Trawler Adventures

There is probably no better endorsement for the Trawler Lifestyle than the wonderful trawler adventures available to all of us on the internet.  The musings, tell all exposé’s, passionate ranting and eloquent retrospectives found in the cruising blogs and websites of active power cruisers amuse, entertain and inspire!  The internet allows us to not only shop for a trawler, but also to ride along vicariously with trawler owners in boats of all sizes out enjoying time on the water spread out all over the world.

Long time Nordhavn owner Ken Williams (who with wife Roberta own the Nordhavn 68 Sans Souci) has been one of the most prolific boating bloggers of all time and turned his reports into several books.  He created talkspot.com which many cruisers use for their postings.  Whether they create their own website, open a Facebook page or use Tumblr, Weebly, Twitter or any of a dozen other ways to share their lives I try to find time each week to check up on what everyone is up to…and secretly wish that I was aboard with all of them.

Buddy and Kathy Bethea had thousands of followers when they cruised from CA up to Alaska and then over to the east coast via the Panama Canal aboard their Nordhavn 55 Always Friday. They have since sold their boat, but their posts – particularly their time in Alaska – are a great resource for fellow cruisers and live-on in the internet.

Scott and Mary Flanders on the Nordhavn 46 Egret have been magnificent in bringing the world on board with their “Voyages of Egret” which is posted on the Nordhavn.com website and set new standards for information sharing.

James and Jennifer Hamilton on the Nordhavn 52 Dirona created their own software to show their real time location on a Google Earth map and include photos with their postings, amazing to me that people can figure this kind of stuff out.

I’ve watched young Ayla Besemer enchant the world with her “from the pilothouse” posts and videos as she gives a teenager’s perspective of world cruising growing up and doing her schooling at sea aboard the Nordhavn 43 Three @ Sea.

Eric and Christi Grab blogged during their circumnavigation aboard the Nordhavn 43 Kosmos and Christi has written the first two books in a planned series of four…interestingly including details in book print that she really didn’t want her insurance people to read during their trip!

I could go on and on about each different blog, all of them informative, most of them entertaining and each of them showing the rest of us that “mere mortals” (OK, some of them are Rock Stars) can head out to sea and enjoy grand adventures.  So our goal is to see if we can try to figure out a way to join them as crew, or become fellow trawler neighbors at the next anchorage.

Many blogs have a quote attributed to Mark Twain on their home page,

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.  Dream.  Discover.”

Which leads me to the list below (I love compiling lists).  Here are a few of my favorite blogs –not all are customers whom I sold their boat to (most are), but more importantly I consider all of them friends and am always interested to hear what they are doing and where they are traveling.  The wisdom and advice passed along from those out living their dreams is in one word, priceless.

Blogs and websites take a lot of work, sometimes too much work (this trawler lifestyle thing is supposed to emphasize more play than work).  And the desire to publish current content can become more of a burden and takes away from valuable cruising time (there are enough chores already). Some trawler owners are full time, some are seasonal, but universally they admit that they would all rather be cruising than typing.  It’s not done for profit, it’s done for family and friends, but it’s not uncommon to see a large following become attracted to the more popular sites. For these reasons, we may be showcasing trawler owners who go inactive for months or feature trawler that have been sold (several we are responsible for).  Regardless, it is our view that if the information is still available online we believe this way of sharing information and experiences is an amazingly honest resource that is invaluable, so don’t let the date stamp or expiration date prevent you from reading, learning and enjoying.

If you have a trawler blog or website that you would like to see us include, or know of a trawler we should feature, please send an email to Jeff so that we can add another trawler to this collection.

So long Pendana blog…

It got to be something to look forward to. Each month a new guest would be interviewed by James Ellingford and featured on the Pendana blog. Pendana is a Nordhavn 62 that James purchased in Florida and shipped home to Australia. From Australia the Ellingford family and pets crossed the Pacific to visit America. As is normal in life, things change and with a very low profile transaction, Pendana changed hands in California in 2018.   We miss James’ great insights, witty humor and detailed annual expense summaries, which were all contained in the blog/website that apparently was discontinued late in 2018.  Hopefully it will resurface someday, but if you missed it you can relive some of the fun through a book compilation of the interviews that is still available for purchase called “Cruising Conversations”.  As far as internet presence, those past interviews have faded away.  Jeff was interviewed back in July, 2015 and we were given permission to post it on JMYS and saved it here for anyone who would like to learn a little bit about Jeff, Pam, Elle and Jonn Merrill.

July, 2015 – Jeff Merrill