About us and the boat

About us and the boat:

We were lucky enough to retire early at the start of 2013 so we could head off and "live the dream" on board our Nordhavn 47 Trawler Yacht. The idea is to see some of the planet, at a slow 6 - 7 knots pace. There are no fixed goals or timings, we just had a plan to visit Scotland and then probably the Baltic before heading south.

The idea is to visit the nicer areas in these latitudes before heading south for warmer weather. If we like somewhere, we will stay for a while. If not, we will just move on. So, for the people who love forward planning and targets, this might seem a little relaxed!

If anyone else is contemplating a trawler yacht life, maybe our experiences will be enough to make you think again, or maybe do it sooner then you intended!

The boat is called Rockland and she is built for long distance cruising and a comfortable life on board too. If you want to see more about trawler yachts and the Nordhavn 47 in particular, there is a link to the manufacturers website in our "useful stuff" section. For the technically minded, there is a little info and pictures of the boat and equipment in the same section

Regards

Richard and June

Thursday 2 May 2013

Guernsey life.....

As the Scotland forecasts are still not nice, we are hanging around here in the sun and cold wind for a while. For the people that have never visited the little island, here are a few impressions:



This is the entrance to the visitors (Victoria) marina at low water. As you can see, quite a rise and fall of tide here (last week we had a 9.6 metre difference high-low). Despite being classed as a "small boat" in the Nordhavn range, we are too big to go into the marina. We stay outside in the main harbour -  the eagle eyed might just find her in here:





Being outside gives much better views of what is going on. For example, there is a lot of effort to reduce emissions etc and new 2-stroke outboards are banned for leisure users as they pollute too much apparently. This is the Portsmouth - Guernsey - Jersey ferry leaving her berth. No comment, I hope they have a chimney sweep on board.


Our late evening view of the fast ferry heading off to Poole:


If you own an island like the Barclay brothers, then you have a fleet of nice tenders to use when popping into St Peter Port or delivering supplies. That is if you decide not to use the helicopter. Here is one of them:



We have a slightly smaller arrangement: