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. Af ..read more

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. Walking the dogs from our slip on J dock. Shilshole Marina is home to near ..read more

A sea change is underway for Indiscretion and her crew. In the span of three cold, dark and rainy months here in the Pacific Northwest, we have decided to shake things up in four significant ways. First, we are selling our waterfront home here on Vashon Island. We’ve lived in this sprawling farmhouse for twenty-three years and raised our family here on this beautiful island. We’ve made lifelong friends and put down roots that run very deep. But keeping an older home on acreage no longer fits our vagabond plans of exploring distant ports by boat. The children that made this house a wonderful fa ..read more

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. It is said a mariner’s plans are writ ..read more

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 so ..read more

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 sup ..read more

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. I had done just about everything I knew to do: wiring checking and conn ..read more

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. Indiscretion has navigation instruments and electronics that are far more advanced than any of our sailboats. Besides the basics, we hav ..read more

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 ..read more

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 unevent ..read more