All Good Things

After five years of amazing adventures aboard our Nordhavn trawler MV Indiscretion, we’ve decided it’s time for a change. We are coming off the water.

We didn’t plan on this. We dreamed for decades to be at this very spot in our lives — casting off the bowlines to explore the world under our own keel at the unhurried pace of seven knots. But life doesn’t always work out like you hoped.

On September 27th, 2022, our son Connor was killed in a motorcycle accident in Colorado Springs. A car pulled out in front of him on a busy street a half mile from his apartment. He was just twenty years old.

After Connor’s death, reeling with loss, we took what would be our final cruise aboard Indiscretion. We were in shock and did not know what else to do. If any solace were possible for our crushed family, we thought it must be found in the harbors and bays of our beloved San Juan Islands. Our daughter accompanied us, and her partner joined a week later. We met up with dear friends from MV Fortitude and MV Equinox who helped distract us from our misery with companionship and love. Still, every anchorage, every island hike, every trip ashore in the tender, every sunset and moonrise — all of it reminded us of Connor’s absence. We found peace but agony too, as this new reality sunk in.

Connor and Lisa
Connor and Lisa

We put the boat away in November and headed south to our new winter home here in Arizona. We’ve spent these past months wondering how we move forward after such a tragedy.

Each time we discussed our return in the spring, we both felt despondent. Our plans to cruise to Alaska this summer felt empty and joyless. Despite our love for the pristine cruising grounds of the Salish Sea and our wonderful boat friends we’ve met along the way, we just couldn’t imagine resuming our life afloat.

Connor spent his youth sailing and boating with us, and the reminder of the memories we made together is simply too painful. In this new grief-stricken world, returning to the familiar and comfortable fills us with dread; we need to invent a new life that won’t constantly remind us of our loss. And maybe, in the process, allow us to accept what feels unacceptable.

These precious moments  …
These precious moments …

Here’s a lesson for us all. Despite our best wishes and plans, life is incredibly uncertain. We don’t know what the future may bring. No one does. We insist on having it all figured out before acting on our dreams. But sometimes, before the plan is perfected, the unthinkable changes everything. If there’s one bit of advice I could offer, it’s this: don’t wait. Go sooner. Better yet, go now. Right now is all we have. You may not get another chance.

The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.  — Seneca

We aren’t saying goodbye to adventure. That’s the last thing Connor would have wanted. Instead, we’ve decided to pivot in a direction that will honor his memory and allow us the chance to heal without the constant reminder of our loss. In the last two years of his life, he developed a passion for off-roading in his Jeep. He and his friends would take old forest service roads deep into the Colorado mountains, looking for challenging routes that might tax the 4×4’s crawling capabilities. The battered underside of his Jeep proves he pushed that vehicle to its limits. We treasure the selfies he sent us from the summits of his off-road adventures, the vivid blue sky and Rocky Mountain vistas framing his smiling delight.

Connor and his Jeep
Connor and his Jeep

In that spirit, we bought an off-road capable RV, more akin to a camper van than a plush motorhome, that we’ll use to explore the deserts and mountains that Connor grew to love in the last years of his life. We’ve never been a fan of crowded RV parks, so we chose a rig that can take us far off the beaten path — boondocking as it’s known in RV vernacular — the boating equivalent of dropping the hook in a secluded anchorage. On some trips, we’ll tow Connor’s old Jeep to seek out the otherwise unreachable places he would have loved to see. It comforts us that we’ll follow a path our son would have taken had he lived.

New adventures.
New adventures.

As we close this chapter, we are grateful for the adventures and friendships we enjoyed during our five years of trawler life. Joining the Nordhavn family, even aboard one of the smallest vessels in the fleet, was both a privilege and a joy. I learned so much from the many experienced captains and marine experts who freely shared their wisdom with me time and again. I felt like I was getting to the point where my growing skills and talents could be paid forward to the newest crop of skippers. And oh, will we miss the friends we met along the way. I have to trust that our paths will somehow cross again in the future.

We are incredibly grateful to Devin Zwick of Nordhavn Northwest. In all my years of boating, I’ve rarely encountered a more capable, knowledgeable and compassionate yacht professional. Devin personally skippered the boat from her slip in Seattle to Anacortes, oversaw her annual haul-out, worked with me remotely to iron out the logistics and terms of the sale, and found a terrific new owner for Indiscretion — all in the course of a few short weeks. They say the happiest days in a skipper’s life are when he buys and sells a boat. This is surely not the case with Indiscretion. We dearly love this trawler. But Devin worked extremely hard to make the process as seamless for us as possible. For most people, there’s an “oh shit, what have I done” moment before you sign the papers to buy a boat, particularly one as expensive as a Nordhavn trawler. Our story should lessen the uneasiness for those about to make this plunge. Believe me, that spreadsheet you keep studying won’t help you. Go for it. You only pass this way once.

I kept this blog as a way to share my amazement and good fortune at having the chance to operate and cruise aboard a little ship like Indiscretion. Many nights I sat in the darkened pilothouse when everyone was already asleep, listening to the sounds of the wind, watching the moonlight on the water and the spin of the lights on shore as we circled our anchor, feeling utterly incredulous at my luck. I hope these posts have been informative and inspiring to others who also feel drawn to the wildness and tranquility of the ocean.

And who knows? I’ve skippered a boat for most of my adult life. We might find our way back to the shore one day when the pull of the saltwater in our veins overtakes the grief in our hearts. In a world where nothing is certain, anything is possible.

Shilshole Marina — The Voyage Home

Kicking back in the cockpit of Indiscretion on this fine May evening, I’ve been thinking about how life has a way of circling back on itself in strange, unexpected ways.

We’ve been settled in our new slip at Shilshole Marina in Seattle for a month now as we finalize the sale of our Vashon Island home. After all the frenetic activity involved in readying a house to sell, it feels good just to be still and observe the hustle and bustle that surrounds us here, in what surely must be the very center of the trawler universe. Continue reading “Shilshole Marina — The Voyage Home”

The Gales of November

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. Continue reading “The Gales of November”

Fall Cruising on Hood Canal

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. Continue reading “Fall Cruising on Hood Canal”

Water, Water

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.

Continue reading “Water, Water”

Boat Problem? Think Horses, Not Zebras

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. Continue reading “Boat Problem? Think Horses, Not Zebras”

Indiscretion Gets a Second Brain

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. Continue reading “Indiscretion Gets a Second Brain”

Early Spring in the San Juans: Island Jewels

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.

Jones Island

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. Continue reading “Early Spring in the San Juans: Island Jewels”

Early Spring in the San Juan Islands: Heading North

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. Continue reading “Early Spring in the San Juan Islands: Heading North”