Krogen 42 – Page 12 – Dauntless at Sea

More Schengen Shenanigans

Black Pig. A dish that makes life worthwhile.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.

Schengen, that wonderful scheme that allows open borders from the bottom of Greece all the way to the top of Norway. The only European countries NOT in the Schengen area are England, Scotland, Ireland (one of the reasons I kept the boat there), Turkey, Russia and perhaps Croatia.

As we were leaving the Marina, a Pilot Boat came by and asked us to stay to the right, I said, we could just wait, but he said no problem, just stay right. All our encounters in Portugal on the water have been as good. The subject Pilot Boat is on the left of the container ship.

Everyone else, Schengen (drum roll please).

Now the rules are relatively simple, 90 days allowed for every 180 days. So if you stay 90 days, you must leave and not return until 90 more days have passed. Arriving my air, from a non-Schengen country (all the rest of the world plus the U.K and Ireland) as you pass through immigration, they stamp your passport.

When you leave, they look for the entry stamp and stamp you out. If you have overstayed your 90 days, then the penalty will depend up on the person checking you out and probably most importantly, what side of the bed they got out of that morning.

The penalty for over-staying, a big red stamp in your passport banning you from any Schengen area country for three years. Now with a boat in Europe that would throw a monkey wrench into the works. So that’s a fate I would like to avoid.

Now the rules for boats differ slightly. From what I have been able to determine and am still not 100% sure since I get told different things by different people all the time, boats and those who enter the country on them are treated as they have always been treated. Presumably this means that they treat the boat as always leaving and entering, so theoretically, I should check in at every port of entry in each country.

A street view in Figura da Foz — A street view in Figueira da Foz

So while I am diligent, I also don’t like wasting my time. Last year, I traveled by boat through 15 countries. Only in one, the Netherlands, did anyone what to see my passport let alone stamp it. In fact, there was clearly an aversion to stamp anything.

That’s what happened a few weeks ago in France. The Customs people came by the boat, to check its papers and to make sure I had not overstayed the 18-month limit on boats and payment of the Value Added Tax (VAT) which is about 21%. Not chump change, as we said in the day.

They French Customs, checked my USCG Document, and the most important document of all, the original port of entry into the European Union (EU) that took place in August 2014 in the Azores. Now the Dutch in their vigilance, had given me another form. This one based on my August 2014 entry into the EU had an area for a stamp when I left the EU. They also told me that they would enter the information into the big brother computer in Brussels.

Last September (2015) I duly got that form stamped while in Norway to prove that Dauntless had left the EU. Unlike the rules for people and immigration, the customs rules for things and VAT are totally different and separate. But I knew it was a big deal, so I ran around Norway, well maybe not the whole country, but the little city of Kristianstad, where I found a bemused customs agent to stamp my form for me. Did he want a copy? No. Did he want to stamp my passport? No.

Since I have been living this for the last three years, just to clarify, the Schengen Area and the EU are totally DIFFERENT administrative areas. The former is for people and latter for things. Dauntless only had to be out of the EU for one day to reset the 18-month clock.

A graituous picture of a glass of port — A gratuitous picture of a glass of port

Now fast forward to France a few weeks ago. The French were very nice and easy going. I had the forms, they gave me another one, presumably to document that Dauntless was back in the EU and they went on their merry way.

But no, sorry, they could not stamp my passport. That was the job of the immigration people, who seem to only hang out at the airport.

OK I figured I get it stamped sooner or later,

So being the diligent little cruiser that I am, I had attempted to get our passports stamped while in Porto. But upon arriving at the office in the middle of town, it looked like the latest refuge boat had just docked. There were hundreds of people on line. I decided to take my chances on the next town.

Figueira da Foz was that place.

When I walked into the Immigration office, no lines, no waiting, a nice reception. The Portuguese Immigration Agent was duly summoned and I explained the problem in my “English for Foreigners” talk.

He had a colleague who was more fluent and that helped the situation. But it was obvious that he did not understand why I was all the way down here and had not gotten my passport stamped in France or even Spain or even Porto.

I put on my best Please Help Me look and hoped for the best.

He then took my documents and went back to his office to have a conversation first with his colleague and then on the telephone with a couple of people. Now I do wish I understood a modicum of Portuguese, though while my reading is almost usable, the sounds they make are hard for my language challenged brain to decipher.

In less than 10 minutes he emerged telling me he had stamped our passports, but he wanted to come to the boat to check my other two guests (they havening just arrived only days ago had their entry stamp so I had decided I did not need to also bring their passports.

He verified their passport information and that was that. I thanked him and he left.

A number of observations and reflections:

Had I not been flying out of Spain or Portugal at the end of September, I would not have bothered.

Last year’s cruise and now this one demonstrate that while a uniform rule is made in Brussels for the EU and Luxemburg for Schengen, counties in general, and marinas specifically, don’t want to hassle boaters.

Lastly, one of the biggest issues is that every agent I’ve spoken to in the last two years is convinced that every office, every agent, every country does it just as they do. It’s simple, the rule covers everyone and therefore everyone is doing the same thing.

Well, the simple fact is that the situation is exactly the opposite. Every country seems to have different interpretations of the same rule. And within countries there is not even a sandcasting of procedures. Thus, when I say, the French did not want to stamp my passport, I get a look like I have two heads.

So today’s mission was successful because unlike in the past, I knew not to tell them what they could not comprehend.

I will also add that in the plus two years Dauntless has been in Europe, having stopped in 100 cities and towns and over 15 countries, my contacts with Customs, Immigration or even just Maritime Police, were rare, only about a half dozen times and each and every time, the officers were kind, friendly and efficient. They have always asked to come aboard and always ask if they need to take off their boots (I always say it’s unnecessary).

In terms of rules and regulations, cruising in Europe could not be easier with less histrionics than I have observed in the States.

By the way, did you notice the similarity between Schengen and Shenanigan? As I’ve said before, I don’t believe in coincidences!

Have a good day!!!

A Change of Plans Redux

Eons ago, back in February, when we first visited Galicia, the plan was to stay the winter. Off the beaten track, inexpensive, cool in summer and winter: Ideal.

Then, life happens and the best laid plans of mice and men go astray.

So, plan B was formulated. For those of you keeping score at home, it was really the original Plan A, but then who’s counting.

Then less than two weeks ago, while in France, an English sailor on a very big, beautiful sailboat, convinced me that to linger too long in the Bay of Biscay or even in Galicia or Northern Portugal, was cruising for a bruising.

Now, I may not heed, but I always listen. And now, having heard the same warnings yet again, I decided this needed to be one of those times I also heeded.

Thus, just last week, I bit the bullet and had to tell my three sets of friends who are coming to meet Dauntless and I over the next two months, and only weeks earlier had bought plane tickets to Spain, that they would have to change those recently bought tickets as Portugal was now the meeting point.

Galicia is out, Portugal is in.

And like most decisions, once made, it was clear to me, it was the right thing to do.

A Coruña is a wonderful town, wonderful food, beautiful people and fantastic wine.

We had two dinners in an absolutely great small restaurant, Vermuteria Martinez, that we had found in February. A must stop for anyone visiting Galicia.

But I also realized it was time for me to move on.

Now, even the extra stops I had planned over the next week have been nixed.

Sometimes the past is like an anchor.

One of those real expensive anchors with the hoop, plated in gold or platinum (or certainly priced as if they are) and while you hate to part with, having cost a small fortune plus your two middle children, you come to realize that it’s time to get the fire ax and cut that chain before you are dragged down.

Galicia and Spain, so many wonderful memories, in fact, nary a bad one, but now moving to the past. It’s time to move on.

It’s time to get to Portugal.

New places, faces and spaces.

But one cannot leave A Coruña, Galicia and Spain without a bit of melancholy or even “triste”

Thus a little Charles Aznavour seems appropriate at this time.

Charles Aznavour, “Come è Triste Venezia”

A French Kiss on the Bay of Biscay

Three days, three nights, three hundred and fifty miles, what could go wrong?

In my early years of cruising, it what seems like just yesteryear, oh wait, it was just last year, I started out every overnight passage thinking nothing would go wrong. No muss, no fuss, no drama.

In spite of the fact that I really like Korean dramas, not all dramas are the same and dramas on Dauntless seem just that, dramatic.

But this year, 2016, I vowed everything would be different. Leaving no stone unturned, I would ruthlessly dot every I and cross every t, leaving no room for dramas of any kind.

We waited an extra day in Rochelle with an anticipated three-day weather window opening up. Day one would have brisk winds from the northwest (NW 12g18), Day 2 continued brisk winds but from the northeast, Day 3 light winds, less than 8 knots and Day 4 southwesterly winds increasing in strength to 25 knots by Day 5.

Now, what this means is since our course for the 60-hour passage would be to the southwest (240 degrees True), Day 1 would find brink winds on our beam producing 4 to 6 foot seas, Day 2 would see a following sea of the same magnitude and Day 3 should see flat seas.

But we would have to arrive before the southwesterly winds picked up, since there is nothing worse than heading into the seas and wind in a slow ass boat like Dauntless. Not only does the ride become worse than the worse hoppy horse you ever rode, but you slow down so much, you 10-hour trip becomes 20, so the time of being miserable is doubled is not trebled (see last year’s epic, beating yourself to death on the English Channel.)

Thus our departure time was carefully calibrated to the weather forecast and the opening of the gate in the marina which is only open for three hours centered around the high water time. Thus 6 hours out of every 24.

We left La Rochelle on time, 14:15 hours, just as the draw bridge opened, and got a hearty send off from the bridge attendant with gestures and yelling which could only mean “Bon Voyage”, though he was pointing to a red light in doing so, but if I have learned only one thing while boating in France, it’s that everything is advisory and as long as you don’t hit something too hard, All’s Well that Ends Well.

The afternoon of Day 1 was about as anticipated, westerly winds around 10 knots; not enough to produce significant seas. So we ran without the paravanes birds in the water. Dauntless had a nice easy gait to her. The boys were on four hour watches and they were doing very well. I could even sleep in my cabin (having slept in the pilot house on our previous passage from Ireland).

12 hours into the passage, during the early morning hours, the winds were picking up to the mid to high teens, that will produce seas 3 to 5 feet and they were from the west not NW. This meant that our heading to the SW was into a bit of seas producing some pitching. So at 02:00 as I rolled around in bed, I figured I may as well get up and deploy the birds.

Normally, upon leaving port, I set the poles out and make sure of the rigging. We did that this time as usual, but when the birds were in the water, I noticed the lines were wrapped strangely around the pole, with the net effect that the bird was not hanging from the end of the pole, but from the middle.

That just wouldn’t do, so in seas that were now 4 to 6 feet, we stopped to haul the birds, unshackle them and re-rig them. With Dauntless sitting dead in the water, standing on the side deck can be a bit frightening to the novice sailor. From the side deck, you look up to see a 6 foot waves approaching the beam. Your first thought is that this wave is not only going to soak you, but will swamp the boat.

Now I’m kneeling down, taking the shackle off, so I can unwind the line from the pole. Tony, my nephew, is standing there a bit amazed, as he warns me of the “big” waves approaching. It is a bit daunting I admit, but I tell him those waves aren’t that big.

So, 10 minutes later both birds are re-rigged and in the water.

I did notice that the lee side bird was running pretty close to the boat, but I have seen this behavior before and did not think it was significant. I got back to bed, leaving Tony or Micah on watch.

As I am laying in bad, thinking about the birds, I had gotten splashed by a few drop of good ole North Atlantic Ocean water. I went to sleep thinking I had been kissed my Mother Nature.

The winds picked up all night and into Day 2, now blowing at 15 to 22 knots. Annoyingly, they were still from the west and not the northwest as forecast (stupid me for believing the details of the weather forecast). So the seas were building and we were rolling a bit more than usual.

Then Bam, what the hell was that? I’m in bed, it’s dark. I get up, look around, I notice that the windward paravanes pole was unloading more than usual. Maybe that was the bang I heard, felt, as it picked up the slack suddenly.

Every few minutes, when the boat got into a deep rhythmic roll, I’d hear the bang. I look again, see nothing unusual. Both birds are running closer to the boat than usual, but they are also running deeper than last year.

After getting another 2-hour sleep in, I get up at 07:00, to relieve Micah so they can both get a good sleep. I am determined to find the bang. I’m standing in the stern deck, looking at the beautiful sunset and I look down during a particularly heavy roll (15 degrees in one direction) and the paravanes bird is really close to the hull. Is that the bang I am hearing??

Have the birds become asymmetric? Meaning does it now matter which side they are on? I realize that the starboard bird is running to the left, while the port bird is running to the right. Could the easy fix be to just swap them?

I decide to do just that. So for the third time I stop the boat to retrieve the birds, unshackle them and swap sides. I think you should be able to see the course change I made to facilitate this, (Share.Delorme.com/Dauntless) I turned Dauntless to run with the waves making the motion on the boat easier.

Ten minutes later, it’s done and they are running true, both now running just where they should about 13 feet from the side of the boat. So now, I better mark them. The roll was also reduced after the swap. Now they are working normally.

Day 2’s winds stayed NW all day. Never saw the NE winds that were forecast.

Around midnight of the second day out, we stopped again to pull the birds, this time because the seas had greatly diminished and I wanted the 0.7 kts back that they use.

So it’s now 08:00 on Day 3. The winds have finally died, though we have an Atlantic swell of about 6 feet every 8 seconds.

I decided to add a quart of oil to the engine while running. With the Ford Lehman, there is virtually no blowback with the oil cap off, so one can add oil without making a mess. (Don’t try this with your car with an overhead camshaft.)

This engine consumes about a quart of oil about every 50 hours, so to add some now would not hurt.

As I am pouring the oil in I notice the red plastic ring that comes off the cap was still around the spout of the oil container. As I think I must be careful not to let it fall into the engine, it falls into the engine!

What a f…ing idiot. I dash to the pilot house to kill the engine (yes, I know I need a remote start/stop in the engine room) and run back to see what I can see in the top of the oil fill on the crankcase. I bend over, flashlight in hand and see the plastic ring. Yes! Then I see a second plastic ring? And then a third.

The plastic rings retrieved from the top of the crankcase.

I suppose the good news is they were not going to melt and ruin the head. I do have one of those retrieval snakes right by the engine, so a few minutes later, I had all three fished out.

I should look in there more often. Maybe I’ll find my missing books.

Probably not.

All’s Well That Ends Well.

Tonight Spain, ready or not.

In a French Hospital

I even got to ride in an ambulance!

The Emergency Room entrance in the hospital in Concarneau. I got a kick out of the hours of operation.

But I get ahead of the story.

I had an abscess on my cheek. It didn’t seem that large, at least when it started.

I kept on thinking it would cure itself, well, at least it has some other times.

But this one kept on getting larger and larger. Sadly, it got to the size of a lemon, a large lemon.

At that point, I did what anyone would do, I took a selfie and emailed my dermatologist, a wonderful doctor at Mount Sinai. When I trust; I trust.

He responded promptly and told me to go get it lanced and get antibiotics. Good idea.

Now, the only downside of a cruising life is that one loses track of the days of the week. It turned out it was Saturday. So no doctors are working, I would have to go to the emergency room of the local hospital.

The marina office gave me the directions: a 10-minute walk, a two-minute little ferry ride and another 10-minute walk. No bad.

I arrived just after 09:00, good because they did not open until 9:00 a.m. Umm, French know when not to get sick.

There was only one other patient waiting and the nurse on duty spoke to me in very good English within a minute of my arrival. I pointed to the lemon on my cheek. They had a basic form to fill out, name, address and phone number. That’s it. There was a little section on my normal doctor, but I was told to leave that blank. I was taken into an examination room. There, a doctor’s assistant took a look, felt it, asked me some questions as to how long and any pain and called someone.

Only a few minutes later, I was back with the first nurse and she told me that they had made an appointment for me at 2:00 p.m. at the “big” hospital in Quimper, about 30 miles away. It was Saturday and thus this local hospital in Concarneau had no surgeon.

I was given a sheet of labels with my name and number. I just had to give each person I saw a label. I thought I was also told that the accountant was not work on the weekend, so I needed to return Monday to see her about payment. That was fine with me.

So, as I thought about this development, I figured that my not dealing with this problem during the week had cost me maybe a hundred Euro taxi ride.

My coffee in Quimper — My Cafe Noisette in Quimper

But, it was not to be. My wonderful nurse, then told me that, while they had no responsibility to get me to the big hospital, their ambulance was heading that way in a few minutes, with a litter patient in the back, so I could ride “shotgun”.

I was so happy. My first ride in an ambulance. Though no siren, I suppose you can’t have everything!

The ambulance driver, a wiry woman, was very good, though she spoke little English. But like everyone I met, she really wanted to take care of me. Was the window open OK? I could open or close it as I liked.

Then since I got to the big hospital so soon, I read my book and was quite happy knowing this thing I had been living with for almost a month and feeling like a freak for the last two weeks would soon be taken care of.

So, just after 2:00 p.m., the doctor shows up who is going to do my “surgery”. I could tell he was the doctor because he just looked it. Small, compact man, certainly handsome, wearing jeans and a long sleeved shirt. Like everyone I’d met, he just came across as both caring and so professional.

I could not NOT trust these people and this system. From the first moment earlier that morning, I had no doubt that I would be taken care of well and promptly.

So after an examination, he put a patch on my cheek that was an anesthetic and told me it needed 20 minutes. So then about 25 minutes later, I was taken to a room that seemed to serve as both an examination room and an office. A really cute moment was when his assistant reminded the doctor he should ask me my “level of pain” (Yes, the same 1 to 10 scale, but without the smiley faces). He asked and I said one, no real pain.

They laid me down, put a bib over my neck and chest and his assistant appeared with a little tray of instruments and they got to work.

It felt like it took an hour to drain the thing, but it was more like a few minutes. I felt no pain, but I do have an active imagination so I become tense when I think I should feel pain. Again, his assistant noticed that and put her hand on my leg which did help to calm my nerves.

Maybe twenty minutes later I was walking out with a few prescriptions. I asked for a taxi to take me to the train station where I figured I could get a bus back to Concarneau. While waiting for the taxi, I started walking and by the time the taxi came I was walking down the road, having figured out town was just a 15-minute walk.

The 40-minute bus ride cost only 2 Euros ($2.20) and that was my only cost so far.

The first few bandage changes and having to continue to drain the thing were pretty disgusting, but sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do (but I try to avoid that).

Today, almost a week later, I’m almost back to new. Well, maybe not new, but back to normal.

And tomorrow we leave for Spain.

My time in France has been pretty much as expected: wonderful wine, beautiful women and food, what can I say about the food, the French could cook a tree and it would be tasty.

But most of all, wonderful, helpful people in virtually every person I’ve encountered. IF I ever have to go to the hospital again, I may just return here.

Oh, by the way, on Monday morning, planning on leaving for our current stop in La Rochelle, I walked back to the hospital in Concarneau to see the accountant lady.

Upon entering the emergency room again, the nurse (yes, I actually do think they are real nurses) remembered me from two days earlier and when I told her I had come back to pay, she told me there must be some misunderstanding. I didn’t have to pay anything. On that, I thanked her and walked back to Dauntless to cast off.

My one disappointment in the whole affair, I still have my chipmunk cheeks!

Dauntless Comes Alive

It’s hard to describe how a boat comes alive.

Sunset over the English Channel — Sunrise over the English Channel

31 hours into our passage to France, our second night out. it’s now 01:00 on the 15^th of July 2016. I’ve just relieved the “boys”, who had their first watch without me for the last 4 hours. I had planned on sleeping another two hours, but I awoke and knowing the English Channel transit lanes were only an hour away, I figured I may as well get up.

Besides, nothing untoward had yet happened, and like the experienced manager taking the young prospect out of the game on a positive note, not letting mistakes happen as they fatigue.

Last night I had been alone, the boys sick as dogs. No, probably sicker.

Dauntless in Camarat — Dauntless in Camaret, France. Our first stop on the continent for 2016

I like the night, slicing through the water, the white mustache at the bow. There is a coziness the envelops the boat making us even more with nature.

We ran yesterday for 24 hours with the paravanes deployed. We needed them. The weather has been exactly as forecast, with strong NW winds 18 to 25 gusts to 32 for the first 12 hours after leaving Ireland. That caused for some rough seas, 6 to 12 feet.

The next 12 hours were a bit better, with winds decreasing to 15 to 18, gusting to 25 and they were more northwesterly. Then finally, yesterday evening they had died to 5 to 9 knots, so the seas quieted to just a few feet.

Now, as forecast the winds are westerly at about 8 knots. Not bad, not bad at all.

Paravanes worked well. I had changed the rigging a bit more since Scotland last month. They now run 17 feet below the water line and they are considerably more effective than last year.

The hardest part has been saying goodbye to so many dear friends and nice people in Waterford and New Ross. I think I’ll be back though, at least after we put a few miles on as we circle the globe. But I’m sure after a number of years and many miles, I’ll be ready for northern Europe yet again.

Maretron Data for the Trip The first 24 hours were rough

Just south of Waterford, we passed an old friend, Fastnet Sound. They dredge the channel just south of the Barrow Bridge, which has a tendency to silt up in the spot where the rivers Suir and Barrow meet. They then dock for the night across the river in Waterford.

They took a picture with showed up on Marine Traffic showing us leaving, with me on the foredeck taking picture of them. You can see that picture at Dauntless taken by Fastnet Sound leaving Waterford on the River Suir.

Well, it’s now Sunday, 48 hours after our arrival in Camaret France.

It’s taken me this long to recover. I must be getting old. I slept Friday night for 12 hours, having only slept for about three the two days previously.

Dauntless as ever performed flawlessly and this time, this passage, so did the captain. No incidents, accidents, or other shenanigans, yours truly has been known for.

Coming up France. French boaters may be a mess, but the food is divine!

Here are two videos of the crossing. Sorry nothing spectacular.

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The Smell of Nothing

Was never so sweet.

How do I know it will be better tomorrow? The weatherman told me of course.

Just picked up 2411 liters, 637 gallons, of gas oil, a.k.a diesel. That’s 4533 pounds of fuel, added to the 400 pounds she already had. Dauntless now sits a few inches lower than before, but looks ready to go.

And the engine room smells as sweet as ever, with no fuel smell, just the smell of new batteries and cables.

Now you wonder why all the fuss? Isn’t re-fueling supposed to be easy and routine? Well, if you are driving a car I suppose it is. I’ve filled cars with fuel thousands of times. But on Dauntless it’s been less than 30 times and on Dauntless, nothing is ever routine.

A few of the shenanigans that have taken place while fueling:

Being showered by a volcano of fuel at the Portsmouth, NH fish dock. Luckily, no fishing boat was waiting as I showered and got out of my fuel soaked clothes.
Succumbing to the fear expressed by my friends about running out of fuel, I purposely overfilled the tanks by about 10 gallons before leaving Rhode Island. This was soon followed by the little fuel runoff coming from the port side tank, a few of those extra gallons soon were in the bilge.
The most recent leak last summer that lead to the New Ross Experience. Much like the Jimi Hendrix Experience in Seattle, but more expensive.

And after each debacle, the next fueling are filled with dread; what will happen next?

So, as you can see, I have every reason to be elated about smelling nothing in the engine room.

Best of all, the 637 gallons cost half of what I paid to fill the tanks two years ago in the fall of 2014.

Tomorrow, with a full fuel and water load, Dauntless is ready to take care of business as we head south for France, Spain & Portugal.

Dauntless faces south; Brian Boru north. — Dauntless faces the Brian Boru. Tomorrow they say goodbye for a long time; hopefully not forever.

Waiting for Weather

Monday 21Z Update

I keep on looking for excuses not to leave, but Mother Nature, continues to send warning signals that I best be on my way. Right now, the best 42 hour window is from the 13th at 0300L, putting us just off of Brest on the 14th at 22L.

A night time entry, but what else is new!

It’s the only way I can maiximize the good wind conditions as the ridge moves east .

By the way, windyty.com provides the same data as Earth Null School below: windyty.com for Irish Sea nad English Channel

I do like their format, but sometimes windyty has too much data for my liking, especially as it changes.

==========================================================================

So, in our last days in Waterford, saying goodbye to some really dear people, having to wait for weather is not so bad.

THe circle is just south of our current location. The arrow is near our destination just west of Brest.

Presently the winds are gusting to 30 and we are snug as a bug in a rug. Nothing as sweet as riding out a storm in port, tied to a dock.

As I have mentioned many times, for short term planning, I’ll usually just look at the Null School data set, whose link is:

Current Surface Winds

And here is the current surface map to help you understand the wind pattern better:

Atlantic Sfc Analysis

I’ve been watching this for the last few weeks, at first just to get an idea of the timing of the systems and the strength of the winds.

Until yesterday, the prognosis (progs) seemed to indicate a thin ridge of high pressure passing eastward mid-week. Then yesterday, it showed a nice ridge (indicative of fair weather and weaker winds) on Thursday and Friday, with the high pressure area centered just west of Brest.

Now this afternoon, after the 12Z run of weather models, my ridge of high pressure has been squeezed to almost nothing. So for my 2 day trip, this now looks like a 24 hour weather window:

WNW winds down to 15 knots (map shows km/hr)

It’s for this reason, (that the progs can change significantly) I pretty much do not look at any other weather products routinely. There are a number of reasons for this, in short, they all get their weather from the same source and more importantly, the different forecast models may differ in terms of space and time; but for someone not looking at them constantly, as in a full time job, forget it. There is simply too much information to digest fine tune a forecast that much. In addition, there is no point in looking at more detailed forecasts because by now, I know what to look for.

Though if I was travelling locally, like north along the coast, then I would check the marine forecast for that area. But if was just saying what I already could deduce myself, in other words no real local conditions to consider, then I don’t bother looking at it again.

Dauntless needs a little less than two full days. 42 hours, to get from Waterford to Brest, France. So I’ve been watching for the last few weeks, whenever I have internet, to see how often a two-day window appears.

Not very often. There may have been one a few weeks ago, but since that, I’ve only seen good weather windows of about a day. Now, when I say good weather, originally I was looking only for winds on our stern at 15 knots or less. The Krogen runs really well in such conditions, rolling as she is wont to do, but the paravanes reduce most of that.

As I was watching, I had even settled for 20 knots astern, since I saw so few periods with less than 15. Also, since our course to Brest will be 160 True, winds from dead astern would be 160 +180 = 340 or northwesterlies. NW winds occur after a cold frontal passage.

So it’s easy, just wait for the front to pass and head out.

But it’s not so easy, as I learned 30 years ago while forecasting the weather for northern Europe and Germany in particular. The North Atlantic is a true spawning ground for low pressure systems. They line up like freight trains, from North America to Northern Europe. And they are moving quickly, averaging 4 times the speed of Dauntless or about 600 nm a day.

But as the fronts approach Europe, they start to weaken as they lose the upper air support that is centered over the North Atlantic. Then with the passage of the cold front, instead of the usual 2 to 3 days of high pressure with NW winds and cold temperatures that one gets in the mid-west, one gets a reprieve of only 6 hours, before the winds jump around to the south or southwest in from the of the next cold front due to arrive in about 18 hours.

It was exactly the pattern I got into in the last three days of my Atlantic Passage two years ago. But then, I wasn’t thinking of the overall pattern, but instead was just so glad to see a few rays of sunshine as the winds dropped to 15 to 18 knots.

Halleluiah

I remember making a snack thinking the worst was over. I was able to find the banging wine bottle. So as the winds picked up again in the next few hours, I hardly noticed. I was like the lobster in the pot of cold water wholeheartedly noticed the water getting hotter and hotter until it’s too late.

But unlike the lobster, I know I’ll be safe no matter what, though I may be miserable. That’s because the first step is to find and have a boat that can do what you want it to do.

The Great Battery Caper

After months of planning, thinking and just plain fretting, the batteries are in and Dauntless is no longer acting like a one legged duck.

How do one legged ducks act you wonder? Without the engine running or being plugged into shore power, we had only a few minutes’ worth of electrical power.

And I’d go to sleep, not with visions of sugar plum faeries (or better yet, leggy milf’s) dancing in my head, but with pictures of wiring diagrams and this and that.

So, having found replacement batteries in Kilmore Quay’s Kehoe Marine last month, they got four Yuasa Cargo Deep Cycle GM batteries that were of 8-D size, with 230 amp-hours each for me. Weighing in at 55 kg, or 115 lbs. each and delivered to the Kehoe boys at New Ross Boat Yard (yes, of course they are related).

Waiting for high tide, when the dock was only a few feet above the floating pontoon, we got the batteries on to the boat without dropping them into the water.

Then, the hardest part physically, getting the old batteries out. Perhaps with the knowledge that we could not hurt them, it took us less than an hour to get them out.

I then spent the next few hours re-configuring how the batteries were connected. I essentially made a positive and negative stud that consolidated the all the connections before they went to the batteries.

My friend Ed had given me a new article about the optimum way to connect multiple batteries that was slightly superior to the way I had the older batteries connected. I had had 8 new battery cables made, 2 for each battery, each 2.3 meters long (about 7 feet). This allowed the four batteries to have the exact same length cable to each from the charging source. By having the same cable lengths, the resistance should be equal and thus each battery should get exactly the same amount of charge.

That took a few hours, with a panicked call to Dave Arnold, the electrical guru (who else would be driving around an all-electric car for the 1980’s!).

His call reaffirmed the use of the existing terminal block and Perko switch that was used to switch the start to the house batteries if needed.

Finally, after 8 hours, I was ready for the new batteries. I rigged an Amstel line around the hand railing to the pilot house, thus we could lower the batteries into the engine room and the only struggle was to pull them into place while lowering at the same time.

Two hours later, all was in place, hooked up and ready to go.

All the boat grounds go to a common terminal, then one large cable to the boat side of the Victron battery Monitor shunt. Then one large cable to another terminal post which has all four negative battery cables.

Positives are similar, in that the inverter/charger, the positive from the alternator and the positive from the terminal block (which has a number of inputs from the isolators and thus indirect from the other battery chargers) go to a terminal post, then all 4 battery cables are attached.

In the next days/weeks, as I physically tie the lines and organize a bit more, I will make a new electrical diagram.

Now, according to my calculations, all the rest of the year should be downhill!

A Quickie in New York

I wish!

Caffebene in Ft. Lee, a really nice place to spend time

Each morning I watch the feeding frenzy of Blue Jays, Cardinals, squirrels and chipmunks.

But it was a quick trip, 5-days, to New York to tie up some loose ends.

Some lines always need a good whipping.

I also got to spend some time with some good friends, both new and old.

And best of all, I ate Korean food 3x, Japanese 2x, pizza 2x and lastly French once; best of all, I ate so well and gained no weight. Lekker.

When I get back to Dauntless tomorrow, I’ll be doing the preparing to head south to France, Spain and Portugal for the next 5 months.

Such a short trip may seem pointless, but I leave NY today feeling much better than on arrival. Being able to articulate my goals and reflecting on them with friends makes a big difference.

During June, having my friends Brian, Dan and Robin on Dauntless, really helped me put a focus on my goals for the coming years. It is great to have people around as enthusiastic as I.

Then, coming to NYC, talking with friends, facilitated the final touches on the plan. As articulated in my last post, by adding 10 months in S.E. Alaska, everything finally feels like it’s coming together.

Not having to spend all of 2017 rushing someplace will allow me to pause and smell the roses.

Having Dauntless staying put for 6 to 8 months, allows me to visit friends in Europe and probably take a trip to reconnoiter Asia.

I feel unburdened and that’s a good feeling.

So now I can concentrate on the important stuff: What’s with these cats. Here we have a billion-dollar company and they must Photoshop the cover for all their kitty liter bags.

Clearly Photshopped — Clearly Photoshopped

Do these people even have cats? One would think someone in this company would think they should show some indication that they understand cats.

Must be dog people.

So, I’ll end on this poster. It fit my two cats perfectly at least in their first year as kittens.

A link to the site for T-shirt Bad Kitties T-Shirt

A Man with a Plan

The Atlantic Trade Winds (click on the links below to see the winds move. Click on “Earth” in the lower left corner [of the link, not my picture] to change parameters)

Well any number of plans; the current one, 15 months to Japan, now in the 29^th day since its start date.

But like all plans, a plan is good only until first contact with the enemy. For Dauntless it’s headwinds, or better said, for Richard it’s the hobby horse ride headwinds produce on Dauntless. The fact that we are consuming half of our fuel, just to go up and down waves, adds to the sick feeling the ride produces.

Yep, it’s a lose, lose, lose situation for all: the timeline, my wallet and my health.

Dauntless in the meantime just motors along, oblivious to my misery.

For my long range planning, other than Jimmy Cornell’s books and pilot charts, on a daily basis I pretty much only look at this: link to current Atlantic map

This shows the current surface winds over the Atlantic. You can see that draw a line from Gibraltar to the Canaries to Barbados and the trade winds are running strong as they have all winter. So no problems there.

The Eastern Pacific showing strong northerly winds from British Columbia to Southern California. Ugh!

(side note, there is simply no point in looking at anything more specific for any period more than two weeks away. Even when I was waiting to cross the North Sea from Norway to Scotland, a three-day trip, I read the marine forecast, but really only looked at this site to figure out when I would have at least a two-day window, which is what I got)

Now, this is the problem, this is the Eastern Pacific, link to current western Pacific map

I’ve been looking at this about once a day since fall. Only in the past month have the northerly winds let up south of Mexico and Central America.

My current 15-month plan would require me to be able to travel north from the Panama Canal to Kodiak Alaska in 170 days or about 35 miles per day. Doable with favorable winds, but I’ve been watching and the winds are not favorable, not at all. At this point, at best, I think a quarter of the days would be “good” cruising days and that may be too generous.

The other problem with this current plan is that I would probably be able to rush north out of Central America, but then get stuck in Mexico and the coast of the western U.S. for months on end. Thus passing by places I would like to spend time only to be stuck in places I don’t.

So, Plan B.

I will add a year to the Cruise Plan, wintering in Southeast Alaska.

Many boaters do it, I know it somewhat, but only from the perspective of the Alaska Marine Highway (Ferry) system.

Thus I can spend more time in Central America at the height of the winter when the northerlies are strongest and I can spend 10 months in British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, some of the prettiest cruising areas in the world, full of fjords, whales, birds and bears!

The weather is not that bad and having visited Juneau and Sitka many times back in the 90’s, it will be nice to go back on my own bottom.

Day 8 & 9 –Two Shenanigans for the Price of One

Leaving the Irish Sea behind us, we seem to have left the bad weather also.

The last three days in Scotland have been summer-like: light breezes, blue skies and warm temperatures in the high 50’s and even low 60’s. In fact, temperatures have been so warm that in Ireland they issued a “heat warning” telling people to be careful, put on sunblock and take it easy, as temperatures were forecast to be 19 to 21C or 66 to 70 F!

I’m not making this up nor even exaggerating.

Yesterday, we even saw a whale, two seals, one dolphin and a bunch of birds. First whale I’ve seen since the mid-Atlantic two years ago with Julie.

Life goes on, whales have to eat (and avoid Japanese whalers) and Dauntless has to travel (and avoid rocks and other hard things).

My friend Brian form the USA is with me this week. He also has a Kadey Krogen, though his is new. Much like with Marinus and Marta last year, the Krogen owners in Holland and Germany, it’s hard not to gush about our boats and how they simply take us wherever we want to go.

No questions, no muss, no fuss. Seas get big, we just hunker down and keep on going.

Owner gets confused, we give him easily recognizable signals to get his act in gear and solve the problem. Thus we get to this morning’s shenanigans.

Dauntless has four large (8D) batteries. They are going on 8 or 9 years old. One already died last summer. When a battery goes bad,

it sucks energy from the good batteries it is connected to. Since its winter rest the three remaining batteries have not acted normally, thus one or more of them is also going bad. In fact, all three could be bad.

So two days ago, I isolated the primary culprit, hoping that the remaining two were good. Isolated means it’s just sitting there unconnected to anything. A dead weight, all 110 pounds of it.

This morning, I was dismayed to see the voltage of the batteries was below 12 volts. That’s bad; very bad.

When I started the engine to charge the batteries, that’s when the fun started. First the voltage went to 14 (normal), but within seconds back down to 10. That made no sense, that implies a problem with the regulator or the alternator.

I shut down the engine, not wanting to cause any damage to electrical parts and put on my thinking cap to try to figure out what was going on and how I could fix it.

In a true coincidence, I’d been recounting to Brian and incident I had had with my Alfa Romeo Montreal eons ago. I had shorted out and thus broke one of the ignition systems (it had two) and I had to limp down to Italy on only 4 of 8 cylinders.

Thus I thought the first place to look was at the battery bank, where the batteries are located and connected to each other. Sure enough, within seconds I feel the ground cable can be moved by hand. Didn’t seem like a lot, but it could explain the problem.

After tightening the cables, all happy that I found an obvious problem, I go to start the engine and for the first minute everything looked fine and normal. I’m watching the battery monitor which tells me not only voltage but also how much energy the batteries are giving or getting. With them being discharged so much, they should be getting a lot now.

So I’m watching the numbers, the number of amps, rise: 5, 10, 16, 20, 25 exactly as it should.

Then, just like that, I see minus 40! Immediately followed by a low voltage alarms from all over the place.

I kill the engine again. Boats have at least two electrical systems. Dauntless has two, the 12 volts system just like a car and a 120 volt system like your house. The engine alternator makes 12 volts, the Inverter changes it to 120.

I did the only thing I could do. I turned off the 120 system totally. I needed the engine to run obviously, but Dauntless does not need any 120-volt power.

Turning off the 120 system, solved the problem. The batteries were now charging at their normal rate and the voltage was fine.

The 120 system has every appliance on its own breaker (a combination fuse and switch). I turned off everything before I turned the 120 power back on. Now it’s just a process of elimination, turn 1 on, see what happens, turn 2 on see what happens, etc.

As I got to the water heater, all became obvious even before I hit the switch. Last year, I had changed the circuit the water heater was on so that I could have hot water via the solar panels and inverter on circuit number 2.

When I was docked in marinas, I had the water heater plugged into the shore power. But the previous night, I had run the generator and had connected the water heater to the boat system. Therefore, it now mattered that I had not turned off the switch when I turned off the generator last night.

Thus as the batteries were being charged, once the voltage got high enough after a minute or two, the Inverter decides to send power to the water heater, thus the -40 amps reading.

As stupid as I felt, the euphoria one feels by solving a problem on your own in the middle of nowhere, overwhelms any sense of guilt, remorse and even stupidity.

One thing about boating, even if you caused the problem, you get double credit for solving the problem.

Day 8 & 9 Summary, Scotland: Laphroig, Lagavullin, Ardbeg, Talisker, Loch Harport

Egads, I think there is a whiskey (Scotch) in every port. What a coincidence!

Beautiful weather, fair skies, light winds, flat seas. (I love flat seas, amoung other things, some of which are flat!) and some whiskey for medicinal purposes only.

Day 8: 74 nautical miles (nm), 9 hours, 33 min running time, average speed 7.7 knots

Day 9: 51 nm, 7:41, avg speed 6.6 knots

Day 1 thru 5, Kilmore Quay to Arklow, Dunloagharie & Glenarn Northern Ireland,

So it’s been an interesting 6 days.

I wanted to get to Arklow on time, so I had a bit of rough weather and seas, but nothing terrible.

For 6 months, I had planned all the work that needed to be done on Dauntless this winter and spring.

Dunloagharie harbor, just south of Dublin

Almost none of it was done.

Why, you wonder? simply put, with the boat out of the water, with all the salon hatches open to the engine room and with the general disorder that comes with such work, I found it virtually impossible to do the projects that I had planned on doing. In hindsight, I did not anticipate the amount of turmoil the boat yard work would produce.

So, by the time I left the boat yard of New Ross, we were seaworthy, but a f…ing mess. A salon full of stuff and parts that needed to be organized and put away. A pilot house full of tools that had not been organized as I had planned.

Leaving Kilmore Quay, I was not on a northerly track for the next few weeks. Out 2016 was underway for better or for worse.

Alone, more than I liked or had planned, friends were coming from the USA for the month of June and I felt an obligation to push as best I could to get to the ports we had planned to meet.

Day 2 Kilmore Quay to Arklow to meet Brian from USA.

In leaving New Ross so quickly, it meant even the paravanes, my stabilizers, were not set up. So I ended up rolling my way to Arklow. With winds on the NE bow, we were going into a bit of a head seas, not nice and we rolled a bit, not great, but livable.

Arriving in Arklow, the town has two places to dock on opposite sides of the river. Thus poor Brian went to the north side as I went to the south side. Finally, we talked and he told me he could see me, therefore, I went to him on the north wall.

Remember the new paint job, well, it sustained its firs blemish. Even after setting all the fenders (buoys) that we could, as the tide left and returned, the bow cap rail sustained it’s first scrape.

Another Crappy day. The graph on the left shows the pitching of the boat (that’s how much the bow bounces up and down) this is one of the worst days ever. The graph on the right depicts the rolling. While the rolling was not fun, this was without the stabilizers deployed.

Oh well, you can’t live forever and for millions species of things, they would be quite happy to live two days. My new paint job should feel itself lucky.

Day 3 Arklow to Dunloagharie (just south of Dublin)

A relatively easy, short day, but I had to see the customs guy from Waterford. He was scheduled to be on the Custaim boat for the next 8 days leaving from this port, Dunloagharie (just south of Dublin) so I had decided to make his job and therefore my paperwork as easy as possible. We had arranged to meet him the afternoon after we had arrived. Peter (seems like half the people in Ireland are named after my brother, so it makes it easier to remember their names), on time and meticulous as ever, I had the forms I needed checked, signed and embossed. No European bureaucracy can resist the raised imprint of the embossed seal. Does matter what it says, it’s only important that you have it. Just watch Game of Thrones and it all becomes clear. (though with a bit less killing, maiming and torture that is depicted in the GOT).

Day 4 & 5 Ireland to Northern Ireland

Where did this guy come from? Blackie, whose name suddenly changed after two years to Gigi. We never discovered who Gigi was named after.

Last year I vowed to never go out into head seas or contrary winds.

That determination lasted until Day 4 this year. Am I proud of it? No, I was as sick as a dog. A really sick dog.

I took my medicine. I felt good enough to function. Winds were right on our nose, up and down, first you are looking at the sky, then the bottom of the sea. We even got some spray on the pilot house windows. With a strong 4 knot current running with us to the northeast, but with strong winds from the northeast at 18 gusting to 25, it produced high, 8 feet, steep waves. The steepness of the waves produced all the spray on Dauntless.

Brian volunteered to take the 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. watch and I relieved him at 2. Having a few hours’ sleep helped, but up and down every 7 seconds was miserable.

Brian was back before 6 a.m. and at that time, I had decided to head due west to a cove that may provide us some protection from the wind and seas. About 7 a.m., I left him, but added that if conditions changed, we could continue to head north to Northern Ireland.

Eating in my bed in the forward cabin. I luxuriated in not having to do anything but hold on as we bounced up and down. My toes held the wall, while my arm under my head touched the opposite wall. I felt so good with every up and down. The Krogen handled it so well. And being in bed, half sleeping, I felt fine. No longer sea sick, by body enjoyed the roller coaster ride.

That’s the tings about our 42 foot Kadey Krogen. It always feels secure. No matter how bad the conditions, while it may feel like another ride on the “wild mouse it still feels secure, like we are on rails.

Soon after I went to bed, I could tell that the seas and winds had changed somewhat. In my sleepy state, I thought about getting up and telling Brian to just keep going north as originally planned. But I also knew that I had told Brian to “act accordingly” depending on conditions. After a few hours of sleep, as the conditions stayed moderate, I thought I should just stay in bed until Brian got us to Scotland. He was doing fine, or better yet, he didn’t mind the ride in the pilot house and I was happy in my bed. What’s to complain about?

I finally did get out of bed and that afternoon we headed into Glenarm, on the northern coast of Northern Ireland.

The next day would find us under the high pressure that gave us fair skies and light winds, finally, easing our way into Scotland.

Tomorrow, Scots and Scotland

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