrong street. My mistake, the hotel staff had told me exactly the area I could park in and this block was one block sooner, but I misinterpreted the parking sign. Yes, I know, cats speak better Spanish than I. So, I get to the spot and see no car. But I do see the spot it was in and as it had just rained, it was clear I had just missed the car disappearing by less than an hour. Two hours later, after having a great visit with the policemen of the traffic police, we were underway. Total cost was about $150. The police were so apologetic from beginning to end. I was relieved that the car had not been stolen nor damaged and it was clearly my mistake.

Downhill, the snow is letting up
Leaving Leon, we have headed north northwest, over the mountains to the coast of North coast of Spain and the city of Aviles, where I wanted to check out the marina. We took the smaller road N-630) and avoided the autopista. As we got north, we started climbing into the mountains, the clouds came lower and lower and the light rain turned quickly to snow and then very heavy snow (2-3” per hour). Our rental car had crappy summer tires, but I do know my snow. Going ever slower, we made the summit of the pass, at an elevation of about 5,000 feet (1800 m).

I was relieved, as going uphill in always more problematic, so my plan was to wait until a snow plow came by and follow him.

OK then I discovered that traction was really bad, temperature too close to freezing, so the snow plow track was icy. It was better on an unplowed road. And in fact, I had to get on the shoulder to stop the car.

After waiting a bit, maybe 15 min, it was time to try again we did at a slow speed, but I was in second gear and this let the car get going too fast, maybe 20 mph.

We come around a curve, and there is a car off the road, with a police car behind him, but a policemen was standing in the middle of the road.

I go to slow and pull left, but any braking action, even with the anti-lock brakes, did not help and I realized that I was close to losing control in this curve.

So first I honked the horn, to warn the policeman standing in the road and then got totally off the brakes to stop the skid and knowing it was the only way to get around the turn.

After those seconds we went around the curve in the outside lane and on the next straightaway, pulled to the shoulder to stop, which we finally did in about 12” of snow.

We bought our food for the flight the next day here

We were stopped, but now stuck. I waited a bit to think about the ills of the world and the errors of my ways. About 10 minutes later the police came by and I did not know what to expect. In the US, at best they would give you a lecture, at worst, give you a ticket and tell you the road is closed, so you must stay there for the rest of your life.

Empanada Morcilla (Masa Gallega) It was different then Leon, but excellent; not too rich. — Empanada Morcilla (Masa Gallega)
It was different then Leon, but excellent and not too rich. We had hesitated at buying such a big piece ($5), but we gobbled it up and it was sooo good. A wonderful way to end our trip. Every Day was Perfect.

Being in Spain, we got neither. Instead, probalby grateful that I had not run him down, they were very helpful, he asked me what gear I had been in, I told him second and he said I needed to be in first gear, so the car doesn’t get going so fast (this was a 15 degree down grade).

We thanked him and he was gone. I tried getting the car out of the ditch and after a bit of thinking, (front wheel drive cars always have better traction in reverse) I got out and we were underway again.

In first gear for a few miles until we were down to about 3,000 feet and the road was not so steep, at which point, all was right with the world again.

I’m really looking forward to being in Spain and Portugal this coming year and into 2017. I wanted to share the details above because it is indicative of Europe in general and Spain in particular. In all my years in Europe, I have never been in such friendly countries as Ireland and Spain. I’m sure the Celtic connection is part of that reason. I am looking forward to meeting new friends and having new adventures.

The fact that Spain is the most affordable country I have been in Europe in the last 20 years just makes this choice even better.

Anyone who wants to see Europe, but has a limited budget, 2016-17, will be the time to take advantage of Dauntless’ hospitality. It won’t be until 2019 in South Korea before we experience such inexpensive places again.

The fact that Spain also has some of the absolute best wines and food, just make it ever sweeter.

And here is ashort, cute video of happy kids in A Coruna

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Make the Plan; Do the Plan

51hMc5Dy+SL._SY337_BO1,204,203,200_ Yes, that has been me and in spite of my constant kvetching about being bored in NYC, I have spent this time planning.

For me planning is all about developing the main plan, thinking about the plan, thinking of every possible contingency, but understanding that something will happen that I never thought of.

Planning is all about probabilities. This is probable, but that is still possible. I avoid words like impossible or never. As Sean Connery said: “Never say Never”

Life itself is all about probabilities. The basis of Quantum Mechanics is all about probabilities and thus our world is probabilistic.

Certainly passage planning is about probabilities. One crosses the North Atlantic in high summer, July to mid-August, because the probability of strong storms, with winds greater than 40 knots is the lowest of the year. The North Pacific is similar, though with lighter winds, but a bigger risk of Typhoons.

First thing I do is check out Jimmy Cornell’s Ocean Atlas: Pilot Charts for All Oceans of the World

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0955639654?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

It’s the place to get newly published Pilot Charts with up-to-date reliable statistical meteorological information.

So, I like thinking of possibilities and preparing for those possibilities and then preparing for those things that I did not anticipate. 90% of my planning is done after I have the initial plan.

I hate surprises. I hate surprise parties. To me, there is no such thing as a good surprise. Oh, I may “hope” for things to occur: I hope I win this lottery; I hope this friend calls me, but to be surprised, is to be unprepared. 51Bo-TkkL+L._SX349_BO1,204,203,200_

Once again I have been reading Cruising Galicia, published by Imray. A well done book, giving me many ideas. Unlike the past summer, when we had specific places we wanted to see, e.g. Tallinn, Riga, Gdansk, Helsinki, this year and next we will be more flexible. More willing to go where the wind pushes us and where we like the food, drink & people.

It’s going to be an interesting few years!

The Excitement Builds

OK, maybe a bit premature; but I’ve never been accused of being too patient.

When I get back to Dauntless on the last day of March, my real work will start.

90% of my work is really done in the planning process. Since the end of last summer’s cruise, I have been thinking of a number of minor modifications that need to be done:

The paravanes are number one. While crossing the North Sea, in moderate seas, (6-12’, 2-4m), I finally figured out that the birds were running too shallow, causing them to be inconsistent and significantly reducing their effectiveness. Instead of just replacing the fixed line with a line 5 feet longer, I will make it so that I would be able to change the running depth of the fish while underway. Default depth will be about 16 feet, but I will have the ability to let them out as much as another 15 feet, so if the shit hits the fan, they can run at 30 feet (9m).
Small electrical things to do, like USB outlets in Pilot house, and two cabins and salon. This will also include charger outlets for my laptop and 12v outlets (So I can turn inverter off at night).
Routine filter changes
Add a switch panel for fridge/freezer so I can isolate them, without pulling fuses. So the same for the solar panels.

The Dauntless Cruise Plan 2016 is pretty much set. I’ll make a posting of it in the next weeks. I’m really looking forward to spending an extended time in France, Spain and Portugal. The trip to Italy this Christmas just reinforced how much I like the culture of the Mediterranean counties.

Once we leave Ireland sometime in May, the idea of the winter haven, as we have done for the last two years, will be no more. While we will stop as nature and will takes us for days and even weeks, Dauntless will be heading south and west.

I also hope I can minimize the time alone; it’s simply not fun.

Ireland & Italy

Twelve hours from now, I will be snugged into an aisle seat on Delta Airlines, watching the minutes drag by like hours.

As many times as I have taken the red eye to Europe over eh past 30 years, I still dislike it, a lot. In fact, I’d rather go to the dentist.

Now, I do like my dentist, a lot. Sometimes I even dress us just for her. One has to stay in the game, even if only in the dugout. When I stop flirting with people, it’ll be time to swim with the fishes.

Speaking of which, in spending more countless hours trying to get my pictures organized once again, I ran across some of our Atlantic Passage pictures.

The water was so blue even with the wind causing some white horses, as many Europeans call whitecaps.

August 28, 2014 250 miles SSW of Ireland

I know it was only months ago when I was gazing at the map in dismay, seeing I have over 1200 miles to do, alone, in September. With summer long gone and autumn rearing it’s windy head I was not looking forward to those miles.

Now I miss it. I can’t wait to get underway again. Listening to the purr of the Lehman, the quiet swish of the Krogen hull cutting through the water like a hot knife in butter, is truly music to my ears.

But I still have 5 months for that to happen.

Tomorrow morning, I will arrive in Dublin, even rent a car, for the first time in years in Ireland. I need to go to New Ross, check on Dauntless, so some winter stuff, minor stuff, defrost the fridge, etc. Talk to the people working on the hull making her look pretty again. And for the right price we will even paint below the cap rail. On Wednesday, I’ll go to Waterford (about 20 minutes away, 3 hours by boat) for two days.

But as much as anything, I am going to Ireland for these four days just to be there, to wish a Merry Christmas to so many of the wonderful people I have met in Waterford. I spent about half my winter last winter in Waterford. IT turned out to be a good mix (half in US, half in Waterford). This year I am already a bit bored in NYC. There is only so much I can do here.

So the plan is New Ross tomorrow, Wednesday & Thursday Waterford, then on Friday fly to Treviso and drive to my friends in Budoia, the little town, very little, that is as much as my home as NYC is.

Three weeks in Italy, almost all with friends will be wonderful, though to mix it up slightly, Julie, who join me on the 23^rd, and I will spend New Year’s Eve and day in Venezia. Then taking the water bus to the airport on January 2^nd. That will be a first for me. I hope it’s foggy, fog is fun when someone else is doing the driving.

The pictures of interest column on the right posts my Instagram pictures and I will try to post a picture a day to give you an idea of my latest hi-jinks.

And the dollar is getting stronger and oil is in freefall. Can’t ask for much better than that when you have a motorboat that still must cross two oceans and a few seas!

East Versus West

Route to the East in BLUE; to the west in GREEN

So one of my dedicated, alert readers emailed me and asked the obvious question, “Since you want to spend time in the Med, why not go to Korea via the Suez Canal and Indian ocean?”

Great question. It’s been more than a year since I last looked at the charts and the route to the east.

So, I just looked at it again. Nothing changed. Sometimes Plate Tectonics does not work as fast as one would wish for. Probably have to wait another few hundred million years before the Horn of Africa is considered another continent. But then the Pacific will be smaller by then also!

Don’t think I’ll wait.

Gibraltar to Yeosu, Korea via the Suez Canal, 10,000 nm.

So why don’t I want to go east:

Even though it’s about 30% or 3,000 miles shorter, and
we could spend a good time in the Mediterranean.

The disadvantages:

Avoiding the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. I have read many accounts of boats transiting both; none of them very positive.
I don’t like dusting. We don’t like deserts or hot dusty climates.
The Red Sea would be difficult; the Indian Ocean would be impossible. Jimmy Cornell’s book, “World Cursing Routes” is my bible. It shows the difficulty of trying to go west to east against the prevailing winds 11 of 12 months in the northern Indian Ocean. Trying to time the one month of “good” winds is a fool’s errand.
Though the pirate situation is better than it has been and is now not much better off the west coast of Africa, it’s still an issue on a problematic coast.
Straits of Malacca. Even more lawless than the Horn of Africa.
We want to enjoy Korea before seeing Southeast Asia.

Gibraltar to Yeosu, Korea via the Panama Canal, 13,000 nm. Though longer, why do we want to go this way:

Like a magic carpet ride, the trade winds will whisk us from the Canary Islands all the way through the Caribbean to the Panama Canal. winds
Sometime in Central America will be nice.
Looking forward to seeing the west coast of the US; a coast that I have driven along numerous times, yet have never seen from the sea.
Spending time in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Alaska.
Crossing the north Pacific in July should be easier than the Atlantic. Also, the Aleutians provide stopping spots. The Bering Sea has a little east to west counter current.
Seeing northern Japan
Seeing the Aleutians. Check out this story:

http://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/cruising/cruising_the_aleutians_aboard_a_65-foot_fleming#.Vl3i2PmrQU0

So that’s about it.

Thanks for asking.

The south coast of South Korea. Many islands.

Idle Hands Are the Devil’s Workshop

So said religious fanatics some years ago.

Autumn along Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, NY

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.

Quest for the Real Danish

And to think it only cost $17,000!

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.

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.

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.

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. — 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.

The Same Bakery in Liepaja. this repast, including the THREE bags on the table, and the two coffees cost $8 U.S. — 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.

Coming up: Rocking and Rolling and Rocking in Scandinavia, I am Curious, Yellow and of course, Danishes in Denmark.

Another stop in Holland. Dauntless likes being Downtown so everyone can see her! — Another stop in Holland.
Dauntless likes being Downtown so everyone can see her!

Dauntless Summer 2015 Summary of Expenses & Fuel Consumption

This is the table for our Summer 2015 Baltic Sea Cruise on Dauntless table10

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?

Coming Full Circle

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 25^th of May.

Bost in Vadrarfjordr. The Only City in Ireland that Kept its Viking Name — Bost in Vadrarfjordr.
The Only City in Ireland that Kept its Viking Name

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Link to that post: https://dauntlessatsea.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/now-its-miller-time/

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.

Surrounded by Giant Behemoths

And the long night just started.

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. — 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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKctlvSSThM

which I had wanted to avoid, thus Plan C:

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,

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