Helpin the Captain - Route Planning

One of the regular tasks at sea is the route planning. Both paper charts and electronic navigation is used. It is the captain's responsibility. Fortunately he is not alone with all those decisions as the first mate instructs him where the vessel shall sail and I help with the big picture, on the paper chart, literally. 

As a chief of the vessel I oversee the route planning. Looking good so far...

What happens now?

Oh no, this is not going well...

Captain, you need to pay attention! Look at what I show to you with my paw.

Here, here! We shall go here!

Daily hunting and food gathering has resumed

Today I realized that kesäloma, the Summer vacation, is now totally over. In the morning I was left alone at home (my lair on land) and my crew left for their daily activities. I am of course upset. However I can use now couple of days for relaxing. And the captain plans some sailing for the weekend.

(To inform you about the meaning of the weekend: daily hunting and food gathering is not performed but my crew's activities are random and quite often the boat is involved.)

To get over this transition I will start now a production of new set of posts: I will cover all the destinations on our vacation sailing route, and maybe even include some sailing too.

This was our route: Oulu, Oulunsalon Varjakka, Kellon Kiviniemi, Iin Röyttä,  Kuivaniemen Vatunginnokka, Kemi, Kemin Iso-Huikuri, Tornion Puotikari, Haparanda hamn, Sorttisviken i Seskarö, Huvön i Kalix, Getskär-Renskär i Kalix, Sammakkalahti i Seskarö, Kemi, Iin Röyttä, Oulu.

Anyway this evening I am going to relax... I want to share one of my recommendations for a good relaxation pose in this pic.

Cape of the Giants

I will tell you now about a recent tough mission. We arrived to a new harbor, Vatunginnokka. After the good sailing I started my watch as usual. However, this was not your usual watch session: the harbour was surrounded by giants with wildly rotating , huge heads.  I had to take the highest risk level practices in use.  

In this picture  perform check on the boat aft by listening via the crew toiled window, sitting on top of a crew toilet seat (imagine how unpleasant this was but one must stretch to perform his duty).

Here I check the cockpit. Usually I climb to top of the stairs, and perform my walkarounds on the deck frequently, but now I must limit to the very lowest of the steps. 

With most careful security procedures I captured a photo showing three of those.

And what my crew did? Well, at least one of them was with me all the time in the vessel. However, the first mate had careless attitude; she was mostly interested the excellent quest sauna facilities... 

... and photographing the flora.

Daily responsibilities

I post today few pics on one of my evening routines, checking that everything is OK on the deck and outside. This was in Kellon Kiviniemi, a very nice fishing harbor and leisure marina north of Oulu.

I took the captain with me, its good for him to get out after dinner and have him relax a bit after tough day of sailing. Here, I detect something in my perimeter that needs to be more closely analyzed. 

In situations with unknown elements one must proceed with caution... (I would like to remind my crew that ropes shall be neatly arranged and put to their designated storage area immediately after use. In other words not to be left on deck to disturb the activities.) 

The situation sounded alarming but it turned out to be voice of water movements in the aft of the boat and caused by the wind. However I still kept a watch for a while to make sure this is the case.