Debi and Jack sailing on SV Iroquois

Vessel Name: Iroquois
Vessel Make/Model: Ohlson38
Crew: Jack Markin, Debi Dennis
Social:
21 July 2019 | Belfast Maine
12 July 2019 | Pulpit Harbor, North Haven, Maine
27 July 2018 | Lincolnville Maine
05 July 2018 | Boothbay Harbor Maine
17 June 2018 | Falmouth Foreside, Maine
14 June 2018 | Portland Maine
12 June 2018 | Portsmouth New Hampshire
10 June 2018 | Jamestown CT
07 June 2018 | New Haven CT
30 May 2018 | Port Washington New York
27 May 2018 | Brooklyn New York
25 May 2018 | Atlantic City, New Jersey
24 May 2018 | Cape May NJ
23 May 2018 | Worton Creek
21 May 2018 | Annapolis Maryland
16 May 2018 | Solomons Island Maryland
13 May 2018 | Deltaville Virginia
11 May 2018 | Cape Charles Virginia
09 May 2018 | Hampton Virginia
06 May 2018 | Hampton Virginia
Recent Blog Posts
21 July 2019 | Belfast Maine

Belfast Maine

After Pulpit Harbor we stopped at Warren Island state park for a night before checking into Belfast. Nate came by in his little boat and took us up river which was way cool. We passed some houseboats, one of which was covered in plants. He even had peas growing up the stanchions  and lifelines.

12 July 2019 | Pulpit Harbor, North Haven, Maine

Pulpit Harbor

Iroquois is afloat again! We launched Wednesday in Rockport where we stayed all day readying and organizing. We had a nice get together and dinner in Camden with our Rockport friends then yesterday we did a shakedown sail to Pulpit Bay on North Haven. There was a light wind, 8-15 kts, so we put up the [...]

27 July 2018 | Lincolnville Maine

2018 The End

Iroquois is getting the full spa treatment. Every locker, cubby, lazarette, bilge emptied and cleaned. Varnish in and out. Metal cleaned. Winches serviced. Sails washed and repaired. The engine is serviced and winterized. Even the fuel is polished! The boat is going to enjoy a well-deserved rest in a [...]

05 July 2018 | Boothbay Harbor Maine

Boothbay Harbor

Our apologies for the lack of recent posts. We hung around Portland and Handy Boat -- visiting with family and friends and trying to adjust to a more land-based existence. Lily and Anthony came up for a Saturday dinner (oysters and lobster) aboard then sailed to our mooring at Handy Boat. The next weekend Zach and Maura came and we did the same thing. It was a pleasure to have Zach aboard for the first time. Thank you Maura! Hopefully it was enough fun they will want to come again. This past weekend the Garbers came and we did some sailing around Casco Bay. Lily was a good helmsman. She and Hubbard shared the duties. There wasn't much wind, but also no accidents. We had some great food in Portland, including two excellent meals at Fore Street, which did not disappoint. In between all the family visits we caught up with Stephanie and Brian on Detour. We met them on the OCC Norway Rally in 2016. They crossed over the next winter and spent last summer in Maine. They are just getting ready to take off on their next adventure as we wrap ours up. Hopefully they will have an excellent trip wherever the winds blow them. Handy Boat was very welcoming to us. It was fun to come back and see everyone who took such good care of us before our first Atlantic crossing. We also took in a concert by the  Frank Vignola Hot Jazz Trio, which was really good and a nice break in routine. Yesterday we motor sailed and motored to Boothbay Harbor. We will stay here a few days and visit with John and Ann who live here. We met in the Bahamas when Ann greeted us with a freshly baked loaf of bread. We were hungry and tired after a six day passage from St Thomas and her bread is amazing. It's hard to repay something like that. Anyway, this is our last hurrah for the season. Saturday we'll stop in Rockland. Sunday we move to Rockport and prepare to get hauled out Monday morning. Then we'll start work on the long list of deferred maintenance and repairs. We plan to be home in Wisconsin by August.

17 June 2018 | Falmouth Foreside, Maine

The Atlantic Circle is Complete

We have completed the Atlantic circle. Today we sailed from Portland to Handy Boat in Falmouth Foreside with Lily and Anthony. Almost exactly three years ago we left here on a transatlantic adventure. It's hard to imagine and even to remember all the places we've seen and all the people we've met. We [...]

14 June 2018 | Portland Maine

BacK in Maine

Jack woke me at 4:20 this morning, claiming that it was light, and we left Portsmouth harbor a little while after along with a fishing boat. It started as a slow day of dodging lobster pots. Every time I get annoyed by them I try to think about how delicious lobster is. There are so many of them, either there are a lot of lobsters or there will soon be none. Somewhere between Portsmouth and Portland we heard a sound we haven't heard for a very long time, it was the call of a loon which brought smiles to our faces. The wind did pick up and it turned into a nice sail all the way to Portland Maine. This is only the second place we've been in four years that we have actually been to before. We also stopped twice in Bergen Norway.  Anyway, we have certainly seen a lot of new places and the end of the journey is a little sad. Luckily Jack bought an oyster knife and we are docked near the fish market so we can treat ourselves and enjoy the moment.

Beyond the crease

06 July 2015 | 47 18.451'N:031 56.82'W,
Our boat really likes a nice reach and so do I. It's a nice comfortable point of sail, relatively level and generally smooth motion. I guess all boats are like that. I don't know if all boats are as uncomfortable as ours heading downwind. The rocking and rolling is super annoying to both me and Jack and makes it difficult to do anything but survive. That explains the short posts for the past two days. You can expect more short or no posts after today for a while. We're expecting another three day blow and may end up running downwind again. We are beyond the crease though. Just enough to turn the chart over and see where we want to go instead of where we came from. I really haven't had the capacity to think much about the rest of this trip. I spent a lot of time and energy thinking and planning about getting ready and getting started, a tiny bit on the actual passage, but almost none on the destination or what it will be like. I am getting nervous that we will not get to Scotland before Pat and Mike. I hope we can make some good progress in the next few days. Debi says that I should have known that a North Atlantic passage would just be one low followed by another by another with no real pleasant sailing in between. But even if I did know I really didn't understand, which is shocking considering the amount of research I did. I guess one hears what they want to. Something to watch out for in the future. So even if uncomfortable, the boat actually did pretty well downwind under storm jib with winds between 20 and 45 true for more than 48 hours. It does still round up a little more than I'd like in the gusts. Not sure what to do about that. Our co-workers gave us a book of travel writing. Here's my take on it after reading the introduction. Sailing the ocean in a small boat is an act of faith. It's not blind faith. We are informed. But even informed should be qualified. Like I said before, you hear what you want to. And reading about it, no matter how many books, and watching youtube videos is really not the same as doing it. It's re ally not the inexperience of actual sailing, although more experience would certainly be better on the whole we've been doing ok. It's just the physical act of doing it day after day after day. A small boat is like an island. It's got that fixed horizon thing. But it's an island that moves, sort of, generally, in the direction you want. There are some places you can't go. Some directions are too uncomfortable to go, a50 nd then the direction that you want to/can go. The other thing about it being an island is its finite resources. I think something like this should probably be a prerequisite for any nationally elected representative. Maybe it would give them a better perspective about thinking of things in terms of reality. We get grib weather data, which is really good at giving one a general idea of what's coming, but the truth of the matter is it doesn't matter what the data says might come. It just really matters what is happening right now, even though it's nice to try and plan, and sometimes helpful.A lot of the reading that we did was written in the 50s through 80s. One aspect of cruising it didn't include was this sort of jagged conversation we get to have with people through this blog. It makes it quite different from the completely cutoff cruising of yesteryear. We really enjoy reading your comments and really look forward to being with you sometime in the future. I'm looking forward to connecting with the Ohlson people in Europe. Right now everything is shades of blue green and blue grey, the water, the sky and to some extent our mood.
Comments
Iroquois's Photos - Main
4 Photos
Created 11 May 2016
1 Photo
Created 4 August 2015
4 Photos
Created 1 August 2015
6 Photos
Created 1 August 2015
No Photos
Created 7 June 2015
8 Photos
Created 7 May 2015

About & Links