It’s been a year since I adopted Craft as my primary research and note-taking app. I shared my impressions of Craft early on, but I thought I would provide an update on how I’m using the software and why, with all the other choices available in the personal knowledge management (PKM) space, I’m still all-in with Craft.
We’re in the middle of a wet, windy month here in the Pacific Northwest. A weather phenomenon known as a “bomb cyclone” brought sustained winds of 30 knots and gusts up to 50 knots earlier this month. Since then, successive weather systems, aptly called atmospheric rivers, have pummeled Puget Sound, bringing rain and high winds almost every day. Today is no exception: a new storm has knocked out power to our entire island, so we’ve added the steady hum of our noisy generator to the whistling of 40-knot winds and the percussion of rain strafing the windows.
I’m a long-time subscriber of Grammarly, the subscription-based grammar checking and proofreading service. I’m the kind of writer that needs grammar and style checking. No matter how many times I review a draft, the round trip through Grammarly finds some sort of error. It’s tough to proofread your own writing, and incorporating this final check in my process has saved me from some otherwise mortifying bloopers. The cost of a premium Grammarly subscription feels low when compared to publishing articles with these dumb writing errors.
The crew of Indiscretion achieved a matrimonial milestone this month — our 25th Wedding Anniversary. This is remarkable, not only because our marriage has lasted far longer than the statistical average, but also because our friends all expected this spur-of-the-moment marriage to dissolve within six months of our elopement in Greece. There had been a large quantity of Ouzo consumed the night before we wrote out marriage vows on a rocky outcropping on Skiathos, so even we wondered early on how this would all work out.
We decide to celebrate our anniversary at Alderbrook Resort and Spa on the southern end of Hood Canal. We could have driven to this beautiful resort from our home on Vashon Island in about an hour, but what would be the fun in that? Instead, we would travel there by boat, which requires voyaging about seven hours north to the entrance of Hood Canal, and then heading south for another seven hours. Such is life at seven knots.
Fall cruising in the Pacific Northwest brings such a variety of weather conditions. Full sun, clouds, rain, blustery winds, even hail and thunderstorms. We canceled many cruising opportunities on our sailboats when the forecast was iffy, but not anymore. This trawler provides a comfortable sanctuary for just about any kind of weather. And beautiful sunsets too. Trawler life is good!
I spend a lot of time with my nose in a book. Last year, I read 61 books, and I'm on track to read that many again in 2021. Yet, as fast as I read, I can't seem to make a dent in my To-Be-Read pile. So many books, so little time. Sometimes it feels like I'm running on a treadmill with an ever-increasing speed.
Lately, I've been questioning whether this strategy of gulping down so many books is wise after all. When I scan down the list of the books I've read so far this year, a few stand out, but many are already a blur. I hover over a few on the list — wait, did I actually read that?
For the past ten years, I have been on a mission to eradicate paper from my work and home life. I can now access information more quickly and from anywhere, whether at sea or at the Apple Store where I need to produce the invoice for a dead MacBook Pro. And yet, one hold-out refuses to go gently into that dark night of paper annihilation: my Field Notes notebooks. These pint-sized memo books with their quirky designs and durable paper still travel with me just about everywhere. I sometimes wonder at the irony of using a $1,000 iPad Pro as a lap desk to scribble in a $4 notebook.
With everything else in my life so digitally focused, why do I still fill one of these 48-page Field Notes every three or four weeks?
In my office, I keep an old photograph of the Buckaroo Tavern in the Seattle neighborhood of Fremont. The photo truly captured the character of the place: two chrome-festooned Harley Davidson motorcycles parked up on the sidewalk out front, bright orbs from the lights hung over the pool tables, and an outstretched arm and pool cue of a patron poised in mid-shot. I spent many nights at this dive bar as a young man. My eyes burned from the cigarette smoke, and the rough-looking biker crowd that congregated at the bar would often chuckle over their beers at this clean-cut accountant toting a pool cue case, but I loved the place. I had the photograph framed when we first moved to Vashon Island. It hangs between a picture of Mark Twain standing before a pool table considering his next shot and a signed photograph of Jack Dempsey in his famous boxing stance. But, it’s the tavern picture that has caught my attention lately as I think back on that long ago life before kids.
On a boat, the most basic conveniences of life — like running water — require forethought and attention. In this post, we explore how we manage water aboard our Nordhavn 43 trawler.
Ample fresh water aboard Indiscretion is one of the many extravagances we enjoy aboard this expedition trawler. Our Catalina sailboat had just 50 gallons of fresh water, which we stretched to six or seven days of cruising with careful dishwashing and quick cockpit showers for the kids. The trawler holds 300 gallons of fresh water with onboard water-making capability that, in theory, provides us with an infinite supply.
One of the great joys of anchoring out in a beautiful bay is the free time you have to focus on lingering boat projects. When you’re away from the boat, these issues seem to stack up until a later day. But here in Hunter Bay in the beautiful San Juan Islands? I had plenty of time.
My focus of the day: a wiring problem lurking somewhere in the pilothouse that randomly kept flipping our Maretron system circuit breaker. This happened when I opened or closed the ship’s service panel door, so I suspected a loose wire somewhere.
With most of my nautical life spent on sailboats, marine electronics has never been much of a focus area. Our most well-equipped cruising sailboat carried just basic navigation equipment: an autopilot, a chartplotter, and instruments for speed, depth, and wind. I knew that more sophisticated systems were available; I just didn’t see the need for anything more complex, though radar would have been a welcome addition with all the fog we have here in the summer.
Sometimes all it takes is a few quiet days and nights at anchor in some secluded bay. Any stress you might have brought aboard fell away in the wake of the voyage, but soon you rediscover a deeper level of relaxation and peace that you only seem to find on a boat. You slip into that easily misplaced rhythm of tide and weather and sky. Maybe it’s the primordial rocking, almost imperceptible on this heavy trawler, or the immediate connection to the fundamentals of life. You don’t dare examine it too closely. Allow the mystery of what drives us seaward be enough.
Part three: After a rough start (part one) and a nice passage north (part two), we concluded our three weeks of island hopping through the beautiful San Sun Islands, enjoying mostly fine weather and deserted anchorages.
After a blissful three days on Stuart Island, we plot the seven-mile course to Jones Island. A strong current flows against us between Speiden and San Juan Island, so we decide to take the northern route above Speiden to see if we could make better time. This turns out to be a mistake. An even stronger current slows us, and worse, a series of tidal eddies have us spinning this way and that as we make our way eastward through New Channel. At the narrowest part of the passage between Speiden and the Cactus Islands, I marvel at a flock of floating birds spinning on the water like they are riding an invisible merry-go-round. Moments later, we enter this vortex to hell ourselves.
Part Two: Having quickly resolved our hydraulic system problems, the crew of Indiscretion heads north for the San Juan Islands.
After departing Shilshole Marina, we arrive at Port Ludlow and spend the night at anchor to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca with the tide in the morning. Weather on the Strait can be unsettled this time of year, but we have a nice window before a storm arrives on Sunday. This is our second visit to Port Ludlow and each time we wish we had more time to explore this lovely, protected bay.
Indiscretion at anchor in Port Ludlow
The crossing of the Strait is uneventful — just lumpy. High winds the night before leave behind a confused sea that has our stabilizers flapping this way and that to keep us on an even keel. I make more than a few trips to the engine room during the crossing to ensure the hydraulic system hasn’t sprung any new leaks. We’re steering for Roche Harbor, so we take the more exposed route through Haro Strait, hoping we might see whales again near Lime Kiln Point. No whales this trip, unfortunately.
Part One: The crew of Indiscretion sets out for an open-ended cruise through the San Juan Islands in early spring, but their voyage is in jeopardy within hours of departure.
The San Juan Islands are some of the most beautiful cruising grounds in the world. More than a hundred named islands and reefs with numerous state parks, anchorages, and destination marinas are scattered throughout this archipelago spanning the waters of northwestern Washington state. While currents can sometimes be tricky to navigate, the San Juans are perfect for slow boats like trawlers. The islands are close enough that your next anchorage is usually just an hour or two away, even at seven knots, and there are almost an unlimited number of harbors and inlets to explore.
Back to reality: the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs pressure washing, the bills need paying … but a part of me is still afloat, feeling the gentle sway and rock, marveling at the colors and hush of twilight on a boat in the islands.
I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to be adventuring with this beautiful woman. She’s been putting up with me for almost 25 years, raising children, managing a career, and making the best of the challenges in life. Through it all it seems like she’s always smiling.
I snapped this picture of her in the cockpit at Shilshole Marina. We had to divert there on our way to the San Juan Islands because of a low oil alarm from our stabilizer system. Our first day out on an open ended trip North. Right before I took this picture, I filled her in on the problem: a pressure gauge on the hydraulic system had failed and it allowed all of the hydraulic fluid in the system to dump into the bilge. We were stuck until I could find replacement parts and 5 gallons of hydraulic oil.
She honestly laughed when I told her this. She said: “Well, if we’re going to be stuck somewhere, this is as good as any. Plus, you’ll figure it out.”
I wasn’t quite as cheerful or confident, but it turns out she was right. An Uber ride to central Ballard put me in walking distance of everything I needed. I might have been covered in hydraulic fluid for a good part of the next morning, but I fixed the problem. And we were back underway.
But, even if I hadn’t been able to fix it, I’m pretty sure she’d still be smiling and making the best of things. I am one lucky guy.
It’s that moment before a cruise when you sit back and consider. Everything is stowed. We have more food than we will likely have a chance to eat. My maintenance list is checked off. The engine room check just now was fine. All systems are go. The boat is literally tugging at her lines to go.
Still, I have that nagging feeling I’ve forgotten something important, that familiar disquiet before casting off the dock lines on a long voyage. I’ve learned to savor this unease. Caution is good at sea. But I also know this feeling flies away like morning fog as soon as we’re 50 yards away from the dock. Heading north tomorrow!
With a welcome change in the weather, the crew of Indiscretion made immediate plans to cast off our dock lines. We unloaded a dock cart full of too much food, topped off the water tank, and set out for a much-needed winter cruise through central Puget Sound.
I could see the problem from the very start. This complicated trawler yacht with all her engines and systems required more attention than I could possibly dedicate on nights and weekends. She needed a full-time captain and engineer to keep her Bristol and ready at a moment’s notice to cast off and make for remote destinations.