The Crew

 
Captain David Bock is a retired dentist from Connecticut.  Lowie Bock was a collage artist and interior designer who spoke frequently at Trawler Fests on interior design and space utilization for trawler style boats.  We previously owned a coastal cruiser style trawler and for 10 years traveled between the Chesapeake Bay, Southern Florida, and the Bahamas.  Lowie lived full time on the previous Salty Dawg while David commuted from Connecticut prior to his retirement.

 We share our living accommodations with Danforth (Dannie), our Golden Doodles featured on the home page photo. Danforth will be our ANCHOR as we proceed around the World.

 Ocean passage making and travel to distant lands on our own vessel has been our goal for many years. We previously traveled on our own airplane at 200 knots. We are now adjusting to a more leisurely pace at 7 knots.

 We outfitted our Nordhavn 55/4--Salty Dawg as an expedition trawler with redundant support systems and fuel, water, and food capacities for extended travel anywhere in the world. The extensive navigation and communications systems compliment the long-range capabilities of this ship.

 Dave, Lowie and the Salty Dawgs living the life!

 Mates and friends, Dennis and Esther Bruckel, have known Dave and Lowie for about 6 years, meeting at many Trawler Fest events where the Bruckels worked for several years. Dennis and Esther  have been cruising their pocket trawler “Sadie B”, an Albin 27, for 12 years, and have put over 7,000 hours on the engine and logged more than 40,000 miles of coastal and inland cruising. Their blue water experience includes crewing on a 38’ sailboat from Colon, Panama, to Papeete, Tahiti in 1996.  Dennis crewed a new Nordhavn 57 from Dana Point, CA to Miami, FL in 2004.

 Dennis is retired from a career as a nurseryman in northern Vermont. Esther was in  banking when she decided to change suits and heels for jeans and boots to work with Dennis in the nursery. They have been retired since 1998, when they sold their business and moved to Kissimmee, FL.

 They worked for Trawler Fest for five years.  Recently, Dennis has been Regional Editor for Waterway Guide  for the inland area of the Northeast. Beyond boating interests, both play tennis regularly and Dennis teaches tennis as well as strings racquets when not boating. Esther is an avid quilter and a yoga instructor.  

Dennis and Esther Bruckel

Their website at www.debruckel.com documents their retirement travels.  Dennis was very helpful in developing this talkspot blog with Dave's encouragement. Dennis also wants to thank Jeff Goldmacher of Kissimmee,FL for his guidance in technical aspects of the site layout and design.