The day after returning from Berlin, we made a ten-day trip to Seattle for James to attend some work meetings. While there, we picked up our mail, caught the last day of the Seattle Boat Show, met up with old friends and handled several medical appointments. And Spitfire enjoyed some time at “the resort” of Het Catshuys.
Below are trip highlights from January 31st through February 9th, 2020. Click any image for a larger view, or click the position to view the location on a map. And a live map of our current route and most recent log entries always is available at mvdirona.com/maps.
1/31/2020
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Marc Onetto
Position: 47°36.55’N, -122°20.24’W
A wonderful evening at Wild Ginger with Marc Onetto. We last saw Marc in Stockholm and had a great time catching up and sharing stories of our travels.
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2/1/2020
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Seattle Boat Show
Position: 47°35.69’N, -122°19.88’W
We were in town a little later this year than last, and caught the final day of the Seattle Boat Show.
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Seized Transmission
Position: 47°35.69’N, -122°19.88’W
Seized transmission on display in the Harbor Marine booth at the Seattle Boat Show. The transmission ran out of oil and somehow managed to run long enough to melt the gears together.
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Life Proof Boats
Position: 47°35.69’N, -122°19.88’W
Beautiful aluminum Life Proof Boat on display at the Seattle Boat Show. The company was started by the founder of Safe Boats and focuses on taking similar technology to the recreational boat market.
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Pure Watercraft
Position: 47°35.69’N, -122°19.88’W
Pure Watercraft joined forces with Highfield to produce a high-end all-electric tender. This one has a range of 100 miles at 5mph and 11 miles at the top speed of 28 mph.
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Thermal Imaging Camera
Position: 47°35.69’N, -122°19.88’W
Another entrant to the broadening forward-looking infrared camera market.
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Ben Bettelli
Position: 47°35.69’N, -122°19.88’W
Ben Bettelli, Northwest Regional Sales Manager of Coast Marine Marketing. Ben represents many companies in the Pacific Northwest, including Dockmate, Global Ocean Security Technologies, Icom, Intellian, Koden, Maretron, SI-TEX, and Xantrex. Over the years he’s helped us several times.
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Alex Polmans
Position: 47°35.69’N, -122°19.88’W
Alex Polmans, one of the engineers at Maretron, and primary author of their excellent N2KView product.
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Efoy
Position: 47°35.69’N, -122°19.88’W
Efoy brought an alcohol-based fuel-cell system to the Seattle Boat Show. This fuel-cell system essentially converts methanol to power. It’s fairly low capacity, but might be a nice solution to keeping a battery topped up on a moored boat.
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Kevin & Arlene
Position: 47°36.64’N, -122°20.88’W
Dinner at Anthony’s Pier 66 with Kevin and Arlene Hickman. James, Jennifer and Kevin all met in 1982 while starting the Computer Science degree program at the University of Victoria and later all worked at the IBM software lab in Toronto. Kevin and Arlene live in Vancouver and we’ve not seen them since we left Seattle in 2012. It was great to see them again and we had a super-fun evening catching up.
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2/2/2020
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McDonald’s
Position: 47°36.64’N, -122°20.31’W
Not-so-welcoming signs in McDonald’s at 3rd and Pine in Seattle, at the corner where a recent gang shooting occurred. Seattle is getting to be a bit scary these days.
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2/3/2020
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Packages
Position: 52°23.05’N, 4°53.65’E
At the UPS store in downtown Seattle to pickup our packages. We don’t have quite as much as normal, but do have a few large items, including a Karcher Power Washer, barely visible at the bottom of the stack of boxes.
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Luggage
Position: 52°23.05’N, 4°53.66’E
All the gear from our mailbox packed into suitcases. The small case is a carry-on that contains valuables and other items that cannot go in checked luggage and the rest we’ll check through. Over the years, we’ve standardized our bags to four L.L. Bean extra-large rolling duffles. We find these to be of medium-durability, but fairly low-priced, and overall are good price-performers. The bags are lightweight, stow compactly, and can carry a lot of gear, particularly larger items—the complete box containing the Karcher Power Washer is in the bag on the left. The suitcases are much preferable to checking anything in exposed cardboard boxes, as the contents are more secure and airlines often deliver cardboard boxes in checked luggage to a separate pickup location.
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2/5/2020
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Het Catshuys
Position: 52°18.39’N, 5°36.12’E
Spitfire enjoying the view from his private room at Het Catshuys while we’re travelling.
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2/8/2020
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Heading Home
Position: 52°23.05’N, 4°53.66’E
Checking out of our hotel in Seattle on our way back to Amsterdam. We ended up with one cardboard box to bring back, containing a rug that was too long to fit in our luggage.
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2/9/2020
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Home Again
Position: 52°23.05’N, 4°53.66’E
Back at home on Dirona in Amsterdam with all our luggage. We had a direct flight from Seattle and everything came through the main luggage carousel, including the cardboard box with our rug.
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Click the travel log icon on the left to see these locations on a map, with the complete log of our cruise.
On the map page, clicking on a camera or text icon will display a picture and/or log entry for that location, and clicking on the smaller icons along the route will display latitude, longitude and other navigation data for that location. And a live map of our current route and most recent log entries always is available at mvdirona.com/maps. |
I can’t imagine how long a direct flight from Seattle to Amsterdam takes. As a tall, big guy I decided a while ago that long flights in coach are intolerable, so I fly business or first now even though at times the price seems nuts. Being crammed next to a stranger for 12 hours is tough.
How do you resist accumulating mementos/art/keepsakes from your travels? I know the space aboard Dirona is limited, but you must have come across some wonderful art or items during your voyages.
How do you deal with family stuff? My wife and I strive mightily to discard flotsam and jetsam handed down through generations, but the core mass of “we can’t throw that out” stuff is way too much to stash on a boat like Dirona. I admire your ability to minimize memorabilia.
We accumulate pictures.Lots and lots of pictures.The last time I checked, there were 190,000 of them. Living on a boat means we can’t have large numbers of physical objects so we go digital and keep everything but keep it digitally.