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, 17 August 2015

Dunoon, Mount Stuart and Port Bannatyne (Isle of Bute)

Despite a hint of rain in the forecast, we braved things for the walk around the waterfront to Dunoon. Of course, it rained a little en route - still not old enough to be wise. The good thing was that the showers stopped before the waterproofing in our jackets gave way.

There is only so much fun that you can have in Dunoon. The extent of "so much" is, we think, related to your age and if you have lived in solitary confinement for most of your life. Be that as it may, Dunoon was a nice walk, lunch (same place we visited with the toddlers) and a haircut for Andrew that got a little criticism from Linda. Luckily, he wore a cap most of the time:




He also does a good mean and moody "far away" look.

We then made another huge sea voyage, around to Port Bannatyne on Bute. This small and very friendly marina had hosted us a couple of years ago and said they had space again - of course the space was a little cosy for us but we wriggled onto the free hammerhead. A much nicer spot than the grim offerings in Rothesay. As the sun was out, a walk into the metropolis (Rothesay) was in order. En route, the crew had to admire (?) the many jellyfish in the bay:


Yes, there were lots of Lion's mane in there, just waiting to strangle our genset again. Little did they realise that we had shorepower this time so their attempts would be futile. The Port Bannatyne sailing club has a most palatial waterside hut but somehow we don't think that the members of the Royal Ulster club (see our posts from Bangor earlier this year) will be too jealous:



In the sun, with only a little wind, it was just a perfect afternoon in perfect scenery. This inspired Linda to get all artistic with her posh new iPhone 6 in its low visibility luminous green case:



She seemed to be pointing at the sad buildings on the edge of town rather than the lovely water views behind her though. Wonder if it was a selfie? Perhaps this is the image she was hunting for:



The classic converted MFV is a "cruise ship" that offers holidays around the area - might be an interesting way to explore if she has been well scrubbed out before they added the guest cabins...

Andrew had the fun of visiting the famous Victorian loo in Rothesay. The captain put a couple of surreptitious pictures of this in the blog a couple of years ago. Andrew was a little more blasé about taking a photo and so here it is. Girls, look away now:





A repeat visit to Mount Stuart house was a must. For those who like stunning, quirky, over the top old houses, look at house website . The outside is nowhere as impressive as the amazing interior but despite that:





The gardens are pretty good too:



They get the bees seal of approval anyway. Mount Stuart is still the best house that we've ever visited.  Go there.... 









Friday, 14 August 2015

B and B turnaround time

After so much toddling, it was time to sort out the boat and prepare for the next onslaught of guests. Perhaps the collective noun for guests should be "an onslaught"? We hope that Andrew and Linda don't read this of course.....

After some serious boat washing, tidying, spoodling and an over-active washing machine we started to enjoy the warmest and sunniest day in Scotland so far. Actually it wasn't all enjoyment. the captain's fun little tooth decided that it needed to have the nerve killed off / removed not just a filling. So, plenty of drilling and excavating later, it emerged with a temporary filling in place and an appointment for a proper one in a couple of weeks. Better stay around here then....

We were close to Annie M, the Nordhavn 47 that is up for sale and we tried to help the Nordhavn Europe guys with a few pictures they could use:



Spot the specification differences to ours:



The captain does covet Annie M's nice Rocna anchor (although our delta has always been reliable). Should you buy Annie M and find that the anchor is not as per specification, you now know why.

Having done the hard stuff, we had to enjoy the SUN (yes, not a word used often in Scotland this summer) properly. We dug out the folding chairs which had turned blue with the cold and lack of sun:


Even managed dinner outside for the first time in 2015. Sad isn't it? We wanted to include this picture as we think the chairs will be suffering from claustrophobia for the next 9 months.

Most B and B establishments expect their guests to drive up to the front door. We seem to collect ours - think we have misunderstood how this business works frankly. A train trip to Glasgow Airport to meet another horribly delayed flight (this time Flymaybe) found us meeting Andrew, Linda and their two enormous bags. Scotrail delivered us all back to Inverkip but didn't help with the staggering down the hill to the marina bit.

We escaped Kip and toodled across to Holy Loch, a huge sea voyage, for the evening. Very civilised.