Lesson about life in Häggvik - Part 1 (and why tunnbröd became so important to us)

Next stop Häggvik, one of the most exciting harbors! There was a quite special situation with us. The captain had to return to Oulu for his non-nautical duties for few days and me and the first mate had decided to stay at Höga Kusten, to take care of the vessel, and to rest. The first mate had big plans for those days, about the mountains she would climb on and about small excursions, like one to Högbonden, she would do while I would sleep in my normal daily land routine between 10 am to 6 pm.  

However, you may make plans and have high expectations but they may not get realized as thought. 

Early Sunday morning the captain had a taxi to pick him to the railway station in Kramfors. Some time later I retreated to my nap and the first mate borrowed a bike at marina to ride to Nordingrå for groceries. She made the shopping and wanted to ride the bike further in the town for sightseeing. When she drove up to the church hill she was so impressed about the lovely view to the lake that when she stopped she forgot this was not her own bike but a different bike with different seat hight. She put her right feed on ground that her foot could not reach and she fell down with the bike.  The ankle swoll immediately and it hurt, really hurt. 

That moment was one of those moments that are short but feel like minutes - the pain made her worrying if it was serious damage to her ankle who would she take are of me and the boat, if she would need to go to hospital, how could she manage alone... Then from somewhere appeared a friendly lady who helped the first mate from the ground, instructed the needed first aid, and walked her to the local tourist office. The lady at the tourist office offered the first mate bag of frozen tunnbröd, type of local bread, that was used to cool the hurt ankle. The first mate believes that this was critical to get the ankle to heal fast. This was not all, the tourist office's lady closed the office to drive the first mate back to marina to the vessel. She also took care of the bike from the marina. 

We are very very thankful for the help of both the friendly lady who helped the first mate at the church parking lot and the friendly tourist office lady who returned my hurt crew member back to the vessel!   

(We do not have pictures of this incident, so some pics about arriving at and at Häggvik quest marina.)

Where it all started

This is final stop on our summer adventure of year 2013. After five weeks of adventures we were back to our starting point in Mustakari marina in Kokkola. 

I had to release all the excitement and energy I had collected during the two days on trains and one night in a ship. I explored the beach vegetation and checked out the beautiful wooden boats that all had returned home for approaching fall. Mustakari has its lovely view to the open sea. This view, the view with a very strong symbolism of freedom and being a gate to the world of adventures without limits, we had looked at every day we spent in the marina preparing the vessel. Now the look over the vista made us a bit sad and in a way a little bit proud - we had to leave the sea adventures for a full winter of life on land but still the vessel is now in Kalmar that means we had achieved our target we had dreamed about. And also there was sense of a new start waiting us in upcoming Spring in the new seas.  

After this I had the most restful Kokkola-Oulu ride I ever had; after the long outing in Mustakari I just fell asleep in my car travel compartment and woke up in my lair on land well rested. 

PS It is worth of mentioning that the crew's state was opposite to mine. They were exhausted on all the planning, predicting and execution the sailing required. Exhausted but still super happy. The cognitive load of the journey was high for them; new routes, new harbors, new towns and cities, all the time finer and finer experiences and views. Oh, that can be loading for a crew that spends their winters on land in land routines. But I still need to say that after this demanding sailing of 700 nautical miles they have been remarkably more happy and more creative. This makes me think that suitable amounts of positively demanding activity is good for a human. Stretch yourselves, have your crews to stretch themselves! Fortunately I, as a chief of a vessel has to have, own more advanced mental and physical capacities and can handle changing levels of streams of new experices and places calmly ;-)  

Uncaged and energized.

Mustakari boats have returned from their Summer sailings.

This is where is all started, the view to the freedom and the world of seas.

Enter Sandhamn

Sandhamn is a very large, busy and famous guest harbor. The famous sailing competition Gotland Runt   has its ending point (unconfirmed fact so far) in this marina. Also there a lot of visitors and summer residents alike on this island in the remote end of Stockholm archipelago so plenty of  small ferries are coming and going. There was a lot of activity but this time I did not want to stay on deck much and entertain myself with all this - this was due to wind direction that caused too much movement to my taste to the vessel when connected to the pontoon. Also, we speculated that maybe the deep water, almost 20 m, under the pontoons caused some wave formation that contributed to the lively mooring experience? Well, the guide books in our use had informed us beforehand on this wind direction that has its effect.

Here we met for first time the fixed mooring line. This is of course an indication that we have not sailed in the south too much yet. A fixed mooring line is connected in the other end to pier and in the other end to metal chain in the bottom of the sea. You pick the end in the pier and then work trough the line until you reach the other end. Then you tie it to your vessel and you are done. Of course the lines in the bow are recommended as with case of anchor and buoy ;-) To our surprise we learned from the marina staff that necessarily the closest line is not used but a rope seemingly meant to the other spot on the pier could be used meaning that the lines may cross under the boats. This requires some contemplation...

So I used my day in Sandhamn mostly for resting in the vessel but the crew was busier. This marina offers excellent and plentiful options for feeding your crew. You know, take them to interesting places and feed them well. This makes them happy and when they are happy they play a lot with me and pay a lot of attention. So simple art is the crew management! I will later give my crew feeding tips and return to the crew excursion to the lovely Trouville beach. The crew met their first ever medusa there - to my relief the medusas in Baltic sea would not be harmful for them. However this is still unconfirmed so I need to study this more to avoid unwanted stops to sailing due to potential medusa damage on crew...

Next stop Nynäshamn. We had too little time to spend in this archipelago... And still so many lovely places to visit and good sailing to be done!

The fixed mooring line, coming and going to the water.

I hope the first mate behaved, the cute dog...

Career planning

A siberian cat reaches her maturity at age of four years. This year I have my second birthday so I have started to think about my career as a seacat. I definitely enjoy this job. The only con is that it is a seasonal job. Of course there is the planning and preparation but I have learned appreciate the execution  in the vessel more and more after the long Winter.  As we met some nice international sailors I got a idea about becoming an international seacat. Not an bad idea at all. I have some contemplation to do!

My thoughts on work, Part 5/5 Closing

Fifth, closing. Reflect your experience - how you performed, what are happy about in the set, what shall you improve next time, any new ideas you might have gotten from this set to try next time. Inform your crew or team mates that you are done. And most importantly, enjoy your achievement! My personal preference is to retrieve onto my favorite window sill to relax, with open mind for any nice birds that may appear to entertain me. Or I may go mono-railing on the sofa.

Closing. Monorailing.

My thoughts on work, Part 4/5 Monitoring&Controlling

Fourth, monitoring & control. This is the phase which differentiates a true pro from beginners - you can fast adapt to the the changing situations in the set itself or the environment, collect all the relevant data for decision making and change the plan if needed, still executing smoothly.

Concurrently with the execution you monitor your performance and adjust and immediately if needed. Receive continuously data on the environmental factors, detect any anomalies and analyze if they require actions, adjustments to your plan. And of course keep polling the priority one interrupts from ornithological aspect - working on the play track is not an excuse to miss any important real life bird sightings. In the pics you can see how superfast I change my position and continue from that without disruptions in the ball movement.

In the last part of the production I tell you how to conclude the set on the playtrack, that is Part 5/5 Closing.

My thoughts on work, Part 3/5 Execution

Third, executing. You have prepared yourself and you have the plan. Time to serious business! Relax your body and concentrate your attention to the limb you use for the ball management. I like to lay on my back and relax my back body totally and just use left, right or both hands depending on the situation to manage the ball. Be in the moment, carpe diem! I totally concentrate and focus on the ball. It is the only thing my senses are detecting. Well, of course I have sophisticated cognitive systems so I can handle some other processes too like monitoring and controlling I explain in the next part.

Execution. Prepare to hit the ball.

Execution. Score!

My thoughts on work, Part 2/5 Planning

Second, planning. Analyze your selected position on the track: The curve of the track, the size of the openings, your position's relation with the openings and total length of the play track. Consider all the environmental factors like lighting, voice scene, temperature, possible disruptions. For example if your crew is present at the location, check their current activity level (sleep, standing by or active on a task) or probability of receiving a high priority interrupt by a bird observation in a window in your sight. With all this data create your plan. Again, discuss the plan with your team mates if you have such and consider their inputs. 

Planning. Define the openings' relational position.

Planning. Measure the openings' length

Next part in the series is Execution.

My thoughts on work, Part 1/5 Initiation

I am now ready to publish my first production on Feline Philosophy. In this series I would  like to provide you with insights on work. As a case I use my rather typical task, working on a playtrack. I got my playtrack delivered to my lair on land in May so I am not an expert yet but I feel that I have now enough experience to discuss the basics. In case you are not a practitioner I explain the idea of the playtrack: it is a curvaceous track that is covered by see-trough cover with long openings to it. There is a ball in the groove and the purpose is to play with the ball through the openings.

To summarize, there are two approaches to a set on the playtrack:

1. Aggressive approach with lot of movement, noise and show-off but less accuracy (recommendable at 4.30 am when waking up with all the energy and the crew sleeps and sleeps)
2. Elegant approach with little movement but diamond hard concentration with exact results

In this series I concentrate the second one, and describe five phases that I have identified to be necessary in a successful set of playtracking. Today I start with the first phase, initiation, and then one at the time I post rest four of them. I hope you enjoy about this production!

o o o o o 

First, initiation. Select a good position on the playtrack. Ground yourself by relaxing your body, paying attention to the breathing and focusing your mind. Think about what kind of set you would like to perform today: Duration, any specific ideas you would like to try, other key requirements you may have in mind. If you belong to a gregarious species, like my crew does, you should consult your with team mates about the requirements. If you are an individual hunter/sailor like me, you just consult with yourself.

Initiation. Position yourself.

Initiation. See the concentration in my eyes.

Next part is planning. Talk to you about that in couple of days!

Blogging plans after Summer vacation 2012 finale

Sammakkalahti was the finale issue in my summer vacation production and its time for new plans, for upcoming summer and the blogging before it.

So I would like to share my posting plans with you.

To prepare for the new season its important to exercise both body and mind, for me and the crew. What would be the better way the motivate the crew than showing example! I exercise a lot in my lair on land, now I just have to train my crew to take pics on athletic action so that I can share those with you. Also mental training is important, meditation and some philosophical thinking - you can expect to see some feline philosophy during the winter.

In November and December the First mate arranges a lot of Xmas fuss in my lair on land. She probably will pursue me to publish some Xmas themed photos. To keep her happy I will but I look after that the attributes "cat" and/or "sea" can be connected to them. The attribute "cat" I can easily arrange ;-)

When the Spring starts to get closer it will be time for dreams of the new season's adventures. And the preparation - there is plenty of maintenance on the vessel to make it ready to venture.

And, of course, memories from the Season 2012 will be on agenda - as the days get shorter and shorter here near Arctic Circle the sunny summer day memories at sea are treasured.