Longform

Indiscretion Gets a New Screen

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 • 3 min read

The crew of Indiscretion has fully embraced the Apple ecosystem. It doesn’t seem very long ago that the Mac was the underdog, but now, Macs, iPads, iPhones, Apple Watches, Apple TV's, and even the underwhelming HomePod have found their way into our lives. We use this technology in the pilothouse for music, audiobooks, our maintenance tracking system, backup navigation and our ship’s log.

Indiscretion has a Bose sound system that pipes music through zones in the salon and in the pilothouse, but it was limited to CDs or a subscription-based SiriusXM radio for music. We remedied this by installing a Bluetooth transmitter inside the media cabinet in the salon that allowed a paired iPhone or iPad to stream whatever we wanted throughout the boat or in a particular zone. This worked pretty well, but we ran into issues when the paired device moved too far away from the Bluetooth transmitter. Or, when I would watch a video on my iPad while lounging in the salon, only to have the sound came blaring out of the pilothouse speakers.

We had some empty space on the port side pilothouse dash, so we decided to replace the SiriusXM radio with a dedicated pilothouse iPad. This was the first time I made a significant modification to our electronics or dash layout. Unlike a car, the console of a Nordhavn trawler is meant to be easily customized. The dash consists of three adjoining plywood panels that can accommodate just about any layout you might want. If a complete revamp with new electronics is warranted, new dash panels can be designed online so that the cutouts for the new instruments are already in place. In the case of installing this iPad, the procedure was pretty easy.

Here’s the port side dash where the original SiriusXM radio was installed.

I measured and an iPad Mini in portrait orientation would fit perfectly in its place. I bought a nearly-new one with enough internal storage to house our entire music collection for $200 on eBay. I found a very clever 3D-printed mount with an incorporated power cord on ETSY for $40 that plugs into a 12 volt accessory plug behind the dash.

Installation was straight forward. I removed the SiriusXM radio, drilled a small hold to feed the power cable through the dash panel, and installed the mount. Here’s the dash with the finished installation:

I am happy with how this turned out. This dedicated iPad has our entire music library downloaded, so we have ample music no matter how far from internet service we stray. “Hey Siri” makes selecting music easy and fun. We have a few other music and audiobook apps for longer passages. I installed the Navionics boating app which serves as our route planner and backup chart plotter, even without internet.  All our manuals and ship’s records are accessible through the fantastic DevonThink app. I’ve even customized the iPad ’s wallpaper to provide key specifications of indiscretion when we’re hailing marinas on VHF.

[caption id="attachment_816" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Custom iPad Wallpaper[/caption]

With screens now on all three dash panels, I feel I’m one step closer to the bridge of my own private starship. Now, I just need to automate our ship’s log system to accept voice recording and transcription. And work on my best Captain Kirk impersonation. 

Fall Cruising in South Puget Sound

Thursday, November 12, 2020 • 12 min read

Fall weather in the Northwest can be pretty iffy. Rain and wind are the norm for this time of year, which took its toll on our boating time back when we sailed. Unlike my more hardcore sailor friends, the novelty of freezing my ass off in the cockpit lost its appeal some time in my mid-forties. Each year, as fall turned its gaze to winter, I would grudgingly decide to put the boat away. Off would come the cushions and bedding to avoid mildew. Three or four dehumidifiers would decorate the cabins of the darkened boat to soak up the winter moisture. Dock lines would be inspected for chafe ahead of the winter storms to come. Sadness would creep over me as I walked up the dock, perhaps for the final time of the year, already pining for spring. 

Trawler life has changed all that. We no longer hibernate. Why would we? It can be freezing outside but still toasty warm inside the pilothouse and salon. In fact, fall and winter cruising on a trawler here in the Pacific Northwest is downright amazing.

One of the great things we've discovered is how little planning or effort it takes to head out on an impromptu cruise. We keep Indiscretion’s freezer and pantry full of food. There are always cold drinks in the refrigerator. Her closets hold plenty of clothing for any kind of weather. She has plenty of fuel and water to go just about anywhere we choose. 

So, when the weather forecast predicted a week of sunshine and calm seas in late October, we didn't think twice. A quick trip to the local market for fresh produce, fruit and snacks and then straight to the boat.

We decide to spend the week visiting the southern reaches of Puget Sound instead of venturing back north to the Seattle area or the San Juans. With our home marina on Vashon Island, it's roughly the same distance to Olympia as it is to Seattle. The only south-bound constraint involves timing the trip through the Tacoma Narrows with an appropriate tide. Currents run through the Narrows at upwards of six knots, so we must wait for a flood tide when traveling south and an ebb tide on our way back north. 

Departure

Lisa and I have perfected our departure logistics. We work through our departure checklist: the forced-air hydronic heating system and navigational instruments are switched on in the pilothouse. Lisa stows the groceries and readies the cabins for sea. I visit the engine room to check oil, fuel filters, belts, and coolant levels. Lisa finagles the half-fender covering our exhaust stack with a boat hook (our low-tech way of keeping rainwater out) and pulls off the instrument covers at the flybridge helm. I fire up the main engine and energize the stabilizers. Lisa hands me the shore power cords from the dock as we talk through our departure from the slip: the wind strength, the order she'll untie dock lines, etc. The whole process from start to finish now is under 20 minutes. We make a good team.

When the engine is warm, I usually head for the flybridge, where visibility is terrific, and Lisa handles dock lines. Today is different. I untie us from the dock, and Lisa takes the helm. Before today, I'm the only one that has docked this big trawler, which is a safety concern. Should something happen to me, Lisa needs to be able to get safely back to port. I stand by, ready to offer pointers, but Lisa calmly backs the boat and spins us around like a pro. I put away dock lines and stow fenders, a job Lisa normally handles. I am huffing and puffing by the end. I hope I get my old job back. 

Heading South

We enjoy blue skies and flat blue water as we motor out of Quartermaster Bay. We catch occasional glimpses of Dall's Porpoises as we put the Tahlequah ferry terminal astern on the southern end of Vashon Island. Seals pop their heads up, watching us, like stray black labs. We ride a nice flooding current as we passed under the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, past Fox Island, and on into proper South Sound. 

The hydronic heating system has thoroughly warmed the boat by now. The system employs a diesel-fired boiler to heat a network of water tubes that run the boat's length beneath the floor. Forced air heating ducts in the salon, pilothouse, and the two sleeping cabins provide a pleasant warmth. We could heat the boat with our HVAC system, but that requires the generator and doesn't offer the same quality heat. The automatic thermostat clicks off in the pilothouse as the temperature rises to 70 degrees. Hydronic heating is a godsend for off-season boating.

We confer over our Waggoner's Guide and a nautical chart splayed on the pilothouse table and decide on Olympia as our first destination, which is at the far south end of Puget Sound.

We pass McNeil Island off to starboard as we proceed through Balch Passage. I give this island a wide berth. McNeil served exclusively as an isolated Washington state prison for more than a hundred years. In the early 1960s, Charles Manson did time here for car theft before becoming famous for his more notorious crimes. The prison closed in 2011 but now houses 214 of the most dangerous sex offenders in the state. These "residents" have served their allotted sentences in prison elsewhere but are now held indefinitely at McNeil under a controversial civil commitment statute. This is not a place you ever want to visit.

McNeil Island – not a place you ever want to visit

Rounding Harstine Island, we enter Budd Inlet. We have the water to ourselves. Throughout our five-hour journey, we see only three other pleasure craft — all trawlers. The empty water is so different from our cruise last month in the San Juan Islands. Like us when we sailed, the colder weather has chased almost everyone back to land. 

Percival Landing, Olympia

We visited Olympia earlier this year and chose Swantown Marina for our moorage. This time, we opt for Percival Landing on the western end of Budd Inlet. There are two side-tie docks for overnight moorage, but only E Dock has power and water hookups. Space is available on a first-come-first-serve basis, and other than yacht club gatherings, you can't make an advance reservation. We arrive around 2 pm on a Tuesday, a little worried that the dock might be full, but find the dock completely empty. We spin around in the narrow fairway and tie up on our starboard side. It feels like we've parallel parked our trawler on the beautiful water-facing Main Street of town.

Indiscretion all alone on E Dock at Percival Landing

The historical treasure, MV Sand Man, graces D Dock at Percival Landing

A five-hour trip is long enough for our two trawler dogs to get antsy for shore leave, so we power down the instruments, plug into shore power, and head out. Up a nearby ramp is a park for the dogs, and many restaurants and shops beckon nearby. Two blocks north is the wonderfully serene Capitol Lake with spaced out benches, runners, walkers, and lots of ducks and geese on the water to tease the dogs. We follow the path that winds around the lake for a scenic two-mile walk. 

Tied up at Percival Landing. The State Capitol building looms in the background

View from Capitol Lake

I pay for two nights of moorage at the registration office at the Olympia Center. $68 for two nights with shore power is a good deal for a 43' boat. The central location of Percival Landing is perfect for exploring the downtown area on foot. We broke out our Ninebot scooters to get around when we stayed at the more remote Swantown Marina, but we find we don't need those here. We walk a couple blocks to the famous Spar Cafe - McMenamins for dinner, passing a dozen or more restaurants on our way. We enjoy great food and safe distances between patrons at the Spar. We also have a delicous lunch on the deck at the Olympia Oyster House, which is so close you could hit with a well-thrown rock from the cockpit of Indiscretion.

During our two days at Percival Landing, a few other boats tie up, but most leave after taking on water, a few hours of free shower power, and running errands in town. 

Water like glass at Percival Landing

Our only concern during our stay is the noise and foot traffic at night. The environment changes quite a bit after dark, and we feel a little nervous walking the dogs through the park at night. 

Jarrell Cove, Harstine Island

We say farewell to Olympia after our two days and nights of exploring, but vow we will make this a regular stop on future South Sound tours. The weather gods treat us to another day of light winds and calm seas. We head north up Case Inlet, slowly making our way up the east side of Harstine Island.

An endless wake on flat seas

We arrive at Jarrell Cove on the northern end of Harstine Island after three hours of uneventful motoring. We see just one other powerboat during our trip. This bay is a popular summer destination, but we find it utterly empty of visiting boats. We wonder to ourselves, where is everyone? We tie up to one of the 14 mooring buoys that take up the middle of the bay and then notice that the state park dock has shore power. We cast off the mooring and are soon tied up to the dock, plugged into power. We're big fans of the Washington State Parks annual moorage permit, which allows you to use any state park buoy or dock at no additional cost. There is a $6 per day fee to use shore power, which we gladly pay. 

Jarrell Cove State Park

The dock leads up to a nice network of trails and campsites. The main park facility has bathrooms and an outdoor amphitheater. The grounds are as empty as the bay. 

Our night time walk with the dogs is quite a change from Olympia. A heron's grumble from the shore creeps the dogs out, and something growls at us from the underbrush along the trail. Back on the boat, we flip on our FLIR night vision camera to spot the heron (or bear!), but find only empty shore. 

We spend two lovely days at the dock. We have the place to ourselves until our second night when two smaller boats tie up for the weekend. There's still plenty of space along the 650' dock for four or five more boats, and the buoys remain vacant during our entire stay — so different than our last visit in early May when every buoy was taken, and more boats were anchored in between. 

Dock Street Marina, Tacoma

We leave Jarrell Cove early to catch the ebb tide through the Tacoma Narrows. It's pitch black at 6:45 am when I planned to leave, so we dawdle until first light at 7:30 am to depart. 

A beautiful sunrise greets us as we leave Jarrell Cove, and calm seas accompany us as we reverse our course back the way we came, through the Narrows and along the waterfront of Ruston and Tacoma. We decide to spend Halloween at Dock Street Marina near the end of the Thea Foss Waterway. We call ahead for a slip assignment and are told that there is plenty of space; pull into any vacant slip on G or H docks.

We end up taking the same slip we used on our last trip here, back when I was still learning how to dock this big boat. Fortunately, I've improved a lot as a skipper, and there is no drama as we tie up. We count just four other visiting boats in this spacious marina, with its convenient access to downtown Tacoma, the Glass Museum, and wonderful Foss Waterway Promenade. 

Lots of space available at Dock Street Marina

We spend Halloween night on the boat watching scary movies on the Salon TV. A full moon shimmers through clouds out our port salon window, adding to the movie's suspense. 

A full moon rising on Halloween night

The Marina offers a slip side pump-out system, which makes emptying the holding tank especially easy. The fee is $5, but the affable dock manager waives this if you handle the "dirty" end of the job. 

Homeward Bound

We leave Dock Street around noon on Sunday for the quick trip home to Quartermaster Marina. Once back in our slip, I spend a couple of hours cleaning up the boat and putting on her winter covers. Our week of sunshine is ending as the forecast calls for rain, rain, rain, which of course is typical for this time of year. 

Our first fall cruise of the year has been spectacular, and we're excited to take many more of these mini-cruises during the offseason. And yet, the sailor remains strong in me. I can't shake the notion that this all feels wrong somehow, like a Northerner spending Thanksgiving with family in Southern California, with its sunny weather and palm trees. It's nice, but not tradition to celebrate the holidays without rain, clouds and cold. 

Though we've owned Indiscretion for more than two years, my memory of cold weather boating is embedded in my DNA. I recall that feeling of a deep, pervasive chill at the wheel in the cockpit while the rest of the family sheltered below. It was probably a cold spell in August, which, with our even-keeled Pacific Northwest climate, can be hard to distinguish from a typical day in February. The windblown rain found purchase inside my foul weather gear, and water squished in my boots as I tended the sails. Off to port, I watched a 50-foot trawler slowly pass us by to windward. The pilothouse windows were steamed up, but I could make out the captain taking a sip of hot coffee after a friendly wave. I waved back, usually a no-no to show any kinship between a sailing vessel and stinkpot, but I appreciated his kindness in allowing me right of way under sail. I am ashamed to admit I also muttered a curse of envy and spite at that happy captain, like Ahab and his bitterness about a certain white whale.

It took many years, but it seems I've now become that happy captain who waves with kindness and heartfelt concern from a steamed up pilothouse (yes, I wave to sailboats). Perhaps it's my long history of discomfort under sail that makes me feel so grateful for it all. Curse me if you want, I whisper to myself after a sip of hot coffee, but trawler life is good.

MV Indiscretion, all cleaned up and ready for her next adventure

Charging System Upgrade

Thursday, October 22, 2020 • 7 min read

During our two decades of sailing, we held a particular disdain for powerboats and their noisy generators. On starlit nights, the chug-chug-chug of neighboring generators disturbed the quiet stillness of the anchorage. Back then, we could be smug. With the simple systems on a sailboat, we could go days and days on the hook, relying only on the small house battery bank for power. 

Times have certainly changed for this old sailor.

On Indiscretion, we operate lots of power-hungry systems. Three refrigeration systems provide ample food storage for expeditions spanning a month or more between provisioning. A watermaker, extensive interior lighting, computerized vessel monitoring, TVs and entertainment systems, electric toilets, etc. etc. all take their toll on our bank of house batteries. 

At anchor, we typically run our generator for two hours in the morning and two hours at night to keep the batteries reasonably well charged. We take our cue from a computer display that provides a state of charge reading for our four Lifeline 8D house batteries. We start the generator when the state of charge drops to 50% and run it until we reach an absorption charge state of 75%. Morning and night. 

While I love all the fantastic systems and equipment aboard our trawler, I find I've become a bit obsessive with tracking and eliminating any excess power draws to avoid draining our house bank unnecessarily. The ship's panel shows our battery voltage (a proxy for our state of charge) and amps currently being drawn. When one of the refrigeration systems cycles on, this amp reading jumps way up. If I'm in the pilothouse and happen to glance down at the amp meter during one of these times, my pulse quickens. "What's drawing all this power?" I ask myself, looking around for something left on. I have a habit of touring the boat at various points, making sure lights are off. At anchor, I am an electricity miser. 

Unlike many other powerboats we've encountered, the sound-enclosure of our Northern Lights generator, buried deep inside a well-insulated engine room, keeps the noise to a minimum. Other than a burbling from the wet exhaust, it's hard to tell it's even running from outside the boat. That makes me feel a little better when I crank up the engine inside a quiet anchorage. 

Early in our trawler ownership, I asked the owner of a prominent yacht service company here in Seattle about installing solar panels on Indiscretion's fixed flybridge cover. Harnessing the power of the sun seemed like a great idea to cut down on generator time. 

"You sailors just don't get it," he grumbled. "These expedition trawlers require a tremendous amount of electricity to operate. It's not like the simple systems of a sailboat. Solar panels wouldn't make any meaningful difference at all in your case. Don't waste your money." 

During last summer's cruising, we needed to run the generator even longer, the more days we were away from shore power. We kept track of our daily generator runtimes to assess battery performance. The logs showed that after four days at anchor, we ran the generator close to eight hours a day to keep up. This normally wouldn't be a huge issue since we have plenty of fuel aboard to run the generator, but Indiscretion was commissioned with an oversized 12KW generator that needs to be run with at least a 50% electrical load to avoid maintenance issues down the road. Running the generator just to charge batteries might work with a smaller generator, but it's a no-no with this big engine. 

When a fuse blew on our ten-year-old Xantrex inverter during an overnight cruise, we learned we had a critical dependency on this aging device. Without an inverter, many of our systems, including our refrigeration, would fail to operate unless we ran the generator or plugged into shore power. After reading up other trawler captains' experience with our inverter model, we discovered that its useful life runs about ten years. We were on borrowed time. If our inverter failed on a long trip, we would be in a pickle. 

Once home from our summer cruising, we took all this information to Mickey Smith, a marine electrical guru at Pacific Yacht Management here in Seattle. Mickey is a living legend in the Nordhavn trawler community. He knows more about the electrical makeup of these vessels than maybe anyone alive. When he visited us on board to go over our battery charging needs, he pointed out his signature on the original as-built electrical diagrams for Indiscretion we keep as reference below the pilothouse settee. We knew right away we were in good hands. 

Based on Mickey's advice, we decided an overhaul of our battery charging system was necessary. We replaced all seven of our five-year-old Lifeline AGM batteries. And even though it was still functional, we preemptively replaced our Xantrex inverter with a new Magnum MS2812 2800W inverter/charger. The Magnum control panel in the pilothouse fit beautifully where the old Xantrex one used to be. And to speed battery charging and load on our generator, we added a second battery charger — a Victron Centaur — designed to charge in parallel with the Magnum. We also reconfigured our Maretron DCM100 battery monitoring system to provide a more accurate state of charge percentage for our battery bank. With brute strength and tenacity, we replaced all the batteries ourselves, but we hired Mickey to replace the inverter and add the second charger. All told, we spent about $15,000 on the project.

The Magnum inverter is half the size of the original one, freeing up space in the crowded lazarette.

The Magnum inverter remote control panel.

The Victron charger runs in parallel with the Magnum inverter to cut down charging time.

We had a chance to test our new charging setup last month during our empty nest cruise through the San Juan Islands. While we still needed to run the generator morning and night, our generator runtimes stayed under two hours per session, no matter how long we stayed away from shore power. As we had hoped, the Victron charger added a hefty load on the generator during the initial bulk charging phase. We no longer needed to scurry around, turning on various appliances and systems when we charged the batteries. 

When using the generator to charge our batteries, we rarely exceed a 75% state of charge. Our house battery bank needs to be charged to 100% at least once a week to avoid shortening its life span. We did plug into shore power weekly on our trip and discovered that the main engine's alternator can top off the batteries on a longer motoring passage. 

I am pleased with the upgrades we made to Indiscretion's charging system. I have grudgingly accepted the need to run the generator morning and night, and we can travel now for an extended period without running without needing to return to port for shore power. 

I am still thinking about installing solar panels on the roof of our flybridge. We met a couple of trawler skippers on last month's cruise that swore by them, saying they cut their generator time in half. I've read accounts of other Nordhavn owners who have experienced similar results. And when these our AGM batteries reach their end of life, lighter and faster-charging lithium batteries will almost certainly take their place. Between solar panels and more efficient batteries, we might someday reach a point where this former sailor can finally relax and enjoy the stillness of a quiet anchorage and the wonderful electrical amenities this trawler affords.

I can dream, can't I?

Indiscretion lit up at anchor. Can you hear the generator?

The Cruise of the Empty Nesters

Tuesday, September 29, 2020 • 15 min read

When we purchased our Nordhavn 43 trawler a little over two years ago, we had big plans for the fall of 2020. We’d leave our newly emptied home and sail off to far away destinations — a longtime dream come true.

In fact, we did cast off, but not like we expected.

We left our home port on Vashon Island on September 1st aboard Indiscretion headed generally for the San Juan Islands, some of the most beautiful cruising grounds in the world. No fixed itinerary. No set time to return. For once, we were cruising in September, a time long reserved for settling our kids into the new school year. Not this year. You see, we’ve reached that waypoint in life where the captain and first mate are mostly retired, and our children have flown the coop, left the nest, hit the road.

Well, sort of.

Our daughter is completing a master’s degree at the University of Washington, but her classes are all online because of the pandemic. So, she’s given up her apartment in Seattle and returned home. Our son left for his freshman year college in Colorado Springs in August, but the university told its incoming students to pack light; they will close down in the event of an outbreak. Since classes began, there have been 26 cases of COVID-19. We’re on alert, waiting for the phone call that he’s loaded up his Jeep and driving the 1,500 miles home to Washington state.

Indiscretion has the range and seaworthiness to go almost anywhere, safely and comfortably. Before the pandemic struck, we planned to voyage to Alaska this year as our first major expedition before heading down the west coast to Mexico. With closed borders, we can’t venture very far north. And with all this uncertainty over COVID-19, we can’t risk an extended trip down the coast.

So, while our voyage into Marriage 3.0 has begun in shoaling water with the possibility of uncharted reefs ahead, we’re still grateful for the position we’re in. We are healthy, live on an island which remains largely COVID-free, and have the freedom and flexibility to jump on our trawler and leave port for weeks or months. Life is good.

Port Ludlow and the Strait of Juan de Fuca

We spent our first night at anchor in Port Ludlow, a fine, protected harbor and well-suited for those traveling with dogs. It’s a good stop-over spot for South and Central Puget Sound boaters looking to cross the Strait.

There’s a place to tie up a dinghy just past the fuel dock and a nice network of walking trails near the Resort at Port Ludlow. Our evening walk took us near the restaurant at the resort with its beautiful, candlelit porch dining. We’ll have to try that on our next time here.

We thought we might stay a couple days in Port Ludlow, but the weather window to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca was too good to linger. We made the crossing the next morning in mostly flat seas and blue skies. Our destination was Westcott Bay on the western side of San Juan Island, so we steered for the open water of Haro Strait.

About an hour from San Juan Island, we could make out a dozen or more boats huddled near the south end of the island, including three whale-watching boats. Whales! We’ve boated here for twenty years and have never encountered the famed Orca whale that plies these waters. This was our chance! We adjusted course to intercept, but we were too slow at our trawler speed of seven knots and the boats disbanded before we arrived. Oh well... We steered again for Haro Strait. Lisa took over the helm and I went down below for a nap.

From a comfortable snooze, I awoke 30 minutes later to a change in the engine’s RPMs and a shout from Lisa. I flew up the stairs to the pilothouse to catch a huge whale fin surfacing maybe 30 yards to port of us. We were all alone with no other boats anywhere around. We steered off to starboard to give the whale sea room and stopped the boat while this beauty put on a show, at one point lifting her entire body out of the water. We drifted along for ten minutes, totally mesmerized. What an incredible treat for our second day of cruising!

Westcott Bay, San Juan Island

We arrived in the islands on the Thursday before Labor Day weekend and wanted to find a place to anchor that wouldn’t be overrun with boats. Westcott Bay is a ten-minute tender ride from Roche Harbor, but far enough away that it didn’t feel crowded during the five days we spent there. We enjoyed a wonderful feast of oysters and wine at the Westcott Oyster Company before it shut down for the season. We took many hikes with the dogs through the historic English Camp inside nearby Garrison Bay.

Oysters at Westcott Bay Shellfish

During our time at Westcott, we endured two days of brisk wind out of the north. The bay seemed better protected from a north wind than other areas. We experienced 15-20 knot winds with occasional gusts of 25, but no higher. We slept well with our trusty Rocna anchor with Mantus bridle on the job.

Sunset in Westcott Bay

Reid Harbor, Stuart Island

We next ventured north to Reid Harbor on Stuart Island. This anchorage has been a longtime favorite of ours for its protected harbor, dinghy dock for easy access to shore, and great trail system.

We spent two nights here on a mooring buoy. We admired three fellow Nordhavn trawlers that joined us in the bay.

Nordhavn 47 Kelli Ann

After a few aborted attempts in past years, we completed the long hike to the lighthouse on the extreme western edge of Stuart. The dogs slept very well that night.

To the lighthouse!

A Stuart Island fixer-upper …

Friday Harbor, San Juan Island

We made a two-day stopover at the dock in Friday Harbor to pick up our daughter and her boyfriend for a visit. They drove up to Anacortes and took the ferry to meet us for a couple of days. We enjoyed the hospitality of Friday Harbor and took on provisions.

We moored up on the inside of breakwater D, the same place we tied up last year. The stern of Indiscretion faced the opening of the marina channel, so we got to see and wave at all the boats coming and going. After walking back to the boat after a nice dinner ashore, we noticed many boats had their underwater lights on for ambiance. We decided to turn ours on as well. Once illuminated, hundreds of squid swarmed the lights, and just moments later, a very agile seal swam in figure-eight loops right around our swim-step, devouring the squid. It stunned us all. We were slow to get our camera out, but here is the seal near the end of his feast:

One fast seal!

Short Video Clip - Friday Harbor Seal Feast!

Blind Bay, Shaw Island

The smoke from all the forest fires burning in Eastern Washington, Oregon and California finally reached the islands as we motored from Friday Harbor to Blind Bay on Shaw Island. A little patchy fog mixed in with the smoke to made the trip visually challenging, though we could see quite well with radar.

Blind Bay living up to its name …

After twenty years of cruising in the San Juan Islands, this was our first visit to Shaw Island. We anchored in about 45 feet of water near the opening of Blind Bay, close to Blind Island and the little marina/store.

We did some shopping at the store, which was surprisingly well-stocked, and chatted with a few Shaw islanders who were patiently waiting for one of the limited ferry sailings off the island. The store’s dock is the only place in the bay to land a tender, but it is limited to just patrons of the store, and off limits after hours. After buying $150 worth of food and supplies, we hoped we could use the dock that evening to take our two dogs ashore. But when we asked at the store, the answer was a firm no. This left a bad taste in our mouths, so we probably won’t visit again. Voyaging with dogs with a tender that can’t be easily beached has its limitations.

Fossil Bay, Sucia Island

We departed Blind Bay in a smoky haze on our way to Jones Island in hopes of snagging a mooring buoy, and if not, onward to Sucia Island. The haze began to thicken and once we cleared Orcas Island we were traveling in dense fog, the thickest in my boating career. Fog is common late summer in the San Juans and usually burns off by late morning. Indiscretion has radar and AIS, which becomes our electronic eyes in times like these.

As we approached Jones Island, the fog was so thick we couldn’t make out the island though we knew we were close based on the chart plotter and radar. We slowed down and steered for the north entrance. About halfway in, we still couldn’t see the shoreline or any boats, though we could tell the small bay was full based on radar and AIS signals. Visibility couldn’t have been more than 25 yards, making entry here too dangerous. We carefully reversed course and made way for more open water towards Sucia Island.

This thick fog persisted through the ten nautical miles up President Channel. Boat traffic was light and we were able to steer clear of other vessels. Most had AIS, which allows you to see their course and speed and whether you’re on a collision course. We passed a dozen or so boats during this 90 minute trip, but other than a blip on a screen, never actually saw them. Eerie.

The fog cleared on queue as we approached Fossil Bay on the southeast side of Sucia Island. We like Fossil Bay because of its two docks that allow easy access to shore in the tender. You can anchor in Fossil Bay, but the dozen or so mooring buoys take up the greater part of the anchorage.

We spent three days here, taking advantage of the network of hiking trails that span the island with long walks with the dogs, and simply relaxing in the gorgeous bay. Most evenings, we found ourselves gravitating to the flybridge to take in the sunset, dusk and twilight together. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Hikes in dorky hats on Sucia Island

Deer Harbor, Orcas Island

We took a slip at Deer Harbor Resort and Marina to charge our batteries, fill up the water tanks, and enjoy some shoreside activities. A little rain loomed in the forecast, so it was a good time to be at dock (dinghy rides in the rain with the dogs are not so fun). We bought more food and supplies at the marina store, enjoyed pizzas from Island Pie, and walked the half-mile up the road for a BBQ meal at the Deer Harbor Inn.

Deer Harbor Marina

We enjoyed ourselves so much at this quaint marina that we decided to stay an extra day to explore more of Orcas by car. We rented a minivan and traveled along the rural back roads of the island. Wineries, farm stands, and stunning seaside vistas welcomed us. We made our way to Eastsound, the largest “town” on Orcas. We bought some gifts for friends back home, ate an OK meal at the town’s Irish Pub, and stocked up on more groceries at the first full-fledged grocery store we had seen in a few weeks.

Cap Sante Marina, Anacortes

We left Deer Harbor with charged batteries and a rested crew. We would normally look for an anchorage to while away a few days on the hook, but after reviewing the upcoming week’s weather forecast of strong south winds and rain, we decided it was time to make our slow progress home.

We steered for Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes. We’d never been there, but kept hearing such good things about the marina and town, we thought we should check it out. I’m so glad we did.

A quick call to the marina, and we had an assigned slip on C dock. The entrance to the marina involves winding your way through a wall-marked dredged channel and maneuvering through and around a lot of boat traffic, but once inside you’re treated to wide, well-marked fairways and easy slip access.

Once safely moored, we walked the busy docks to see four other Nordhavn trawlers moored on our dock alone. Nordhavn has a sales office here in Anacortes, and Yachttech, a renowned Nordhavn service center, has an office here.

So many Nordhavns!

A short walk from the head of the dock brought us to a huge fenced off-leash dock park. Whoa! Our two dogs had a very fine time stretching their legs at speeds their human counterparts could never achieve. What kind of town dedicates an acre of prime waterfront real estate for a off-leashdog park?

On the recommendation of a fellow boater, we walked another six blocks to find the Brown Lantern Tavern. We watched the first half of the Seattle Seahawks game while we enjoyed terrific food and beer. We were falling in love with Anacortes.

On the walk back to marina, Lisa and I wondered aloud: “why not keep our boat here?” We applied for permanent moorage later that night. It’s that good.

Kingston Marina and Home

We left Anacortes with some hesitation. We could have easily holed up here during the rain and wind and enjoyed ourselves at the dock and town, but we decided to push on.

We took the Swinomish Channel south to avoid the adverse currents we would face in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We took this route a few times in our sailboat, but I found the tight maneuvering through the narrow dredged channel tiring. And we still fought an adverse current. In hindsight, I would have preferred the open water approach through the strait.

We arrived at Kingston Marina after a nine-hour trip, both of us tired. An errant boater had taken our assigned side tie slip near the marina entrance, so we backed into an awkward slip deep inside. This is when bow and stern thrusters come in super handy.

Indiscretion tucked into a slip at Kingston Marina

We hadn’t visited Kingston by boat before, so it was a treat to walk the grounds and have our choice of fine restaurants. We had a lovely dinner at the Kingston Ale House. If you go, try the deep-fried green beans. Trust me.

We left Kingston Marina around 9 am for our last leg home, a six-hour trip. Neither of us were anxious to be home, but the looming heavy winds and rain convinced us to head to the safety of our own slip. Other than dodging hundreds of hard-to-see logs, the trip to Vashon was uneventful. We docked around 3 pm, cracked open our arrival beers, and reflected together on our empty nest cruise.

Reflections on Empty Nest Cruising Aboard a Nordhavn 43 Trawler

First off, the boat seemed to expand significantly in size as our crew complement shifted from a family of four to a single couple. With just the two of us, the boat seemed palatial. We’ve considered larger Nordhavns, but after this trip, I don’t think it would make any sense to move up. This is the perfect size trawler for a couple and occasional guests.

We expected to find the island chain emptied out in September, but that wasn’t the case. We had never seen so many anchored boats in Roche Harbor during our visit over the Labor Day weekend. Later anchorages weren’t quite as crowded, but we found we needed to arrive earlier in the day to make sure we found a spot — not what we expected for September cruising.

Dogs on a boat are a pain in the ass, but I can’t imagine cruising without them.

We cooked some terrific meals aboard the boat without much more effort than our home kitchen. Provisioning with a specific meal plan for the trip made sure we had everything we needed onboard, and took the guesswork out of what to make.

We are getting pretty damned confident at docking this trawler. We had a rocky start, but since then, every docking maneuver has been straight-forward and controlled. I still get nervous, but I now think of this as just good seamanship.

Our confidence in anchoring has also greatly increased. We made some improvements to our anchoring system with new anchor rode, a Mantus bridle and Mantus swivel. We had a chance to put the new gear to the test in a bunch of new anchorages and in some stiff winds. Our Maretron Anchor Watch system proved we stayed put even as boats near us dragged.

We had no mechanical or equipment failures during the cruise, now over 2,000 trouble-free nautical miles put astern since owning Indiscretion. I’m diligent about preventative maintenance and stocking spare parts, but I’m starting to believe these Nordhavn trawlers really are bullet-proof. I’ve probably just jinxed everything by writing this.

Our longest stint away from a dock was seven days, and except for needing to pump out the holding tank, we could have gone much longer. Normal generator runtimes in the morning and night with our new charging system kept our new house batteries topped off. The watermaker kept up with our daily water usage. The trash compactor helped keep our trash to a minimum, at least in storage space. And our ample freezer and refrigeration units held more food than two people could possibly consume (we packed too much food, again).

We met some wonderful people during our cruise that share our passion for the water and boat life. With COVID-19, these encounters can’t expand beyond a chat across a dock or swim step to dinghy, but you know right away that you’re meeting special people, perhaps lifelong friends. We look forward to welcoming these kindred spirits aboard for a drink in future anchorages.

Cruising the San Juans in the final month of summer was amazing. We returned to our home slip at Quartermaster Marina on the first day of fall, just ahead of some torrential rainfall that our area desperately needed. I’m taking a few days to wax the boat and complete a few other scheduled maintenance tasks. Call it a short pit stop before we cast off again for more empty nest fall cruising. Hope to see you out there!

Empty Nesters

The Cost of Indiscretion

Tuesday, September 15, 2020 • 6 min read

As a licensed CPA and long-time boat owner, I’m no stranger to the financial consequences of keeping a boat. People like to joke about how quickly money flows into a boat, like stuffing $100 bills down a bottomless drain. Or, how many “boat units” a particular upgrade or repair will be. Somehow, six boat units sound better than $6,000.

When we were shopping for our trawler, our yacht broker shared this financial rule of thumb: expect to spend about 10% of the value of the boat each year on maintenance, upkeep, moorage, and other ownership costs like insurance, taxes and fees. The rule worked on our $70,000 sailboat. We spent about $7,000 a year on boat-related costs. But surely, that math couldn’t extend to a $700,000 trawler. Could it?

Here’s a summary of last year’s costs for Indiscretion. We spent roughly $44,000, a small fortune for us frugal sailors, but “just” 6% of the boat’s value. Here’s where the money went:

Two insights to share upfront. First, fuel costs of operating a full-displacement trawler are usually low on the list of expenses. We took on fuel just once in 2019. This was a positive surprise as we entered the world of these efficient yachts. Second, since owning Indiscretion, we’ve incurred almost no costs for equipment or mechanical failures. Everything we’ve spent has been either upgrades or preventative maintenance to avoid costly repairs in exotic locations — also a positive surprise.

About half our annual expense came in one fell swoop during our haul-out at Canal Boatyard in Ballard. Oomph! We outsourced the work to a marine contractor since we had some specific deferred maintenance tasks we needed to tackle. In our case, overdue seal replacements for our stabilizer system and a reconfiguration of our electrical panel, which totaled about $7,500. The balance of the costs hit us like slashing knife wounds: $1,500 to drain and replace engine coolant, $2,000 to update our electronics software and charts, $6,000 for bottom sanding and painting, $2,500 for yard fees and haul-out, $1,000 for hull waxing, $1,000 for assistance with transiting the Ballard Locks, and $1,600 for a sundry of supplies and other charges incurred during the haul-out.

Once the initial shock wore off, I took a more philosophical view of these expenses. Some of the bigger ticket costs were expert upgrades or infrequent maintenance tasks that won’t repeat each year. A complete bottom sanding and painting can last two or three years. And the thousands we spent on tasks like changing the engine coolant or help with moving the boat, I will undoubtedly do in the future. However, I am sure I will need other upgrades or expert assistance in the future. For example, this year, we employed an electrical contractor to replace Indiscretion’s battery charging system to make our generator time at anchor more efficient. And sooner or later, I will need to pull out the boat’s aging muffler system and replace it with a new one. After reading about the replacement experience on a sistership’s blog, I quickly concluded that this is a job best left for professionals.

Lessons Learned from Employing Marine Contractors

I learned some lessons about the use of marine contractors during our two years of trawler ownership. First, there are some amazingly talented marine technicians who can perform near-miraculous repairs and upgrades to yachts based on their years of experience and inside knowledge. Second, they operate like any business and thus are, of course, incentivized to maximize their revenue. This might mean replacing equipment that could be repaired more economically or undertaking work that isn’t necessarily warranted. Third, anything I outsource to a contractor that I might need to do in the future to maintain the safety of the boat is a lost learning opportunity to advance my mechanical skills.

Here’s a prime example of a case where the contractor’s business model conflicted with my best interests: shortly after purchasing Indiscretion, I noticed a small amount of oil in the engine room flowing from our wing engine. I examined the engine, but I could not locate the source of the leak. It wasn’t a lot of oil, but after cleaning the bilge, more would soon appear, even if I hadn’t operated the engine. Our contractor diagnosed the problem and recommended we replace the wing engine’s transmission. The job would take a couple of weeks and cost $6,000. We learned all this at the beginning of summer, and since the transmission worked fine, and we weren’t losing any oil in either the engine or transmission, I deferred the job until the offseason. During our summer cruising, the leak stopped altogether and hasn’t reappeared. I now suspect that the oil resulted from a spill during an oil filter change. We clearly didn’t need to replace the transmission.

I've learned to limit my use of marine contractors to projects that meet these three criteria: (1) it’s a difficult task that I wouldn’t be able to do without investing a lot of time and money in tools; (2) there is a specific scope and agreed-upon cost estimate for the project upfront; and (3), I’m able to participate in the work, so I continue to develop my skills as a fledgling trawler mechanic.

I thought last year might have been an anomaly, and our costs might drop in 2020. After all, we took a much more hands-on approach during our annual haul-out and had gotten many of the upfront costs of tools and spares behind us. But, alas no. Our boat costs this year will come in around $45,000, slightly higher than in 2019.

First Mate Lisa scraping barnacles off the keel cooler

So, while our annual boating costs have come in below the 10% threshold, I still think it’s a good rule of thumb. So far, our voyaging has been limited to the Northwest, but our plans include open ocean travel and thousands of nautical miles under our keel. Insurance costs will rise, along with fuel, marina fees, weather routing, and other unforeseen costs. And If you count the 10% Washington state sales tax we paid on the purchase of the boat, and the 10% brokerage fee we’ll pay on sale, our annual costs need to stay under 6% each year to avoid exceeding the 10% rule-of-thumb over our planned ownership of Indiscretion.

Few buy boats for the financial return, but it’s smart to be realistic when planning your finances as a boat owner. None of these costs has come at a surprise to us, thankfully. We used the 10% rule as a budgeting guide going in, and these high expected operating costs in part informed our chosen name for our trawler: Indiscretion. What kind of CPA would buy an asset that not only depreciates but requires additional cash each year just to keep it running? This one did, and I have absolutely no regrets. After all, you can’t put a price tag on dreams. Just remember to keep the boat kitty full. And make sure to translate any big-ticket items into boat units when discussing costs with your first mate. It really does sound better.

If you’re a trawler owner, do you subscribe to the ten-percent rule? If not, how have you managed to keep costs low? Share your feedback in the comment section below.

Mornings on the Boat

Friday, September 11, 2020 • 3 min read

Mornings start early on Indiscretion. Sometime between 6 and 7 a.m., one of our two trawler dogs will jump down off the bed and start issuing low whines I can’t drown out no matter how deeply I burrow into the blankets.

I complain a lot about having to take the dogs ashore in the morning, but to be honest, I love it.

We take it slow in the tender and breathe in the still morning air. The salt and sea smell clear out the sleep cobwebs, and I come fully awake, aware of the beauty that engulfs me. It might have been blowing 20 knots all night, but flat water usually welcomes me on these short boat rides.

I’m no stranger to mornings on a boat. I commuted by ferry every morning from our home on Vashon Island to Tacoma for twenty-odd years. Certainly, that kind of commute beats a freeway any day, but it’s nothing like this.

This morning, we take a short ride from our anchorage here in Westcott Bay to the dinghy dock at English Camp in Garrison Bay. While our souped-up tender could hurtle us along at 30 knots, we take it slow to preserve the stillness. The frantic race up the dock for that first long pee, and then 20 or 30 minutes of glorious sniffing and exploration. The walk back to the tender is always slower as both dogs would be much happier to continue their exploration of land, but will grudgingly step back aboard the tender when requested.

Back on Indiscretion, our morning routine begins. We fire up the generator to charge the batteries. The 12KW Northern Lights generator is tucked away inside a well-insulated engine room, encased in a sound-muffling box. You feel its rumble more than you hear it. I’ll make 25 gallons of fresh water using our watermaker, which helps offset our daily usage. By this time, the wonderful aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafts through the boat. Lisa brings up two steaming mugs to the pilothouse, and we begin the process of becoming fully human again.

I almost always put on my “mornings on the boat” playlist: What a Wonderful World, I Can See Clearly Now, Songbird (Eva Cassidy’s soulful masterpiece), Into the Mystic, and a handful of others that punctuate how amazing it is to wake up afloat. This playlist evolved from our early sailing days when accommodations weren’t nearly so plush and we needed a reminder in that dark, damp saloon first thing in the morning. Now the music is like an old friend, and I can’t help but hum along. And smile.

After the generator runs for an hour, we have plenty of hot water for showers (there is absolutely nothing like taking a hot morning shower on a boat). Showered and caffeinated, the dogs asleep again, I find myself in the pilothouse where I am writing this right now.

Lisa often relaxes in the salon with a book, but this is my happy place. I read, write, or just watch out the dozen surrounding windows at the other anchored boats and shoreline. Soon, loose plans for the day begin to crystalize: A trip ashore for provisions, a half dozen boat projects I’ve been neglecting, a conference call I’ll take from this watery office ... but not just yet. I pour one more cup of coffee to put off the inevitable busyness that pervades boat life and shore life, alike.

I love these mornings on the boat.

Indiscretion at Anchor

Tuesday, July 7, 2020 • 7 min read

Anchoring a boat has come a long way. On our sailboats, it always felt like a risky proposition. We'd make sure to set the anchor and watch our position in relation to a fixed point on land. I'd stand at the bow for a long time before turning in, feeling the pressure of wind on my cheek, wondering if I should let out more rode. Many nights I'd be up in a flash if I heard a strange noise or a shift in the wind, looking out for something familiar on the dark shore to ease my mind.

The reason for this unease stemmed from our sailboat’s lightweight anchoring system and our inexperience as boaters. Our largest sailboat had a Bruce anchor that couldn’t have weighed more than 20 pounds with just 50 feet of anchor chain and 200 feet of rope. I embedded a series of colored zip ties into the nylon rode to approximate the amount of rode we had deployed. A small Maxwell windlass made pulling up the light anchor easy, but it couldn’t accommodate chain, so I had to pull up that last 50 feet by hand. The windlass tended to break off those colored zip ties, which threw off my already confusing system of measuring rode (“two red ties and one blue one is 75 feet, or is that 125 feet?").

And yet, our anchor dragged just one time in all those years of sailing. We were anchored on the south side of Blake Island, an area known for currents and kelp beds, which can be trouble for anchor holding. I stood at the bow a long time that night, studying our swing, scanning other nearby boats. The next morning as I washed the breakfast dishes, I looked out the companionway to see a boat gliding our way. The boat's captain stood at the bow with a cup of coffee and an amused expression. What the hell? Doesn't he know his boat's adrift? I climbed into the cockpit to get a better view of his troubles when I noticed that, in fact, we were the boat on the move.

"Morning, skipper!" The captain called over. "You seem to be dragging."

I had the engine going in about 15 seconds and managed to avoid hitting another boat or grounding ashore. What if this had happened in the wee hours of the night? That was a lucky break.

Indiscretion’s Anchoring System

On our trawler, we have a much more advanced anchoring setup: a 120-pound Rocna 55 anchor, 400 feet of high test anchor chain, a Maxwell 3500 windlass with an integrated chain counter, and a snubber line which takes any surge strain off the windlass. The chain counter provides a digital readout in the pilothouse of exactly how much rode we have out. An "Anchor Watch" on a nearby computer screen displays Indiscretion's current GPS position in relation to the anchor. If she leaves a predetermined radius around the anchor, an alarm sounds, and we get a text message. Anchoring technology designed to let the skipper and crew rest easy at night.

Maretron Anchor Watch

We also keep a TecTecTec VPRO500 laser range finder in the pilothouse that provides precise distances to other anchored boats and objects onshore. Now, instead of worrying whether we've gotten closer to a nearby boat, we can put the vessel inside the viewfinder of the device, click a button and get the actual distance. This has eliminated disputes between Captain and First Mate regarding how close another boat is to us.

Two Boat Units Later ...

And yet, with all this robust anchoring gear and technology, we still managed to flub up in a big way—no damage to the boat luckily, but certainly a ding to our pocketbook.

The first sign of trouble occurred when we attempted to anchor in about 60 feet of water off Blake Island's west side. We would typically try to anchor in shallower water closer to shore, but the anchorage was full. We needed to let out 300 feet of chain to maintain a 5:1 ratio. I kept the boat in position from the pilothouse while Lisa deployed the chain from the bow.

"Hold up!" Lisa called after a few minutes. "We're almost out of chain." Sure enough, just past 200 feet, red paint on the anchor chain indicated we were near the bitter end. I opened the chain locker and saw maybe 30 feet more before we ran out. I scratched my head. The boat was commissioned with 400 feet of chain. What happened to the other 150 feet?

We pulled up the anchor and went looking for a more suitable anchorage. And I added new anchor rode to our boat shopping list. 250 feet of chain wasn't enough for some of the anchorages we planned to visit during our travels.

We bought 400 feet of 3/8" high test Grade 43 galvanized anchor chain at Washington Chain and Supply based on recommendations from fellow trawler captains. The total cost, including sales tax, was about $2,200. We decided to wait until our spring haulout to swap out the chain. The drum weighs over 600 pounds, and I didn't relish the idea of wrestling it down the dock. Washington Chain and Supply has a convenient location on the south side of Seattle and loaded the drum into the bed of my pickup truck with a forklift.

I backed the truck under the bow. Lisa lowered the anchor down to me and then started unspooling chain into the bed of the truck. When we reached the end of the chain, she fed the short length of rope that serves as our bitter end. This rope section allows the anchor line to be severed quickly in case of an emergency. I surveyed the old chain now flaked around me in the bed of the truck. It seemed in fine shape other than flakes of rust on the section that sat lowest in the chain locker. And it sure looked like a big pile.

Anchor Chain Swap

Before loading the new chain, Lisa checked the chain counter in the pilothouse. All 238 feet deployed.

I shackled the anchor to the new chain, added seizing wire, and watched the new anchor chain climb up the bow pulpit. With all the new chain on board, I checked the chain counter. It showed zero chain deployed. I was expecting an error message because we just pulled up 162 feet more chain that we let out. Huh.

We dropped the anchor to the ground of the boatyard and let out 50 feet of chain according to the chain counter. I stretched the chain out and measured it. 83 feet. What? We let out another 50 feet. Again, 83 feet by the tape measure. It seemed our brilliant chain counting system couldn't count. And extrapolating this error to the chain counter's 238 feet meant we really did have 400 feet of chain all along. Doh!

This chain counting error meant we set out way too much anchor chain every time we anchored these past two years. If the chain counter said 100 feet, we actually had 167 feet out. Uggh!

It took some simple algebra and 15 minutes of tinkering with the Maxwell display in the pilothouse to calibrate the chain counter properly. We let out another 50 feet of anchor chain, and this time the measurement of the chain deployed matched the chain counter. My guess is this calibration error has persisted since this trawler's commissioning over ten years ago.

What a humbling lesson for someone with an intrinsic trust of data and computers. I never once considered that the chain counter might be wrong. My climb up the steep learning curve of mastering this complex trawler continues, two inches forward, one inch back. But at least we have brand-spanking-new anchor chain and resolved an anchoring issue we didn't even know we had. And perhaps we will be a little more suspicious of the digital readouts onboard this little ship. Trust, but verify seems a good adage here.

Questions or comments about the anchoring gear aboard Indiscretion? Let us know in the comment section below. Fair winds!

Energize!

Wednesday, June 17, 2020 • 7 min read

Over the past few months, we’ve been awakened by our Maretron monitoring system with a low-battery alarm during the wee hours. You cannot distinguish the low-battery alarm from the Anchor watch alarm, so on the times this has happened, I immediately launched myself to the pilothouse to gauge which way we’re dragging, peering out of the dark windows for some sign of a lee shore. Once fully awake, I noted that the battery level was perilously low. 

While there are lots of power-draining systems on the boat, the main culprits are the freezer and refrigeration units, which make up more than 70% of our typical amperage use. 

Indiscretion has four Lifeline 8D batteries to power the house, which were over five years old, and was having a hell of a time keeping a charge. Our generator run times had grown from two hours, twice a day, to eight hours, four times a day. And even that wouldn’t allow us to make it through the night without running low. Our ability to anchor out for more than a day was severely compromised. Not the kind of thing you expect from an expedition trawler.

One way to potentially breathe new life into older batteries is to run an equalization process through the inverting/charging system. Equalization is a controlled overcharging of a fully charged battery. This overcharge mixes the electrolyte, evens the charge among varying battery cells, and reduces permanent sulfation of the battery plates. Our Xantrex inverter has this function, but we saw no improvement in performance after equalizing the battery bank.

So, it was time to replace the batteries. Besides the four house batteries, we have a Lifeline 4D battery to start the main engine, and two smaller Lifelines to power the generator, wing engine, and an isolated communication battery for emergencies.

We got a bid to have all seven batteries replaced by during our upcoming haul out, but the price tag surprised us. All told, we were looking at $7,500 installed, and we would have to wait at least two months until business got back to normal with COVID-19.

We searched online and soon found that Batteryguys.com would deliver these same batteries to our door for $4,300. I contacted Lifeline to ask about this online vendor. I was concerned that I would be getting old or refurbished batteries but was informed that Batteryguys was one of Lifeline’s largest customers, and they ship out pallet loads of batteries to them every week. We could buy these with confidence. 

A nine hundred pound pallet showed up ten days after we placed our order.

Installing the Batteries

Now, we faced the hard part of removing the old batteries and installing the new ones. These batteries are heavy! A Lifeline 8D battery weighs a whopping 156 pounds, and we had four of these beasts to finagle in tight places. 

On Indiscretion, five of the batteries are stowed in the stern, deep inside the lazarette, with a limited wiggle room to work. All the batteries fit inside custom battery trays and are secured with stout hardware to keep them in place, even if we capsize.

Batteries stowed in Indiscretion’s lazarette. The far one on the other side of the rudder post was a bugger!

I recruited my 18-year-old son Connor to help me with the project, and he was a huge help. Not only does he now seem as strong as me, but he also had some great ideas during the long day of ways to make the arduous process easier. 

Our first mission was removing the old batteries. Before messing with battery terminals, we switched off all the battery switches, unplugged from shower power, and turned off the inverter. The boat became eerily silent without the ever-present hum of transformers and refrigeration. 

We started with the group in the lazarette. The first two in the line were easy to access and the lightest of the bunch. We removed the tie-down hardware and disconnected the battery terminals. Out came the Lifeline 31XT used by the wing engine and generator. At a mere 74 pounds, it gave itself up without much fight. Its next-door neighbor, a 124-pound Lifeline 4D that starts the main engine, slid straight out. These batteries have rope handles to make lifting them less awkward. We tied an eight-foot loop of stout rope to each handle of the 4D to lift the battery out of the lazarette into the cockpit. I grasped the rope from inside the lazarette, and Connor lifted from the cockpit above. Up and out, the battery went. Once in the cockpit, we worked together using the lifting rope to work our way to the cockpit door and over the 18” chasm between boat and dock. 

The easy ones …

Next was a line of three Lifeline 8D batteries, deep inside the lazarette. Each sat inside a recessed enclosure and would need to be lifted out of the enclosure, pulled forward, rotated 90 degrees, and slid out. Lifting a 156-pound battery in an enclosed space without headroom is hard. We worked together to pull the battery up on one edge of the enclosure, only to have it become wedged or fall back inside its box as we jiggered it. Eventually, we discovered applying a lever to pry up the battery worked well. We used a long wrench and the wooden handle of a hammer as levers. With this new leverage, we managed to extricate two of these beasts and haul them onto the dock, leaving just one remaining 8D battery nestled on the other side of the rudder post. For this one, Connor contorted his thinner frame over the hot water tank on the starboard side, and I wedged myself from the port side, laying where the previous four batteries once sat. Levers, sweat, and some cursing eventually led to the successful extraction of this last lazarette battery. 

The communication battery in the pilothouse was simple to remove. We used brute strength to lift and hoist the 8D battery under the floorboards in the guest stateroom out of its hole, and up and down the pilothouse stairs, one step at a time. Did I mention these 8D batteries were heavy?

We used a hand truck to haul the new batteries from the back of my truck in the marina parking lot down the long dock to the boat. One by one, we hauled the new batteries aboard and began installing them. We had been working about three hours by this point and were plenty tired, but it felt a little easier to get each one put in place. Plopping a battery into its retaining box is a lot easier than trying to extract one out. Another two hours of battery wrangling, and we finished the installation. We turned on all the battery switches and shore power and watched the boat come back to life. The new batteries were taking a charge from our inverter, and everything worked as we expected.

Hauling the old batteries away was our final task. We waited until the evening high tide when the ramp to the parking lot was near level and hoisted each battery into the bed of my truck. I sold these old batteries to a salvage yard in Tacoma for about $100.

Hauling up the old batteries, one at a time

All told, it took us six hours of labor to remove and install the batteries. Connor seemed unfazed from the work. Ah, the joys of youth. I definitely needed a soak in the hot tub that night. 

Testing Out the New Batteries

A few days after we completed the battery installation, we decided to take advantage of the lovely June weather here in the Pacific Northwest and spend a few days on the hook to test things out. Our chosen anchorage was a mere mile from our marina: Inner Quartermaster Harbor. 

We had the anchor set around noon. We tracked the battery levels throughout the day. They seemed to be holding up fine. At 8 pm, we ran the generator for an hour and were able to bring the battery level up nearly to 100%. 

At 7 am the next morning, I was pleased to see our battery level hadn’t reduced much. The voltage at the panel read 12.7. Our Maretron battery percentage showed a respectable 80%. We ran the generator for an hour to top off the batteries while we made coffee and showered. By the end of the hour, we were closing on a 95% battery charge. 

Indiscretion after a night at anchor in Quartermaster Harbor

Restoring our battery capacity and recharging capacity took some physical effort and a hefty price tag. Still, the benefit of staying out on anchor for days (or weeks) on end is worth it. 

Fair winds!

Trawler Maintenance for the Mechanically Challenged

Tuesday, May 19, 2020 • 15 min read

Are you mechanically-inclined, perhaps an engineer? Are you inquisitive by nature, wondering how things tick? Do you like to fix stuff? If so, this post is not meant for you, although you might get a chuckle here and there if you decide to keep reading. 

I wrote this for a different segment of the population, which I count myself a dues-paying member: the mechanically challenged. I’m pretty good with a spreadsheet, and I can make PowerPoint get up and dance. But fixing things? Not so much.

I made it through 50 good years by nurturing relationships with skilled mechanics in a variety of trades. Broken dishwasher? I’ve got a person for that. Lawnmower won’t start? I have a small-engine whisperer on speed dial. When our longtime island appliance repairman retired a few years back, I felt a surge of panic. Larry fixed nearly every appliance in our home at one time or another. How could he dare retire?

I once attempted to fix a fuel leak on our gas generator during a power outage over a holiday weekend. I mucked things up so badly I had to buy a whole new generator. 

The kids retreated to their rooms whenever my battered toolbox came out of the closet. If my life were a movie, low scary music would play. Lisa would sometimes offer advice over my shoulder as I cursed and fretted. My responses were seldom civil. 

This mechanical disadvantage showed up often on our sailboats. Our first boat had a temperamental Atomic 4 gas engine that would cough, sputter and die at the most inconvenient times. I would gaze at the abyss of engine space under the companionway with helpless misery. That piece of crap engine taught me a valuable lesson that lasted for the remainder of my sailing years: on a sailboat, the engine is considered a mere convenience, a backup to the real driving force of the sails. 

So, you can imagine my predicament when we considered crossing over from sail to trawler. There were many great things about trawlers that excited us, but the maintenance of systems wasn’t one of them. No sails to save me. And enough mechanical equipment to run a small municipality.

While we searched for the perfect trawler, our yacht broker made sure we got a good look at the engine room on every boat we toured. What in the hell is all this stuff? I looked around and nodded, but soon made my way out of the claustrophobic space back to the light and allure of the pilothouse and boat deck.

“What is all this stuff?”

We met other trawler captains and crew to get better acquainted with the lifestyle and the challenges they faced underway. While many were former sailors like us, they seemed to have this zeal for fixing things. Engineers and former mechanics, most of them, MacGyvers, all of them. I admired their can-do attitudes while I struggled to keep up with their engine-speak as they discussed kilowatts, heat exchangers, and hydraulics. After these encounters, I fretted about my lack of skill. 

But this story has a happy ending. What follows is the journey this non-mechanic took to achieve, if not mastery, at least a pretty damn good working relationship with the many systems aboard our 43’ Nordhavn trawler. If I can do this, really anyone can.

Taking Stock

In the first few weeks we owned Indiscretion, I spent time taking stock of the equipment and machinery aboard the vessel. This involved looking into every cabinet, cubby, crawlspace, locker, and recess. Lifting floorboards under bunks, and discovering even more floorboards under those. Twisting my frame into the deep cockpit lazerette and squirming to the outer reaches, past the hydronic heating system, the inverter, and the watermaker — just looking and identifying things. 

Next, I sorted through three large file boxes of equipment manuals stowed under the pilothouse settee. Our trawler came with an owner’s manual that describes practically every aspect of the ship’s operation with details on all the equipment and systems as it was commissioned. I went through the manual, section by section, and completed a second, more informed tour through the boat. This time, I sought out the equipment described in the manual and studied its use and maintenance requirements. I took the manuals home and created a digital library by downloading PDFs of the manuals if I could find them online, and if not, scanning them myself. I stored all these PDFs along with maintenance records, licenses, etc. in an app called DevonThink, which I use on a Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Having all these manuals on a digital platform means I can quickly search and access my entire library of boat records and manuals from anywhere, even when not connected to the internet. I have frequently made use of this easy access deep with the bowels of the engine room.

iPad View of engine manuals in DevonThink

In My Wheelhouse

Most all of these operating manuals have a section on required maintenance for the equipment in question with instructions and frequency intervals. Ah, I thought, a perfect application for a spreadsheet to keep track of all these maintenance tasks. Here I found solid footing. The crew of MV Dirona shared a spreadsheet they’ve used as a maintenance log for their trawler. I happily began tailoring it to our boat’s systems and engines. Finally, something I could competently carry out!

Soon after creating my digital library of operating manuals, and about halfway into creating a spreadsheet-based maintenance log, I received an email from Wheelhouse Technologies (now Vessel Vanguard), a vessel maintenance software provider. I learned that the former owner of our Nordhavn had recently implemented their cloud-based system, which we were free to use for the first year, and could renew after that for a $450 fee. I knew that owners of larger trawlers swore by this system, but I wasn’t sure I needed to spend this kind of money each year on a software system I could piece together myself.

That changed after I spent time with the system, which had been configured explicitly for Indiscretion. Every piece of equipment aboard the boat was listed with operating manuals, maintenance schedules, maintenance log, and recommended spare parts for both coastal and offshore cruising. The heart of Wheelhouse is its maintenance alert system, which provides a to-do list of recommended maintenance tasks based on time or engine hours. For every task, the system includes helpful hints on how to perform it, the parts needed, and links to the appropriate manual for more detailed instructions. 

Wheelhouse took the mystery away for me about the proper steps to maintain our trawler. And my accountant-brain loves a good to-do list. I’ve definitely got that with this system. When my first year free trial period had ended, I happily renewed for the peace of mind of knowing I was keeping up with the critical maintenance needs of this complex vessel.

Outfitting with Tools and Spare Parts

I soon learned that having the right tools for the job made life a lot easier. I found a list of recommended tools to keep onboard a trawler and began slowly accumulating these tools throughout our first year. Boxes would show up, and I would cackle to myself as I held up a set of ratchets, or a snake-like device meant to retrieve a dropped item in the bilge, or a strap-wrench that can grip onto oil filters with superhuman strength — who knew? All told, I spent about $2,000 on tools for Indiscretion in our first year, and I now have the tools I need to fix or maintain almost everything onboard.

Wheelhouse provides a list of spare parts to keep on hand for the various systems onboard, including annual replacement items like filters, but also parts that routinely wear out with use. I spent another $3,000 on a near-complete set of spare parts for all three engines, the watermaker, the hydronic heating system, and the other systems aboard. I tucked these treasures away in cubbies and lockers throughout the boat. 

My confidence as a trawler captain grew a lot with the acquisition of these tools and spare parts. I’ve now had many chances to use the tools and have needed a few of these spare parts in the past year. That’s a good feeling.

Bending the Learning Curve

I’ve already written about the training courses we took at Northern Lights with “Lugger Bob” Senter (see here and here), but I’ll reiterate that those three days provided more value than any training I have ever received, and without these sessions, I would still be quite lost. I learned a ton from Bob and fellow trawler captain classmates and gained a whole new appreciation for the practice of preventative maintenance. But, perhaps most importantly, I discovered that trawler maintenance and repair wasn’t some dark alchemy for trained engineers. Anyone with the right tools and a little common sense can do this.

Captain Bob changing a fuel filter at a Northern Lights Owner-Operator maintenance class

I’ve also benefited from fellow trawler owners we’ve met during our cruising. I recall struggling to get the outboard motor to lower into the water on our tender while anchored off Penrose Point. Daryl, the skipper of the beautiful trawler Cape Ross anchored next to us, must have pitied me because he motored over in his tender to see if he could help, cold beer in hand. It took him about 30 seconds to find the engine lock I had somehow overlooked (it’s really impossible to miss). I got a good laugh at myself, and we drank a beer together to commiserate about boats while we took in the beautiful bay we shared. Boat people are fantastic.

Then, of course, there’s YouTube. You know there are videos to help you repair your lawnmower and oven, but did you know that generous trawler owners also post instructional videos? One of my favorites is an engine room video from the captain of MV Cassidy on changing the oil and filters (and other repairs) on his Nordhavn 40. I watched this video during the process of buying Indiscretion, and it gave me an early boost of confidence that I could actually do this maintenance stuff. A recent video from the crew of MV Dirona showed how simple it is to check and replace the alternator belt and bearings on the main engine. There are some terrific maintenance and repair videos on MV Freedom’s YouTube site, and this video with Jeff Merrill and Kevin Jeffries of MV Red Rover inspired a lot of tool purchases. I am incredibly grateful for the time and effort these trawler owners have given to share their expertise. 

And finally, there’s the Nordhavn Owner’s Group, or NOG for short. It’s a private internet discussion forum where owners post questions or problems, and other owners respond with advice or solutions. There are resident subject matter experts on specialty areas that chime in frequently. Bob Senter, for example, is a frequent contributor on engine questions. Currently, there are more than twenty thousand discussion topics in the archive — a literal treasure trove that allows me to search for whatever question or issue I have. A quick search will usually reveal a dozen or more threads, often with direct answers to my current problem. I spent many hours reading these posts and responses in my first months to absorb a portion of the collective wisdom of this resourceful group of Nordhavn owners. In the rare case where my problem wasn’t specifically addressed, I started a new topic and received some terrific feedback. I hope someday that I can develop far enough as a trawler captain to help others on the NOG.

While the NOG is a fantastic knowledge resource, it can be a little intimidating for a new skipper. One early impression I had was the sheer volume of system faults and breakdowns that can occur on a trawler. “What have I gotten myself into?” I thought to myself as I scanned problem and after problem. Reading through these caused some anxiety on our early cruises. What failures will I experience today? But, over time, I’ve come to understand a few things about this owner’s group that have helped me relax. First, of the 600+ Nordhavn yachts plying the sea today, we have one of the smallest and least complicated vessels and, relatively speaking, one of the newer models. There are many, many bigger and older vessels out there that require a whole different level of mechanical expertise and problem-solving ability. Someday, we might graduate to one of these larger, more sophisticated yachts. But not yet. Second, many Nordhavn owners take a real fancy for engineering complex solutions. For example, a recent discussion on how to resolve a frozen seacock caught my attention. One skipper carries a custom-made steel extension to connect to the end of the handle to provide more leverage. The steel was forged to fit the seacock handle perfectly. Another skipper used a ten-inch piece of plastic PVC pipe that slips over the handle and works just as well. I appreciate both approaches, but I am definitely a PVC pipe kind of guy, especially at this early stage of my trawler career.

The Deep End of the Pool

Of course, the best way to learn anything new is to do it or try to do it. Shortly after attending the Northern Lights “Captain’s Class,” we suffered a loss of electrical power, which I traced to a lifeless inverter. As our well-stocked freezer’s contents slowly defrosted, I put on my engineer’s cap. The boat’s owner’s manual and electrical diagrams led me to a switch in the lazerette, which allowed me to bypass the inverter while on shower power. This bought me some time. A search of the NOG pointed me to several troublesome T-Class fuses that could be the culprit, though physical examination of these provided no clues. Equipped with my trusty Fluke multimeter (the same model that Lugger Bob uses), I was able to determine which fuse had blown. I can’t tell you how satisfied I felt after installing a new fuse and seeing all power restored—score one for the novice.

The blown inverter fuse

After attending the more advanced Northern Lights “Owner Operator Class,” I plunged into the annual servicing of both our main engine, generator and wing engine. This involved changing engine oil and oil filters, replacing the coolant on the generator and wing engine, replacing all seven fuel filters, and various other annual maintenance tasks. Bob Senter gives out his cell phone number if you take his engine classes, and I admit to checking with him a few times as I proceeded with the work for his always-helpful advice. 

Reflections after 18 Months

I knew going into this new life as a trawler captain would be a challenge. I’ve now serviced almost every piece of equipment on Indiscretion, and feel a growing sense of competence in the process. I know I have a lot more to learn, but I am proud of my accomplishments, especially from where I started. 

One sign of my progress occurred to me while watching a boat test video of a Nordhavn 60. My former self would have marveled over the pilothouse electronics or the size of the main salon (OK, these are both still impressive!), but instead, I eyed the spacious layout of the engine room, and later fantasized about having a dedicated equipment room for all the gear that’s more challenging to access on our smaller Nordhavn. I’ve come a long way!

My newfound mechanical skills have benefited me in other unexpected ways. In the past three months, our lawn tractor, hot tub, and clothes dryer all needed repair. The old me would have called in three different mechanics. Not anymore. If I can pull apart a diesel generator in some remote anchorage, I should be able to fix a clothes dryer. With an operating manual and the proper tools, it turns out I’m quite capable of fixing just about anything. 

I noted anxiety on Lisa’s face when she saw her dryer disassembled into at least forty pieces strewn across our laundry room, along with a half dozen tools and an iPad propped up on the washer playing a repair video. The hot tub and lawnmower were one thing, but she needed the dryer. 

“How’s it going?” She asked.

“Well, I think I got it. It was a failed belt. I should have this back together in a jiffy.”

She walked out through the maze of parts, shaking her head and wondering if we would be buying a new dryer that afternoon. But later, after she finished a load of laundry in the newly repaired appliance, she congratulated me on my newfound mechanical capabilities. 

Honestly, this must be a bit of a relief to her, knowing I’m not entirely inept at fixing things anymore. After all, she’s signed up for world cruising with me aboard Indiscretion, and we’ll inevitably face our share of mechanical adversities along the way. These newfound skills give me hope that I can keep us safe and chugging along as we voyage through remote and unfamiliar waters.

I don’t quite know how much time I spend tinkering and carrying out maintenance items on Indiscretion, but it’s not an insignificant amount. I’d guess I spend at least an hour every day I’m aboard doing something maintenance-related. And I’ve spent entire days on more extensive tasks. But this time for me is now fun, almost zen-like in its mental intensity as I work through each step like a complicated dance, usually talking aloud along the way as some form of self-encouragement. And my type-A personality loves the challenge and sense of accomplishment when I successfully complete something I wouldn’t have dared even try two years ago.

If you’re a would-be trawler captain who feels nervous about stepping into the role of mechanic and engineer aboard one of these complicated vessels, my progress should be a real comfort. If you’re on the fence, don’t let the mystery of maintenance and systems deter you.

Honestly, If I can do this, anyone can.

Captain Bob’s new happy place?

Winter Cruise to Olympia

Thursday, February 27, 2020 • 5 min read

We took our first cruise of 2020 aboard Indiscretion to Olympia last week. After a wet and windy start to the year, the weather gods smiled down at us and provided four days of sun and calm seas that perfectly coincided with our travel. That doesn’t happen very often in February around here, so we’re thankful for the reprieve.

Departing Quartermaster Marina

We departed Quartermaster Harbor on Tuesday morning to catch a favorable flood tide through the Tacoma Narrows. Currents run pretty fast through here and sailboats and trawlers can only safely travel through on the right tide.

The sea was calm the entire trip, and we were cozy inside the pilothouse with the hydronic forced-air heating system fired up. The trip took about five hours from dock to dock, shaving a little time with the help of the favorable current running through the Narrows. We had the sea to ourselves for most of the way.

Transiting the Tacoma Narrows on a flood tide

Guest Moorage in Olympia

We called ahead for two nights of moorage at Swan Town Marina, though we would have been fine just showing up. Swan Town Marina lies on the east side Port Peninsula, a 15-minute walk into town. During our stay, the majority of guest slips remained empty. There were boats in about half of the guest slips when we arrived, but the most were unattended during our stay. I guess the marina must permit longer-term moorage in their transient slips during the off-season because of low demand. Guest moorage is on A dock and the entrance to the marina which makes for straight forward docking.

Swan Town Guest Dock

Percival Landing is another small marina that offers first-come-first-serve guest moorage on the west side of Port Peninsula. This smaller marina is more convenient to shops and town (about a 5-minute walk to town) and offers very affordable moorage rates, but we opted for Swan Town because we could secure reservations. We visited Percival Landing during our stay and found just one lone sailboat occupying the dock. Good to know for future off-season planning.

Olympia Highlights

We packed our NineBot folding electric scooters on the boat for this trip which turned out to be a fun way to get around. We found ourselves darting all over town on them. We enjoyed a fantastic meal of oysters on the half shell, seafood and steak at the Chelsea Farms Oyster Bar on Market Street, and good pub grub and microbrews at Fish Tale Brew Pub on Jefferson. You really shouldn’t visit Olympia without stopping for a bite or drink at the veritable McMenamin’s Spar Cafe. You’ll be happy to know that the pool table and shuffleboard table are still there in the back. We love that place.

We missed out on the Farmer’s Market this trip as we didn’t stay through Saturday, but it was nice to know that it operates in winter.

Our two days and two nights flew by quickly. We need to put Olympia on our regular rotation of winter (and summer) cruising here in Puget Sound.

Flat water as we depart Olympia

Eagle Island and Harbor Seals

On our return trip north, we stopped at lovely Eagle Island for the night so we could catch the ebb tide through Tacoma Narrows the following morning. The five-acre state park island sits on Balch Passage between McNeil and Anderson Islands, putting it about dead-center between Vashon and Olympia.

View from Eagle Island

This spot is a favorite destination of mine, having moored here many times when we owned our sailboats. The view of Mount Rainier on a clear day is breathtaking.  The island is also known for its population of harbor seals which frolic on the beach at low tide and make very creepy sounds as they surface and swim in the water. Here’s a 30-second audio recording of these night-time encounters.

[audio m4a="https://robertbreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Harbor-Seals-at-Night.m4a"][/audio]

It was a moonless night, so we couldn’t see the seals as they swam nearby in the darkness. We tried to spot them with a flashlight, but they all disappeared under the water with a hilariously loud splashing sound once we aimed the light. Fortunately, Indiscretion has a FLIR camera which allows daytime like visibility from the pilothouse. Turning the camera toward the island, we were astonished to see close to 40 seals in the water near us and sprawled out on the dark beach. They seemed quite curious of the boat, communicating with one another in their particular way. We have a three-foot swim-step at the stern of the trawler which would seem to make a comfortable lounging spot for one of these massive beasts. I waited for a lurch of the boat as one clambered aboard, but they kept their distance. We made off early the next morning to catch our tide through the Narrows and home to Quartermaster Marina.

Consider Pointing the Bow South

Like many other Northwest boaters, we have tended to forget about the south sound in our cruising plans. The greater Seattle area and the San Juan Islands are far more popular destinations. But exploring the southern end of Puget Sound has many charms. For us, it’s just an hour more to get to Olympia than Seattle, and there are so many spots in between to stop for the night or spend a few days: Lakebay and Penrose, Longbranch and Filucy Bay, Joemma, Jarrell Cove, Hope Island … We’ve been poring over our Waggoner’s Guide to plan out a more complete return visit to this under-appreciated section of Puget Sound.

Homeward Bound

Monday, September 16, 2019 • 5 min read

We’ve been back ashore now for a few weeks, home from our month-long trip aboard Indiscretion in the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands. We spent the majority of our nights at anchor or tied to a mooring buoy, enjoying the onboard accommodations and tranquility.

I expected to run into some form of mechanical difficulty on the trip, having checked and double-checked our spare parts inventory before departure, and thinking through the various fall-backs and redundancies we might employ should a significant failure occur.

But we were blessed with completely trouble-free operation of the vessel throughout our trip.

We cruised these Islands for years aboard our sailboats, so this trip wasn’t about exploring new ports of call, though it was nice to see our old cruising grounds again. Instead, this trip helped us get our sea legs aboard a trawler and figure out the intricacies of multi-week voyaging and ongoing sea life without getting too far away from civilization in case we ran into trouble. Call it an extended shakedown cruise as we set our sights on longer, more remote expeditions in the summer of 2020, and ocean-going travel down the west coast in 2021.

In this regard, the trip was a tremendous success. We had good practice with anchoring this larger vessel in small crowded bays. We learned about how long we could go at anchor before needing the facilities and services of a dock (about a week). We got very good at planning our routes around weather, tides, and currents. We maneuvered and docked this big trawler in a variety of tight marinas and wind conditions without any trouble which was a welcome confidence booster.

We also established a nice cadence in our morning ship routine: generator started up, coffee on, laundry and watermaker started, battery charge status checked, a quick run into shore with the dogs for their morning constitutional, and finally a hot shower. I can’t say enough about the therapeutic benefits of a real shower on a boat. Lisa and I would then relax and enjoy that first delicious cup of coffee together around the pilothouse settee, taking in the watery scene around us and talking over our plans for the day.

Most mornings we would touch on a familiar topic: could we live like this full-time?

In just a year or so, our big family home on Vashon Island will become an empty nest as our youngest child, Connor, goes off to college. We purchased Indiscretion with the idea that it would become a much cozier and adventuresome home for the two of us as we reinvent life together without kids. Marriage 3.0.

So, along with testing out our seamanship and systems aboard the trawler, we also got a sense of what living aboard a 43’ vessel would be like for the two of us.

By the end of the trip, we each agreed that this little ship was plenty spacious enough for the two of us to live very comfortably for extended periods. For me, there’s a zen-like comfort that comes with the compactness of a boat; everything has a purpose and a place. To quote E.B. White: a cruising boat is “the most compact and ingenious arrangement for living ever devised by the restless mind of man.”

We also agreed that our two devil dogs are a pain in the ass, causing all sorts of mayhem ashore and afloat, but that wouldn’t change no matter how large of a vessel we owned.

I discovered something important about myself once I got home. I felt tired and went to bed early, falling into a dreamless sleep of the dead. I slept in until late morning, which I rarely ever do. For the first night in a month, I wasn’t up prowling the pilothouse in the wee hours, checking on our anchor, or investigating a strange sound in the night.

It dawned on me that I was maintaining a constant level of nervous energy while awake or asleep on Indiscretion. It took a night at home to realize I had struggled to fully relax aboard the boat, thinking and worrying about all sorts of shipboard issues:

• Did we set enough anchor rode? Too much?
• Are we too close to that sailboat anchored off to port of us?
• Will the anchor hold if the wind picks up tonight?
• Will we have trouble docking in that tight marina tomorrow?
• Where are we going to get provisions next? How far of a hike into town is it?
• Will the gale force winds forecasted for the Strait of Georgia make trouble for us as we head north?

I believe this nervous energy will eventually subside with time. My confidence as skipper will grow with every week and month afloat. Still, it remains an uncertainty as we ponder full-time cruising. Will I find a way to wind-down and relax through the constant motion and commotion of long-term voyaging? I’ll have to work on this.

So, we’re home again for a while. I’ve scrubbed away the salt and crud of a month of cruising, and Indiscretion gleams once more in her Quartermaster Marina slip. We’re busy making plans for fall and winter weekend cruises around Puget Sound and potentially a longer excursion up north for some off-season cruising in the islands. And very happy to have the memories and experiences of this lovely summer trip with the promise of many more to follow.

Canadian Gulf Islands - A Magic Kind of Medicine

Monday, July 29, 2019 • 9 min read

We are tied up to to the guest dock at the Causeway Marina in Victoria Harbour with a front-row seat of all the bustle and glamour that waterfront Victoria provides.

We've cruised all over the Gulf Islands these past ten days, revisiting some favorite spots and exploring some new ones. We decided not to head further north to Desolation Sound since we were enjoying ourselves here in the southern part of BC and had planned to meet our daughter in Victoria this weekend.

Before sharing the pictures and highlights of our cruise through these beautiful Gulf Islands, I thought I might provide some more comparisons to sailing now that we're nearly three weeks away from the dock.

On Parlez, our 32' cruising sailboat, we took two month-long trips up to the San Juan and Gulf Islands and various multi-week trips over the years as a family. We had some incredible adventures, but I recall a sodden feeling around the end of the third week. Laundry had piled up, we all badly needed showers, and a dampness pervaded the boat from so many wet clothes, towels, and jackets stowed below that never really dried. One of the cockpit lockers was usually cram filled with trash. We had a small water tank which made showers impractical and dishwashing an art of using just enough water to wash, and the bare minimum to rinse. On rainy days, we crowded into the salon or retreated to sleeping berths. We took it as a good thing that our thoughts turned to heading south around this time - a mark of a good vacation when you start thinking of home.

We're at that same three-week mark here on Indiscretion, and times have certainly changed. This little ship was designed for long-range expeditions, so these weeks of short passages and island hopping have hardly taxed her abilities. Likewise, the crew seems fresh and eager to carry on. If I had to pick a single word to describe the difference, I'd choose sustainability.

First, we all take showers every day. I can't tell you what a joy it is to emerge from your stateroom fresh from a shower after a day of cruising and a night at anchor. With a 300 hundred gallon water tank and onboard watermaker, we don't worry too much about water consumption. I never fail to smile as I come into the wheelhouse, squeaky clean, ready for a hot cup of coffee.

We run the generator every morning and evening to charge up our batteries. This gives us plenty of energy to power anything we need on the boat. While the generator is charging the batteries, we run the watermaker and do a load of laundry to load up the generator. Indiscretion has an Italian all-in-one washer/dryer unit, the Splendide 2100, and it washes and dries a moderate-sized load of clothes in about two hours. I am impressed with this little machine. My performance expectations were low after reading a few negative reviews online, but our experience has been fantastic. And all our clothes are clean.

Indiscretion has a good-sized galley, two half-refrigerators, and a larger freezer than we have at home so that we can make great meals for an extended time. The galley also has a trash compactor which sounds weird to have on a boat but is really useful. We can compress the equivalent of five sailboat trash bags into one pretty small bag in this compactor, saving a lot of trash-storage space.

Finally, we have lots of living and lounging spaces on Indiscretion, so no one feels cramped or confined. There's the salon where we eat our meals and watch movies at night; the pilothouse with its settee and helm chair (where I'm writing this now); the cockpit where we sip coffee in the morning; the flybridge with its two comfortable chairs high above everything where we take in the sunsets and the watery world around us; the boat deck platform provides outdoor dining or lounging when the tender is in the water; and two large staterooms provide comfortable privacy for reading or sleeping.

All these creature comforts make long-term cruising a reality for many, and a very happy summer cruise for the crew of Indiscretion. I long disparaged these hulking powerboats when we were active sailors, but now that we've crossed the bar, I wouldn't go back. Trawlers are great.

Cruise Notes

Our first stop in Canada was Bedwell Harbor to check in by phone with Canadian Customs. We've done this a few times before, and it still feels like a strange process. We decided to take a slip at next door Poet's Cove Marina for a couple of days to explore the area and enjoy the resort.

Lisa had a spa day while Connor and I and the doggos went for a walk around nearby Greenburn Lake. It's about a three-mile hike there and back from the marina, but be warned, the trails on the north side of the lake were a challenge. Beautiful scenery for the intrepid hiker:

From Poet's Cove, we made our way to an old favorite, Montague Harbour on Galiano Island. Lisa injured a rib a few days earlier after falling onto the swim step from a kayak, so we spent a couple of days healing up in this lovely harbor.

We headed north to Ladysmith on Vancouver Island. Ladysmith is without question the friendliest destination we've visited so far. We took a slip at the Ladysmith Community Marina and explored the town. It's a bit of a hike to the main town center, but well worth it. Along the way, we encountered wild rabbits - not something we ever see on Vashon.

At Ladysmith, Indiscretion moored next to a Nordhavn 47, MV Sea Cairn.

We got a chance to meet her owners, Keith and Kathy, and swapped tips and stories. Nordhavn owners are the best. We watched this lovely trawler back out of the skinny fairway like a pro, and I learned a few things about using thrusters to navigate in reverse, which I was able to immediately apply as we departed. Thank you, Keith!

From Ladysmith, we headed back south to Ganges Harbour in time for the famed Farmer's Market held on Saturdays. It had been at least ten years since we visited Ganges, and to me, it seemed a lot more crowded. I'm not a big fan of crowds, so after about ten minutes of wedging my body between the masses of shoppers, I found a park bench in the shade and let Lisa carry on. She persevered and came away with all sorts of great produce, fruit, and baked goods. God bless her.

[caption id=“attachment_520” align=“aligncenter” width=“525”] Smiles on the way to the Saturday Market[/caption]

After a couple days and nights on the hook in Ganges, we headed to Brentwood Bay, deep inside Saanich Inlet. We had to transit Shute Passage which must be the super-nexus of BC ferry traffic. On the chart, a dizzying array of ferry courses were splayed across the chart. Sure enough, as we approached the nexus, the BC Ferry Coastal Celebration appeared on AIS, traveling at its cruising speed of 22 knots, and coming up fast. I adjusted course to hopefully allow this mammoth ship to pass me to port.

The radio crackled: “Motor Vessel Indiscretion, this is Coastal Celebration, do you copy?”

I gulped. Being hailed by a ferry can’t be good. To be honest, I’ve never been hailed by a Washington State Ferry before, though many of them have certainly gone off course to try to run over me when I was sailing.

“Coastal Celebration, this is Indiscretion,” I responded.

“Indiscretion, we’re the large ferry vessel behind you. We were just wondering what course you were steering so we can safely pass you. Over.”

“I was planning to hold this course and let you pass me to port, over,” I replied in my most captainly voice.

“OK, roger that, Indiscretion. Passing you to port. Have a nice day. Out.”

The Coastal Celebration passed us to port going off course by about 200 yards to give us more sea room. I was dumbfounded. Canadian ferry captains are so much nicer than our Washington state counterparts.

We stayed a night at the Brentwood Bay Marina to charge batteries, take off the trash, and have a bite at their resort pub. The docks here are a little tired with a startling sign about midway down the marina:

[caption id=“attachment_521” align=“aligncenter” width=“525”] Beware of Rocks![/caption]

We then took the short passage to Tod Inlet, a beautiful little bay just south of Brentwood Bay. We anchored in about 20 feet of water close to three nearby boats. We're always amazed at how close other boats look from the wheelhouse, but far away from the tender or ashore. There were about twenty boats in the little bay during our stay but learned from a local that upwards of 200 boats squeeze into the harbor on Saturday night to watch the Butchart Garden fireworks. Local boaters avoid the place on the weekend for this reason. "You can basically step from boat to boat," he laughed. Yikes. I'm glad we were here during midweek.

[caption id=“attachment_522” align=“aligncenter” width=“525”] One Particular Harbour …[/caption]

Tod Inlet has a dinghy dock and a beautiful network of trails. It's a short dinghy ride to the back entrance of Butchart Gardens. We took the dogs for a whirlwind tour of the garden, admiring the beauty of the place, but vigilant to avoid other dogs. Ah, the stress of boat life.

After two restful days and nights at Tod Inlet, we motored back up Saanich Inlet and down Haro Strait to Victoria. The weather was blustery, and we had a chance to put Indiscretion through her paces in some larger seas. Stabilizers worked well to remove the side to side roll, and her heavy displacement and full keel took the four-foot waves in stride. Here's a short video from the stern during this stretch of water:

Haro Strait Wind and Waves

We navigated the crazy maze of Victoria Harbor - wow that's a busy port - and found our slip at Causeway Marina. A police boat sped over to us with lights flashing - uh oh. The policeman yelled over to ask if we knew our AIS reading shows us as 390 meters long. He guessed a massive cruise ship was making an unannounced entrance to the harbor. I apologized and said we were still learning the systems on the boat but would fix that. He laughed and waved, shouting "beautiful boat!" as he pulled away. 

We've thoroughly enjoyed Victoria, though logistics didn't work out for our daughter Mallory to join us here. We will meet here in a few days back at Roche Harbor.

Boat Notes

We're running the generator between five and six hours a day while on anchor to keep the batteries charged which seems like a long time. We're tracking our generator time and battery statistics on the trip to share with a marine technician when we get back home to see if our Xantrex inverter settings need to be tweaked, or if a second battery charger would make sense to add to the system. The sailor in me still cringes at running a generator for so many hours, but the sound insulation on these Nordhavns is genuinely amazing. You can barely hear it outside the boat, so I doubt we're bothering anyone.  

Wind in our Hair, Water in our Shoes

Monday, July 15, 2019 • 4 min read

Our first week in the islands was a blur. It usually takes about three days for us to lose our landward ways and find our sea legs, but our entry seemed easier this time. The pace of life on a trawler forces you to slow down, let the stress fall away - very much like our years under sail, but with so much comfort!

We’ve spent the week hopping around our favorite spots in the islands: Spencer Spit on Lopez Island, Fossil Bay on Sucia Island, Roche Harbor on San Juan Island and Reid Harbor on Stuart Island. It’s been ten years since we’ve seen these places and it was good to visit again.

The time underway on Indiscretion continues to be a marvel of luxury compared to our sailing days. I spend most of the time seated in the pilothouse in a Stidd helm chair which must certainly be the most comfortable chair I’ve ever used. I’m surrounded by windows providing terrific visibility forward, laughably better than a sailboat with the sails blocking practically everything foreword (a good reason to give sailboats the right of way!). Below the windows lies a set of navigation screens that provide amazing detail of the geography and vessels around me. The engine is a soft rumble down below in the engine room, a comfortable, powerful sound. Various gauges let me know the rate of fuel burn, the coolant temperature, the oil pressure - all vital statistics to running the ship. The Furuno autopilot steers a way better course than I could with the wheel, so most of the time, the boat steers herself. I turn a little wheel to adjust course every once in a while. We have a Bose sound system throughout the boat so I can play music as we ply the waters. All in all, it’s a delightful experience to be underway. We’re all looking forward to longer and longer voyages as we continue our travels.

Sucia Island is an incredible place to visit. We usually anchored in Echo Bay but decided to try Fossil Bay to take advantage of the dinghy dock for the dogs. A beautiful place.

We decided to turn on our underwater lights and do some night fishing. We expected the bright lights to attract fish, or maybe shrimp. What we didn’t expect is some alien life form to circle around the lights looking for some ingress in the boat to invade and kill us, one by one, Alien style. Here’s a video of these sea creatures which we now know are called a Polychaete (thank you, Steve Mitchell, for the ID!). Still very creepy:

Alien LIfe Form

From Sucia we made our way to Roche Harbor, probably our favorite destination in the islands. We arrived on the opening day of crab season in the islands and limited out on huge Dungeness crab after an overnight pot soak. I have a secret crab pot spot in the harbor that I was excited to try. Connor was doubtful about this, but after pulling up twelve huge Dungeness crab in our single ancient pot, he is starting to believe.

Connor and I tried our luck fishing from the tender outside of Wescott Bay, but only caught Dog Fish. Still fun.

We spent two nights at Roche Harbor, resting up and charging boat batteries. We enjoyed a fantastic dinner at the Madrona Pub and lolled around the resort. By coincidence, we were docked two boats away from our sistership, MV Curiosity, another Nordhavn 43.

We departed Roche Harbor with full water tanks, charged batteries, and a rested crew for Stuart Island, literally a hop, skip and jump away. We took a mooring buoy in Reid Harbor and enjoyed a beautiful evening on the boat deck, cracking our big crab harvest. Reid Harbor has a dock with a ramp to shore which we enjoyed with the dogs.

It’s been fun to put this capable ship through her paces here in the San Juan Islands.  Tomorrow we cross the border into Canada and explore the Gulf Islands.

Boat Notes

Knock on wood; we’ve had zero mechanical or system issues on the trip so far. We had our first Watermaker alarm tonight, but cleaning the two pre-filters did the trick. I was making water in Reid Harbor, which must not be the cleanest of bays. One of our watermaker filters was severely fouled. Yuck.

Spencer Spit

Thursday, July 11, 2019 • 2 min read

I’m writing this in the red glow of the wheelhouse courtesy lights on this calm night at Spencer Spit on the northwest side of Lopez Island. Lisa and Connor have retired to their respective staterooms, bushed from a long day of sea air. I’m tired, but I want to capture some of this experience while it’s fresh in my mind.

I’ve dreamt of moments like this. All around me is calm water. A half-dozen other boats float nearby at anchor. All is silent except for the small sounds of the ship: a creak from somewhere as the boat gently rocks, a soft slap of a wave. The waxing crescent moon provides a shimmering runway of light from the boat to shore, ever changing in the ripples, mesmerizing. I smell the faint odor of a campfire on the beach and something else - a primordial salty smell that reminds me of beaches and seaweed and boats. I am happy.

Spencer Spit has long been a favorite spot of ours in the San Juans and it nice to be back here early on this trip. Sandy beaches, driftwood forts and walking trails make this a fun place to visit with kids. The protection is surprisingly good, even with a frequent ferry that runs through Lopez Pass. The scenery is breathtaking. Here’s a view south over the spit from the flybridge:

And here’s shot of Indiscretion looking north. What an incredible backdrop to take in. You can see why this part of the world is a favorite for boaters.

Spencer Spit has no dock, so we’ve used our anchor buddy to keep the heavy tender floating while we go ashore. I’ve been wanting to try this out and it’s dead simple to use. I’m kind of amazed that it works so well. We’ll see how I feel about it tomorrow at six in the morning when the dogs need to go ashore.

A Passage of Firsts

Sunday, July 7, 2019 • 4 min read

Our voyage has begun! We cast off the dock lines in the wee hours of Saturday morning to catch the ebb tide and are now comfortably anchored in Hunter Bay on the Southeast part of Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands.

The ninety mile trip from Vashon Island took eleven hours, about two hours less than we planned due to the benefit of favorable currents through Admiralty Inlet. A small craft advisory was in effect for the Strait of Juan de Fuca for the afternoon. This trawler can handle most any weather and we were looking forward to a little excitement to start off our big trip. Despite the warnings, the wind was a no-show and it might have been the calmest afternoon crossing we’ve ever made.

We’ve made this passage aboard sailboats many times, but there were a number of new experiences that are worth sharing. Here are my “firsts” for our trip so far:

1. First single-day passage to the San Juan Islands without laying over in Port Townsend or other stop-over ahead of the straits.
2. First time I’ve enjoyed a hot shower while underway. Even on our largest sailboat, cruising accommodations were spartan and cramped. Having a full-size stand-up shower aboard is a wonderful luxury.
3. First night-time departure. Indiscretion has a FLIR infrared camera which provides a near-daylight view of the water ahead and around us, even in complete darkness. We could make out individual wavelets and any debris in the water quite easily as we made our way through the crowd of anchored boats in Quartermaster Harbor.
4. First full-day passage where I wasn’t cold or wet for long stretches. Comforts abound within the pilothouse of a trawler, regardless of the weather outside.
5. First time I’ve encountered sustained 11 knot speed over ground in a vessel under my command. Love those strong currents when they’re in our favor!
6. First time I’ve shared the helm so much. Lisa steered for a large portion of the trip, letting me shower, rest, and just enjoy the comfortable ride aboard a trawler. I love sitting in the shelter of our stern cockpit, watching the wake and miles roll away.

It was a good day.

This morning, we’re anchored in about 16 feet of water in Hunter Bay on the Southeast side of Lopez Island. The harbor is a popular stop-over spot for boaters needing to cross the strait, or like us, a protected place to anchor after a crossing. There are about fifteen boats anchored in the bay this Sunday morning with room for many more.

There is a public boat ramp with a dock which we’ve used with the dogs to do their business. The area is primarily residential with private beaches, so there isn’t much to do ashore, though it’s been a perfect spot to rest up and recharge before heading further North.

Boat Notes

We’re testing out a new WIFI/internet system on the boat.   We purchased a MOFI 4500 WIFI router which accepts cellphone style SIM cards for internet service.  We signed up for a $60 per month plan from OTR-Mobile which provides high speed unlimited data throughout the U.S.  This seemed a little too good to be true, so we were anxious to test it out.  We had spotty coverage as we crossed the Strait, but otherwise has worked perfectly.  Here on Lopez Island we have faster internet than we enjoy at home.  Go figure.

One of the things we’re still trying to learn is proper power management. Indiscretion has a lot of power-hungry systems which will quickly sap our batteries without recharging them via generator. We have an oversized generator that will develop issues if we run it just for battery charging. So, every morning and night, we run the generator to recharge the batteries, but also hunt for things we can turn on to put more load on the system. Last night we watched TV, turned on the air conditioning, and made 40 gallons of water with our watermaker. This morning, we’re doing laundry (my sailing friends are rolling their eyes now), heating the boat via the HVAC system, and making more water. Coming from a sailboat with very few systems and no generator, this has been a challenge to accept.