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

Monday 25 July 2016

Tobermory to Salen

Not trying to suggest that there had been lots of rain, but there is quite a waterfall into Tobermory bay. Someone must have been busy at high water from their dinghy painting these white yacht outlines on the adjacent rock:



Quite a quirky thing to do:



Although we were happy here, amongst the unusual artwork, folks had told us how nice Loch Sunart was. So, after raiding the Co-op again (no proper shops expected for a few days!) we decided to test it out. The only problem was more low cloud that kind of spoiled a view that the pilot book calls "One of the most picturesque of west coast lochs, with successive ranks of mountains and islands arranged as in a Victorian engraving of highland scenery".

Indeed. Have you seen any Victorian engravings of highland scenery that would help you picture this vista then? Strange comment in a modern book - we hope that the sailing directions are better and more up to date than the author's analogies....

We didn't get to fully enjoy the "successive ranks" as the cloud base had dropped down to the top of the hills. Instead we had an atmospheric trip up the loch, twisting and turning to avoid the odd rock (most unmarked):



The trip didn't really finish in the middle of the loch. The AIS tracking service obviously gave up when we were truly in the middle of nowhere - we stopped in Salen bay which is the bay shown on the map below Acharacle. Some nice Yorkshire born folks have put in some moorings there to supplement the old stone jetty (another Thomas Telford construction from around 1820) and were very welcoming, joining us on board for a coffee when the rain started (of course) and telling us about the local area. A walk around the bay in the evening gave some pretty loch views and made us appreciate the quiet beauty of the area:






Spotted the Nordhavn?

We kind of like it here. Might take some time to do a little exploring

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