The Joy of Planning

The other day I realized how much planning we do on the boat, and how important it is to get planning right.  I thought it might help others, especially people new to live-aboard boating, if I shared how we go about it.  

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The only boats we’d owned before our Nordhavn were day boats.  With those, we’d never had to plan before — just look up at the sky and away we’d go for a short ride.  So when we became live-aboards, the need to plan was totally new.  Being that my dad and I can be somewhat impatient, the whole idea seemed boring to us.  After all, there's no "action" in planning.  

But now, 2-1/2 years later, we’ve come to value it and enjoy the process.  We see it as a fun challenge.  We've learned that the satisfaction of planning well is much like designing and assembling a machine.  Get it right, and then sit back and watch it work.  

So what does planning involve?  Well, there’s a lot more to it than you might think.  There’s also quite a difference between planning for small water like the Intra-coastal (ICW) and planning for big water like the Atlantic.  

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Routing

We like to plot our route at least a day in advance.  Sometimes we even plot several days’ routes in advance, or even farther ahead than that.  Why?  We’ve learned that it reduces anxiety when we have the time to think ahead about where we intend to go and what it will take to do.  And sometimes, as you'll read a little below, complex routes require especially detailed pre-planning. 

Occasionally, we plot a few different courses to get to the same destination.  If there is a "weather window" (light winds and waves), we might be able to get to our destination on the outside (the Atlantic).  If the weather isn't good, we can choose to stay put, if it’s really bad, or we can move the boat along the ICW.  

Getting to our destination by staying on the ICW generally takes quite a bit longer because the route can meander -- especially in Georgia -- and because there may be bridges and tides to time, and marinas with "no wake zones" to pass.  As a result, taking the ICW might mean taking two days to get to a destination we could have reached in one day by ocean.  But that’s ok.  We're never in any rush to get anywhere, and we never follow a fixed schedule.  More about that below.  

Sometimes, it’s just nice to get from A to B on the outside because it means not having to watch the depth gauge all day in "skinny water" (shallows), not having to actively steer the boat through 100 or even 150 waypoints, not having to deal with boat traffic, and not having to slow for marinas.  That said, staying on the ICW can be more interesting because there’s more variety to see. 

The above picture is from a special route we chose back in 2019:  the Erie Canal.  Wait.  Doesn't the Erie Canal have a low height restriction?  Yes, it does:  exactly 15 ft, 6 ins to get under its lowest bridge.  

So how was it possible for our Nordhavn with an air draught (height from the water) of 28 ft to fit in (or rather, under) the Erie?  Well, our 47 has a rare option:  a hinged fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) dry exhaust stack, which the original owner of our boat likely ordered to travel in height-restricted areas (like the Great Loop), or to store the boat inside a building during hurricane season.  

We carefully measured that lowering our stack could reduce our air draught to 21 ft.  And then, equally carefully, we confirmed that this lower air draught would allow us to take a route along the Erie Canal half way across upstate NewYork where we could then turn and exit into Lake Ontario via the Oswego Canal. So what is the maximum height restriction of that route?  Get ready for it... 

...21 ft 1.8 ins, giving us just... 

1.8 inches of clearance!

Talk about the need for careful route planning!

But there was way more planning required to take this route.  

• Lowering the stack meant losing the ability to use our radar, as well as losing our ability to rely on auto-helm. Why? Because both antennae are mounted to the mast and are aligned to work at a certain angle, not 90 degrees off that angle.

• It also meant disconnecting the wiring to those devices. 

• It meant disconnecting the bimini frame from the stack, and unlashing some of the bimini canvas. 

• It meant tilting each of our 4 radio antennae to about 45 degrees.  

• It meant figuring out how to channel our boat's hot, dry exhaust, given its pipe to the top of the stack needed to be disconnected.  We chose stove pipe, stove pipe fittings and 3M specialty tape for that.  By the way, we didn't have to cut our pipe.  The hinged FRP stack option comes with a midpoint flange that can be unbolted.

• It meant covering the gaping hole looking down into the engine room we would create when the stack was lowered.  One of our crew mates solved that with, believe it or not, cardboard and blue painter's tape.  A simple fix for a temporary need.  

• And lastly, it meant figuring out who had a crane big enough, and who was experienced enough to handle the lowering job on each end of the Canal. 

What about the stack itself?  Where would it rest when lowered?  We were advised to do what sailboats do when they step their masts:  have a cradle constructed.  

There our stack neatly rests on its cradle, straddling our hydraulic crane (which, of course, meant no access to our tender).  We were a little worried the cradle might not be strong enough to support the stack, but the Erie and Oswego Canals are very smooth water.

Now that we look back on all this, we are kind of surprised all this planning worked out as well as it did which, actually, was perfectly.  My dad and I take almost no credit for all this.  We were still newbies.  We were so fortunate to have an experienced friend and our training captain for crew.  

Our boat wasn't as pretty this way, but neither were the sailboats with their stepped/cradled masts, so that's ok.  

Even with our careful calculations, there sure were some nail-biter bridges to pass under on the Erie, which might or might not have looked worse to us, given we were almost always operating from the flybridge.

While we were waiting for the lock to open ahead of us, two freight trains passed over this bridge.  That didn't help with our stress.

😱

This flood control gate on the Erie Canal looked like a guillotine.  It even had a downward arrow pointing at us.  See how our brand new radar antenna was tied to stay sideways?  That wasn't our idea, but we sure appreciated it.  You can see how every inch mattered!  

Whether or not we took the Hudson/Erie/Oswego or the St. Lawrence route, going to the northern Great Lakes meant taking the Welland Canal, where we mixed up close with the big boats.  

The Welland route required its own special planning.  Revised rules would only let us transit on specific days, since they no longer allow pleasure craft to ride inside the locks with ships.  We also looked into and decided to hire a very experienced guide to assist us in transiting the Canal.  Why?  Because the Welland is a major shipping route with very specific do's and don'ts.  Our guide turned out to be very helpful and acted as a tour guide as well, teaching us the Canal's history.   

We couldn't ride in the locks with the big boats, but we encountered several of them going the other way.  Since we'd only owned our Nordhavn a few months, this felt pretty cool.  

The Welland Canal meant going under this, the Allanburg Bridge, famous for a pretty bad accident back in 2001.

The Allanburg Bridge collision.  The accident was the bridge operator's fault.  Amazingly, though the ship's bridge was completely cut off, no lives were lost.

You might be wondering...  Why on earth did we bother going through the effort and cost to lower our stack and take the Hudson River and then the Erie/Oswego Canals to the Great Lakes?  

Well, that inland route cut our travel distance by approximately 1,400 miles each way, saving us plenty of time and fuel.  And we were able to avoid the frequently cranky weather in the Cabot Straight and Gulf of St. Lawrence (which likely would have taken even more time due to weather delays).

How cranky does the mouth of the St. Lawrence get?  Here's what it is now, as I write this post.  Whenever I look at the weather up there, it's rough.

Wind.

Gusts.

Waves.

Part of the payback of having a hinged stack and choosing the Hudson River and the Erie and Oswego canals was that we were able to travel the picturesque Hudson River twice.  My dad told me about the Hudson River School of Art.  It was interesting to compare what the painters saw with what we saw. 

Our boat on the Hudson River.

"View on the Catskill - Early Morning," by Thomas Cole.  He painted this near the town of Catskill, NY and yes, we saw those beautiful low mountains in the distance when we were there.

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Since our Erie experiences, there have been countless other inside routes we've thoroughly enjoyed.  It's fun to look back over them on our screens and relive the memories.  It's also fun to look back through the thousands of photos we've taken along the way.  Each of those photos captures a special feeling.  Here are a couple of those.

We took the following two pictures this spring on the Alligator River, NC.  It felt like we were in a painting.  That's when my dad told me about Surrealism in art (Salvador Dali).

All I see in our photos that day are clouds, a few boats, lots of water, and distant shores.  Nothing like what Dali saw.  That's ok with me. 

Another route that combined still winds and beautiful scenery was on the ICW in South Carolina.

The part of the ICW between Myrtle Beach and Georgetown is considered perhaps the most beautiful stretch.  We were lucky that day to see it at its best.

So you see how serene an inside route can be?  Some people might think boating like this at 7 kts looks boring, especially if they have fast cruising boats and like to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible.  But I think its so peaceful.  

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As beautiful as the above photos are, when we do go on the Atlantic in a good weather window, it can be amazing.  

The best of all Atlantic routes is when we do a "passage," which involves boating day and night, sometimes for days.  And the best moments in those passages are at dawn.  After a long night of watching our monitors and instruments and peering through the pilothouse windows into total darkness, when first light breaks and the sun rises out of a razor sharp ocean horizon, it's magical. 

And when the Ocean lays down her head at the end of another perfect day, that's special too.

But beauty doesn't just happen at the start and finish of ocean routes.  Beauty can, and does surprise during the day too.

Mid-day, mid-way between Charleston, SC and Lake Worth, FL, the pod came to say hi.

Whenever we are on the outside, to me it feels like our Nordhavn is “happy.”  It’s like the boat is telling us “THIS is what I was made for.”

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Planning a passage on the outside requires a important detail that isn't needed with inside boating:  namely, a watch schedule.

Moving the boat day and night means ensuring the person at the helm is awake and alert to what is going on all around.  Our daylight watches are 4 hours per shift, and our night watches are 3 hours per shift.  At age 14, I am allowed to do daylight watches.  A couple weeks ago, I did my first nighttime watches.  However, my dad was awake in the pilothouse with me. 

Finishing my second ever dawn watch.  I loved this.

We never do overnight passages without a third experienced person joining us to take night watches. Even though my dad and I could probably run the boat together just fine for a 24 hour period, and even though we've met people who do solo passages lasting that long and even longer, we were told by a very experienced captain that running the boat while tired might be ok when things are going well, but can be far from ok if something goes wrong.  And, of course, a fuzzy head can make something go wrong.  This sounded like good advice, so we continue to follow it.

There's one other thing I'd like to say about our planning for the Ocean.  When we are going on the Atlantic, we plan for emergency situations we don't have to plan for when land is nearby.  This is why we carry what is called a "ditch bag" -- a pre-packed floating bag with a spare VHF radio, a medical kit, a laser light, bottled water, whistles, handheld flares, a flare gun, and a few other safety-related items in case we have to abandon ship suddenly.  We also stock on the boat spare VHF radios, rocket flares, parachute flares, smoke flares and many other items.  We ensure we have our offshore life jackets within arms' reach.  Our tender is never fastened to the top deck (meaning, it can float free in the event of a sinking), and our self inflating life raft is certified up to date and has a hydrostatic release (meaning it will self-inflate in the water).  We follow a policy to NEVER go on deck after dark.  It is difficult to spot someone overboard on the ocean in the day.  At night it would be impossible.  That's a scary thought.  We also follow pretty rigorous engine room checks at sea, which gives us some chance to stop any issues before they become serious.  

While we love being on the outside, we respect the fact that we are much more on our own out there.  Better to plan in case of emergency than to face one totally unprepared.

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Weather

Weather is clearly the most important part of our planning.  We don’t want to venture out in bad weather, or into what could become bad weather.  So it’s important to use various sources of weather information when we plan to move the boat.

As a policy, my dad will not head out when its foggy.  He read somewhere that while fog can happen when one is out, fog is not something you go out into.  Yes, we have radar, and our gps and chart plotter help us know where we are and what big things are around us.  But smaller things can hide in fog.  Things like crab pots, fishing nets, sailboats with a small radar signature and other small boats.  And while we might do our best to slow down, watch carefully, and listen when there’s fog, other boats around us might not be as cautious.  Even in wide open water, fog has a way of making your imagination run wild.  What did I just hear our there?  Is that something looming dead ahead of us?  

Yes, we’ve navigated in fog before.  It happened once when we had our training captain aboard.  And it happened a couple of times when fog came out of nowhere or became much thicker after we’d left in light fog. So we do know how to run the boat in it.  But that hasn’t made it less worrisome to us.  So our policy remains to wait for any fog to lift and not to head out if fog is in the forecast, on the outside or the inside.  

See it?  That's a Maersk ship crossing our bow.  Those don't worry us much.  In fog, it's the small stuff that worries us.

This was kind of creepy.  Watch the Chesapeake Bay Bridge creep out of the fog.  We could see it (on radar) and we could hear its horns getting louder as we approached.  But it was still stressful to pass under, especially as we'd seen some smaller boats underway nearby. 

While we are ok heading out in rainy conditions, if the rain looks to be heavy where it could really reduce visibility, or if there’s a real chance of thunderstorms, we will stay in the marina or at anchor and await better weather.  

Heavy rain also fills our radar screen with color making it almost impossible to see real objects on it.  We do our best to watch storms like this while moored or anchored.

Other than heavy rain, I find that being nice and warm inside a Nordhavn, boating in gentle rain, can be a very peaceful thing to do.  We don’t seem to get many of those days, but I like them.   

Running peacefully from the pilothouse, in the rain.

Wind speed is a big factor in our weather planning.  On the Intra-coastal, sustained winds of 20 kts or somewhat stronger are no big deal, except in some of the sounds where there’s plenty of fetch.  Because our boat is so heavy (85,000 lbs displacement) and because it has a 7,000 lb lead keel, carries 1,500 gallons of diesel, and draughts almost 6’, the windage (how much the wind pushes her) is less of a factor in how she handles compared with most boats her size, even when docking.  We focus on the waves that the wind stirs up.  

We’ve learned from experience that sustained winds of 20 knots on the Great Lakes, the Atlantic, or the Chesapeake can gust a lot stronger and build some really unpleasant seas.  Though our Nordhavn is built to cross oceans and though we’ve never tested her abilities, my dad and I are prone to seasickness.  So if wind is strong or forecast to be strong, we’ll stick to the ICW or wait for a calmer day if our next leg is to be on the Ocean. 

This is what happened when we didn't plan correctly for wind.  We went through some uncomfortable conditions on Lake Huron.  Since freshwater waves are less dense than saltwater ones, they have shorter wave periods, making windy conditions generally choppier on the Great Lakes than the Atlantic.  The Great Lakes are so large, they are more like freshwater seas.  They can, and do, have sea-sized storms.  The worst of those was in November 7-10, 1913 where 19 ships were destroyed and 19 more were stranded.  Gusts reached 90 mph and waves 35 feet.  Many seafaring captains avoid the Great Lakes entirely in the late fall months.

And this is what happened on the Great Lakes when we did plan correctly for wind.  It's amazing to realize this is the same lake (Huron) as in the video above.

Likewise, planning correctly for wind on the Ocean offers peace of mind.

Wind direction is something we pay quite a bit of attention to as well.  While I just mentioned that a sustained wind of 20 knots on big water can build a pretty rough sea state after a few hours, that sort of wind on our nose can be especially uncomfortable.  This is because our boat, a trawler, does not have the speed to power through the waves.  Instead, she rides up and down them, which is called pitching.  If the wind is coming at us on, say, a 45 degree angle, things aren't nearly as unpleasant, as the pitching isn’t as severe, and our stabilizers can do their work reducing both pitching and roll (which is the side to side motion).  If the wind is coming directly at our stern, there’s actually very little pitching, though our boat will still corkscrew, as overtaking waves push the stern one way or the other.

Though the wind had built some pretty big waves, they were astern of us, with big intervals, which made for a very smooth day on the Ocean.

If the wind is coming from land and we are able to cruise along a few miles offshore, then 20 knots isn’t much of an issue as waves have little opportunity to build over those few miles.  But if we are on a big body of water and the wind has many miles to build seas (many hundreds of miles in the Ocean’s case), then 20 knots can build some nasty wave heights.  You can see how our route must take wind direction and nearness to land into consideration. 

We chose to wait this storm out at River Dunes before heading from Beaufort, NC to Wrightsville Beach, NC.

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Waves

Why do I have a separate section about waves when I just wrote about them above in the weather section?  Well, while wave activity is tied to weather, the tie is not always direct.  

A beautiful sunny calm day following a stormy night or a couple days of high winds can leave pretty big waves on the Atlantic and make for an unpleasant ride, especially when the leftovers are lumpy, confused seas.  

But there’s also a good side to the indirect association between weather and waves.  While winds can come up pretty quickly, waves take time to build.  Several times we’ve headed out on the Ocean, knowing winds were going to rise quite a bit in the afternoon, but also knowing we’d be safely at port before the sea state had time to get uncomfortable. 

If there’s a chance of getting seasick, which for us begins when waves are mainly on the nose around 2 to 3 ft, we will always choose to take the Intra-coastal or wait for better weather.  But when the Ocean does cooperate, and deliver one of her serene windows, it sure is peaceful boating among gentle rollers. 

It's miserable feeling seasick.  My dad and I are both prone to it.  So we do our best not to take chances with weather 

 or waves.

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Current

Two and a half years ago, because we were new to current, and because we were still trying to figure out how our big boat reacted to it, current was really stressful for us when we became live-aboards.  Even today, over 8,500 miles later, we still take current seriously.  

Remember when I mentioned how windage doesn’t affect our boat too much because there’s so much of her beneath the waterline?  Well, all that boat beneath the waterline means current plays a much bigger role in her handling.  

The worst current we’ve experienced, oddly enough, was on the Great Lakes.  Though there is no perceptible tide on the Great Lakes, the current under the Bluewater Bridge in Port Huron, Michigan, runs around 5 knots in the Spring.  That’s not tidal.  It runs like that 24/7, so there’s no timing it.  It is in fact Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron all funneling down into Lakes Erie and Ontario and, eventually, into the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence river.  That’s a lot of current to take on in a boat that cruises at around 7 knots.  Obviously, failing to keep our bow pointed dead straight into that would have spun us around quickly, and been difficult to turn back into.  We managed.  But we still talk about it. 

While this video isn't of us, it was taken under the Bluewater Bridge and shows exactly what we experienced heading north into Lake Huron.  

By the way, when we headed South under this same bridge less than 2 months later, the same current allowed us to reach a speed of 13.4 knots at wide open throttle.  That's blistering for a Nordhavn.

😀

Our worst error in planning for current was coming into Bald Head Island Marina entrance when the Cape Fear River’s current was ripping sideways at its strongest — more than 2 kts. This required us to head upriver, keeping the nose straight into the current, then quickly turn 90 degrees and throttle into the marina entrance.  Oh, did I mention the marina entrance was super narrow and lined with sharp and jagged rocks?  Well, we did it, missing the rocks by a mere few feet.  

In hindsight we made two planning mistakes that day:

1) We should have planned to enter a marina that tricky at slack tide.

2) When we saw what we were facing at Bald Head, we should have abandoned our plan to dock there, and gone to another marina or an anchorage.

Thankfully, the only pain in this stressful experience was incredible anxiety at the time.  But we would never want to try this again in the same conditions.

This is a still image from our dash cam.  See how close we came to the rocks?  And we were still trying to turn while slowing from about 4 knots over ground!  That's me, trying to get a fender over in time.

The view of the entrance looking back from inside the marina.  You can see the current ripping by.

By the way, Bald Head was a great place to stay with beautiful beaches to walk and incredible sunrises.  We don’t want to discourage anyone from going there, just because we made a mistake in our planning.

One of my favorite photos.  I took it with our drone.

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Light

We prefer to run the boat in daylight.  Of course that’s not possible when we do an Ocean passage over several days and nights.  But when it’s just the two of us, which it is probably 95% of the time, we plan our days so we leave no sooner than first light and arrive no later than twilight.  There are a few exceptions.  For instance, leaving an easy marina with little current -- especially one familiar to us.  But having once arrived after dark at an unfamiliar marina in high winds with a tight, rocky entrance to navigate and lots of distracting shore lights, we realized we did not want to experience that again.  So a plan that risks arriving after dark is not acceptable to us. 

Georgetown, SC.  Departing before sun up is one of our favorite things to do. Yes, it can be chilly.  But starting the day so early makes for a fuller day and adds to the feeling of adventure.

One thing we’ve learned about daylight is that a plan that could work in May, might not work in December what with the shorter daylight hours.  We really do appreciate the longer days of late spring because they give us much more flexibility to travel longer distances.  I believe our record is around 115 miles in a day.  That might not seem far to a Tiara or a Sabre which cruise at over 20+ knots.  But in Nordhavn, that’s a full day.

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Reservations

Of course, staying at an anchorage means we don’t need reservations.  But one thing we’ve come to appreciate, especially in these times when cruising is very popular, is the importance of planning ahead for marina stops.  

When we first became live-aboards, many times we’d call a marina mid-day to reserve a slip that same night.  But now, we plan and reserve farther ahead — sometimes weeks ahead — due to the increased number of boats on the water.  Two great examples of this are Coinjock Marina in Coinjock, NC and Charleston City Marina in Charleston, SC.  We had the foresight to reserve ahead at both these marinas this fall.  While there, we heard many boats on our VHF trying to get slips only to learn there were none available.  The awful thought of passing by Coinjock without the ability to stop and have one of their legendary prime rib dinners should be enough to frighten anyone into planning farther ahead! 

The aroma of Coinjock's prime rib would kill me if I had to boat past it because we didn't book a slip.  My mom joined me for that part of the trip.

Of course, plans can change.  The boat might develop a mechanical issue, or weather might affect our plans.  But we’ve learned that once we have a reservation at a marina, whenever we’ve had to call and change our reserved arrival or departure date or time, they work extra hard to accommodate us.  

For the record, we make it a policy to tip a dockhand $20 whenever they help us tie up at a marina.  (If there are two of them, they split that.)  We were shocked to learn many boaters don’t do this or if they do tip, it’s $5.  The way we see it, many of these dockhands are young and not highly paid, just like my older brother and sister.  They can use the money far better than we can afford to pay it out, even adding up all the times we do this.  We believe doing this, and asking nicely and respectfully for reservations or changes, and treating all marina people personally goes a very long way to getting us into, and back into popular marinas.

My dad tells me, almost daily, that if I treat people well, they will do almost anything to try to help me.  I know it’s one of the lessons he really wants me to practice in my life.  And I've learned that it feels good to make people we meet happy.  If you give people kindness they will give it back to you, and even if they don't, you'll still feel better about yourself.  

My dad and I are huge fans of The Honeymooners and have all the 39 episodes on board.  Ralph Cramden's comment here about treating people right, although really funny the way he puts it, is actually probably true.

It also feels nice when a marina remembers us and welcomes us back.  Certain marinas have become must-stops on our annual travels north and south.  So much so, we sometimes change our plans to suit when they can accommodate us. 

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Tide

Everyone’s heard the expression “time and tide wait for no man.”  I looked up that proverb.  It’s at least 800 years old and people aren’t exactly sure who came up with it.  But one thing we’ve learned is that it’s true when it comes to our planning.  Some days we plan to leave, and then do leave, exactly when it’s best to, whether that’s for daylight, weather, or tide reasons.

You know what else we’ve learned?  Sometimes it’s we who need to wait for time and tide.  Nowhere has this mattered more to us than on the ICW in Georgia, where tides can reach 9 ft!  The first time we navigated those waters was the first time we’ve actually had to stop the boat and figure out, twice that day, if it was even possible to continue.  Though we weren’t hard aground we had, literally, run out of water.  We picked our way through.  And we learned that a day on the ICW in Georgia in a boat that draws almost 6’ means planning to reach the skinniest waters as close as possible to high tide.  Sometimes that gets tricky because there are two or three spots like that spaced a few hours apart between them.  That requires planning to reach all of them when tide is certainly not near its low.  When we came back through this area the next time, we did a far better job planing for the tide and never even had to slow there was so much water.  It’s amazing how much better 9.0 ft feels under the keel than 0.0 ft.

Check out how low this day marker is in Georgia at high tide.  The first time we were here, our boat was touching the bottom.  

We now consider tide planning among the most satisfying things we calculate.  The rewards of getting it right are days with far less anxiety, and the ability to take our big boat through incredible waters most people chose to skip because of the tide challenges and the miles of winding marsh, which many would consider boring.  We've found that the 'boring" marsh is actually beautiful!

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Final Points

There are two last things I'd like to stress regarding planning.  

The first is that doing the planning itself is like a chain.  Each chain link -- route, weather, light, reservations, current, tide, or whatnot -- needs to work with the others.  Change one thing and one, more, or all the other parts might need to change.  It can be very iterative, just like repeatedly letting go, setting, and weighing anchor until it feels right.  And that's ok.  A solid plan should feel good the night before, and it should feel good the morning you leave.  Otherwise, change it until it rings true.  We've done that many times, and each time, we end up glad we did and much less stressed.

My final point is perhaps the most important.  A fixed schedule, an agenda, a time commitment or deadline -- whatever you call it -- or even the strong wish to follow one, can lead to big or maybe even deadly mistakes.  This was advice we were given by a pilot early in our Nordhavn boating experience.  In his words, "the biggest mistake a pilot can make is the decision to take off."  So never follow a schedule.  

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I hope you have enjoyed and benefitted somehow from this posting.  I promise not to let nearly as much time pass before my next one.