Trawler Blogs

I am typing this from at sea. We have now departed Mallorca and are on our way to the island of Ibiza. It’s a fairly short seven hour run and we’ve spent much of the ride talking about, “Where do we want to drop the anchor? Which bay? The north side or the south side?”

Anyway…

Yesterday, I sent a blog entry grumbling about the some of the rough nights we’ve had at anchor this year. This triggered several emails asking why we don’t consider having crew onboard, including this one:

Roberta and I have discussed having crew. It isn’t the expense that bothers us, although that is certainly an issue. The bigger issue is that we would be living with another person (or two) for months in a very tight space. In Europe it is common to have crew on virtually all power boats over about 40’ in length. As we were leaving the anchorage this morning we passed a steel trawler, roughly the same size as our boat, which had FOUR crew! We watched the crew coming and going much of the day yesterday delivering the guests to shore.

Meanwhile, we were stuck on board. We had planned a nice dinner in town, and even picked a restaurant. But, we woke to heavy rain yesterday morning and higher wind than forecast. We decided that if it didn’t clear up by 4pm we’d have dinner on the boat. It takes time to thaw meat before cooking. 4pm came and went with the weather staying bad, so instead we put out some hamburger to make tacos for dinner. Thirty minutes later the weather cleared and we thought about putting the meat back in the freezer, but .. the momentum for going to a restaurant had been lost, and tacos were sounding good. Instead we tendered to shore for just a few minutes to take some trash and give the doggies some excitement.

Tacos are not on menus anywhere in Spain – but, no problem. We make our own on Sans Souci!

Toundra and Keeley assisting us in taking trash to shore.

As we were passing the tender loaded with very official looking uniformed crew from the big steel trawler Roberta said something like, “How would today have been different if we’d had crew?” I thought about it and said, “Well… the crew would be sitting here bobbing at anchor after having dropped us off a couple days ago at the nearest Ritz Carlton.” I was serious. From the Ritz Carlton (or, Four Seasons, or .. some other nice hotel) we could rent a car and drive anywhere we want to explore the island. But, Roberta was horrified by the idea. “I’d rather be on Sans Souci!,” she said. This didn’t completely make sense to me so I asked for an explanation.  “All of my stuff is here. Sans Souci is comfortable. I wouldn’t want to have to pack and unpack.”

I wasn’t finished with questioning. “Well, then perhaps we would be able to ask the crew to take us into port.” Roberta responded, “Yes. I guess. But, I don’t really like being in port.” I was digging deeper, and said, “Well. If it was a really rolly night, perhaps we could tell the crew to pick a direction that is comfortable with the swell and run us to a new anchorage.” I said this because sometimes if you are underway in lumpy seas it is actually more comfortable than sitting still. Sans Souci has stabilizers that help reduce the motion of the sea. One thing we have noticed with the crewed boats is that they don’t hesitate to move. If Roberta and I are at anchor and we notice that it is smoother on the other side of the bay, we tend to say, “Hey look! It’s smoother over there.” And, then we go back to what we were doing. Unless we are miserable the effort to pull in the flopper stoppers, rig the tender for towing, pull the anchor, do the engine room checks, run the boat, drop the anchor, and put the flopper stoppers back in the water – just isn’t worth it. Whereas with crew, it just happens. The crew almost seems to like having something to do. When we see the boats around us, they shift positions at the drop of a hat. We often see them pull anchor only to go to a different beach for the day and return before dinner. Or, even during dinner take the boat out for an evening cruise so that the guests have a nice view while they eat.

That’s a different world than I live in.

Arguably the incremental cost for crew wouldn’t be THAT much higher than what we spend today. I say that because of how Roberta and I operate. We have a mechanic we trust who is Seattle-based. (Actually, that is being unfair to Jeff – he is a LOT more than ‘just a mechanic. He’s a boat-god and takes very good care of Sans Souci.’) We pay him at the start and end of the season to fly to the boat and do whatever needs to be done. Often he is accompanied by one or more members of his team. Flying him around the world does not come free. But.. the nice thing is that we don’t see him.

Roberta and I talked about lots of things, but we never really talked about the real issues. There are three BIG reasons why we don’t have crew.

1)      Privacy. We can’t imagine the idea of having someone around the boat who sees what we do. In reality we don’t do anything interesting. Mostly we sit at our computers, or make dinner, or swim, or watch tv. Watching us do those things would get old quickly. It’s the idea that someone is looking over our shoulders that bothers us. And, the feeling that we need to be “on”. We wouldn’t be able to wander around the boat in our underwear if we want. I’d probably want to shave more often. There’s also the issue of sharing the galley. This is not a large enough boat to have multiple galleys or multiple laundry rooms. I don’t know how other boats our size do it. I guess for them the benefits outweigh the downsides. I asked one acquaintance with a similar sized boat to ours where the crew dines. His answer: “With us.” He went on to explain how great his crew was, and that they are like family. I can say that I have some great family. We have as good a parents and children as anyone could want. But, do we want to live in a 70’x22’ box with them for months at a time? (I won’t answer that because I could get in trouble!)

2)      Challenge. Boating is challenging. It’s something that we take pride in doing well. There is a sense of accomplishment. There are a number of skills required: Navigation, Electrical, Mechanical, Critical thinking, etc. Crossing an ocean, or even exploring a foreign country is a challenging endeavor. When you succeed it is an amazing feeling. It’s like a hiker who wants to climb a mountain. He could pay someone to hike the mountain on his/her behalf. But, what would be the fun in that. If the hiker were to give a report half-way up the mountain, it would be filled with comments like, “I’m pouring sweat. My knees hurt. My toes are bleeding. I’m out of breath.” But .. catch him at the top. He might not be able to share how he feels, because he  is too exhausted. But, I guarantee he will be smiling. In the final analysis, it is the sense of accomplishment that we love.

3)      There’s no need. We have probably cruised close to 50,000 miles, including crossing the Atlantic, the Bering Sea and visiting 25 or more countries. Out of all of that, we have only felt the need for crew a few times. On the ocean crossings we brought on some crew. They came. They went. We can always bring on crew when we want them. But, most of the time we can do it ourselves. The last few weeks I did do some whining. But, it was based on a particular place, at a particular time, with a particular set of weather. The Western Med thinks in terms of power boats having crew. They have a system in place for moorage that really assumes that larger power boats have crew. We don’t and that added a challenge. Even the anchoring is somewhat oriented around smaller boats that can tuck into places we can’t get to, and larger boats that have crew to easily put them into ports or places that are calm. And, even with that said, if we were coming back next season, I don’t think I’d add crew. This is a mountain we’d rather climb ourselves than pay someone to climb on our behalf. It’s within the limits of what we can do, and soon the boat will be back in the US, where the cruising is oriented towards boats our size NOT having crew. We’d look very out of place and spoiled with crew.

Three Nordhavns in one bay on Mallorca. What’s the odds of that! They are: Mighty Mouse (N76), Sans Souci (N68) and Albatross (N47). I wish the three boats had been closer together, but was just happy to get them all into one shot.

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and Toundra and Keeley)
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68

I am typing this from at sea. We have now departed Mallorca and are on our way to the island of Ibiza. It’s a fairly short seven hour run and we’ve spent much of the ride talking about, “Where do we want to drop the anchor? Which bay? The north side or the south side?”

Anyway…

Yesterday, I sent a blog entry grumbling about the some of the rough nights we’ve had at anchor this year. This triggered several emails asking why we don’t consider having crew onboard, including this one:

Roberta and I have discussed having crew. It isn’t the expense that bothers us, although that is certainly an issue. The bigger issue is that we would be living with another person (or two) for months in a very tight space. In Europe it is common to have crew on virtually all power boats over about 40’ in length. As we were leaving the anchorage this morning we passed a steel trawler, roughly the same size as our boat, which had FOUR crew! We watched the crew coming and going much of the day yesterday delivering the guests to shore.

Meanwhile, we were stuck on board. We had planned a nice dinner in town, and even picked a restaurant. But, we woke to heavy rain yesterday morning and higher wind than forecast. We decided that if it didn’t clear up by 4pm we’d have dinner on the boat. It takes time to thaw meat before cooking. 4pm came and went with the weather staying bad, so instead we put out some hamburger to make tacos for dinner. Thirty minutes later the weather cleared and we thought about putting the meat back in the freezer, but .. the momentum for going to a restaurant had been lost, and tacos were sounding good. Instead we tendered to shore for just a few minutes to take some trash and give the doggies some excitement.

Tacos are not on menus anywhere in Spain – but, no problem. We make our own on Sans Souci!

Toundra and Keeley assisting us in taking trash to shore.

As we were passing the tender loaded with very official looking uniformed crew from the big steel trawler Roberta said something like, “How would today have been different if we’d had crew?” I thought about it and said, “Well… the crew would be sitting here bobbing at anchor after having dropped us off a couple days ago at the nearest Ritz Carlton.” I was serious. From the Ritz Carlton (or, Four Seasons, or .. some other nice hotel) we could rent a car and drive anywhere we want to explore the island. But, Roberta was horrified by the idea. “I’d rather be on Sans Souci!,” she said. This didn’t completely make sense to me so I asked for an explanation.  “All of my stuff is here. Sans Souci is comfortable. I wouldn’t want to have to pack and unpack.”

I wasn’t finished with questioning. “Well, then perhaps we would be able to ask the crew to take us into port.” Roberta responded, “Yes. I guess. But, I don’t really like being in port.” I was digging deeper, and said, “Well. If it was a really rolly night, perhaps we could tell the crew to pick a direction that is comfortable with the swell and run us to a new anchorage.” I said this because sometimes if you are underway in lumpy seas it is actually more comfortable than sitting still. Sans Souci has stabilizers that help reduce the motion of the sea. One thing we have noticed with the crewed boats is that they don’t hesitate to move. If Roberta and I are at anchor and we notice that it is smoother on the other side of the bay, we tend to say, “Hey look! It’s smoother over there.” And, then we go back to what we were doing. Unless we are miserable the effort to pull in the flopper stoppers, rig the tender for towing, pull the anchor, do the engine room checks, run the boat, drop the anchor, and put the flopper stoppers back in the water – just isn’t worth it. Whereas with crew, it just happens. The crew almost seems to like having something to do. When we see the boats around us, they shift positions at the drop of a hat. We often see them pull anchor only to go to a different beach for the day and return before dinner. Or, even during dinner take the boat out for an evening cruise so that the guests have a nice view while they eat.

That’s a different world than I live in.

Arguably the incremental cost for crew wouldn’t be THAT much higher than what we spend today. I say that because of how Roberta and I operate. We have a mechanic we trust who is Seattle-based. (Actually, that is being unfair to Jeff – he is a LOT more than ‘just a mechanic. He’s a boat-god and takes very good care of Sans Souci.’) We pay him at the start and end of the season to fly to the boat and do whatever needs to be done. Often he is accompanied by one or more members of his team. Flying him around the world does not come free. But.. the nice thing is that we don’t see him.

Roberta and I talked about lots of things, but we never really talked about the real issues. There are three BIG reasons why we don’t have crew.

1)      Privacy. We can’t imagine the idea of having someone around the boat who sees what we do. In reality we don’t do anything interesting. Mostly we sit at our computers, or make dinner, or swim, or watch tv. Watching us do those things would get old quickly. It’s the idea that someone is looking over our shoulders that bothers us. And, the feeling that we need to be “on”. We wouldn’t be able to wander around the boat in our underwear if we want. I’d probably want to shave more often. There’s also the issue of sharing the galley. This is not a large enough boat to have multiple galleys or multiple laundry rooms. I don’t know how other boats our size do it. I guess for them the benefits outweigh the downsides. I asked one acquaintance with a similar sized boat to ours where the crew dines. His answer: “With us.” He went on to explain how great his crew was, and that they are like family. I can say that I have some great family. We have as good a parents and children as anyone could want. But, do we want to live in a 70’x22’ box with them for months at a time? (I won’t answer that because I could get in trouble!)

2)      Challenge. Boating is challenging. It’s something that we take pride in doing well. There is a sense of accomplishment. There are a number of skills required: Navigation, Electrical, Mechanical, Critical thinking, etc. Crossing an ocean, or even exploring a foreign country is a challenging endeavor. When you succeed it is an amazing feeling. It’s like a hiker who wants to climb a mountain. He could pay someone to hike the mountain on his/her behalf. But, what would be the fun in that. If the hiker were to give a report half-way up the mountain, it would be filled with comments like, “I’m pouring sweat. My knees hurt. My toes are bleeding. I’m out of breath.” But .. catch him at the top. He might not be able to share how he feels, because he  is too exhausted. But, I guarantee he will be smiling. In the final analysis, it is the sense of accomplishment that we love.

3)      There’s no need. We have probably cruised close to 50,000 miles, including crossing the Atlantic, the Bering Sea and visiting 25 or more countries. Out of all of that, we have only felt the need for crew a few times. On the ocean crossings we brought on some crew. They came. They went. We can always bring on crew when we want them. But, most of the time we can do it ourselves. The last few weeks I did do some whining. But, it was based on a particular place, at a particular time, with a particular set of weather. The Western Med thinks in terms of power boats having crew. They have a system in place for moorage that really assumes that larger power boats have crew. We don’t and that added a challenge. Even the anchoring is somewhat oriented around smaller boats that can tuck into places we can’t get to, and larger boats that have crew to easily put them into ports or places that are calm. And, even with that said, if we were coming back next season, I don’t think I’d add crew. This is a mountain we’d rather climb ourselves than pay someone to climb on our behalf. It’s within the limits of what we can do, and soon the boat will be back in the US, where the cruising is oriented towards boats our size NOT having crew. We’d look very out of place and spoiled with crew.

Three Nordhavns in one bay on Mallorca. What’s the odds of that! They are: Mighty Mouse (N76), Sans Souci (N68) and Albatross (N47). I wish the three boats had been closer together, but was just happy to get them all into one shot.

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and Toundra and Keeley)
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68

I am typing this at 6:40am. I have been sitting in the pilot house watching the monitors since 5:30am.

A bit of background….

Normally, Roberta and I love to be at anchor. We tend to think of the boat as a means of transportation whose primary purpose is to deliver us to the good anchorages.

However, in a complete reversal of our normal behavior I sent an email to my friend Steven Argosy (Nordhavn 62, Seabird) yesterday saying that we had moved our flights to go home a week sooner, and that a huge factor was that we were tired of being at anchor.

We have been at anchor the majority of the time over the last two months. Most of those two months have been great, but not all. We have struggled with swell and wind. There have been many nights without much sleep. We have had a couple of instances with dragging anchors, including another one yesterday.

The good times have far outnumbered the bad times, but the cumulative effect of the bad times has ground us down.

The Western Med (Italy, France and Spain) do not have a huge number of great anchorages. All of the Med is known for high winds, but wind is not a problem if you are sitting in port, or in a well-protected anchorage. In Croatia, Greece and Turkey we sat through winds over 30 knots that lasted for days, but they were non-events because we were in anchorages that offered good protection.

Starting last year with Italy, we have had a heck of a time finding well protected places to anchor. We have it better than most, in that Sans Souci is a heavy boat and we have flopper stoppers. Typically we roll the least of any boat in an anchorage. No one should feel sorry for us. That said, most other boats have options that we do not have. Most boats head to port when the wind blows, whereas we do not have that option partially because it can be hard to find moorage for a boat our size in high season, and primarily because it is hard for Roberta and I to enter a port (Med-Mooring) without assistance. It is also probably true that a lot of the boats around us are more accustomed to “toughing it out” and do not mind the roll. Most of the boats around us are sailboats in the 20 to 40 foot range, and they roll unbelievably. It must be miserable inside of those boats, but they don’t seem to mind.

One moment that stands out from a few nights ago. It was 2:30am, and we were rolling quite a bit from side to side. Normally I put a second line on the tender when we go to bed, just as an extra layer of protection. We had traveled all day and I was exhausted and forgot to add the second line. Given the swell, I decided I shouldn’t wait until morning to add another line to it. So, I went back to the swim step which was rising and falling quite a bit, only to discover that my towing line which had been sitting on the swim step had fallen into the water. It shouldn’t have been left sitting on the swim step, but … sometimes when fatigued, mistakes happen. The tow line was still attached to the boat but part of it was flopping around in the water. So, there I was at 2:30am, being bounced around on the swim step, hauling in a loose tow line, and re-tying the tender. All of that went fine, so I decided I should probably check that the swim ladder (a small ladder that comes from under a trap door in the swim step) was secured. To open the trap door I had to lie on the swim step, and as I opened the door the boat descended into the swell. Water gushed up from beneath the opened hatch and became a geyser totally drenching me in salt water. Was I happy to be laying on the swim step in the dark dripping salt water at 2:30am after a long day and sleepless night? Well …no. It was my own fault, but I can’t say it was fun.

Also helping to keep life on Sans Souci interesting…

We are in the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera.) They are beautiful and fun islands, but the anchorages are often filled with seaweed, called Posidonia. Apparently Posidonia is important to the environment and is being aggressively protected. Laws have been passed protecting the Posidonia. Boats anchoring on it can be fined and there are patrols to keep you honest.

http://lifeposidonia.caib.es

Mooring buoys have been placed in anchorages and boats are encouraged to use the mooring buoys. It’s a nice system in that boats can go to a website and reserve a specific buoy in a specific bay for a specific date, and there are people assigned to see that you get your buoy. A boat could explore the Balearic islands without ever needing to drop their anchor. However, the buoys can only handle boats of a certain size and Sans Souci is beyond that size (I think the limit is 15 meters, and we are nearly 22 meters, plus very heavy.)

Dropping an anchor on Posidonia is not easy. The anchor slides across the top rather than digging in. In order to get good holding you need to seek out a patch of sand and drop the anchor on the sand. In rare bays there is lots of sand to pick from, but in many, such as where we are now, most of the bottom is covered in Posidonia with occasional splotches of sand. To anchor I had to stand at the bow looking down while Roberta drove the boat until I found a tiny patch of sand. We then put the anchor onto the sand and hoped it set on the first try (which it did.) If we had to re-anchor at night where we couldn’t see the bottom … I’m not sure what we’d do.

Boats anchor where they can find a patch of sand, not where they can obtain the most space for themselves. This causes boats to anchor closer to each other than they normally would.

The bottom line:

–          Boats are anchored close to each other, limiting the amount of rode (chain) you can put out

–          Finding a place to anchor is difficult, and when you do, you can still have a problem if the boat rotates 180 degrees. When the boat rotates around the anchor it can come unstuck. This could potentially place it onto Posidonia where it will slide like on ice, rather than re-setting

–          The anchorages are open to the sea, allowing swell to enter

Yesterday was frustrating. We rolled all night making sleep difficult. Then, during the day we dragged in light winds after the wind changed its mind directionally so many times that we were spinning around the anchor like a second hand that couldn’t figure out which direction was clockwise. We noticed immediately, and quickly re-anchored, but it undermines confidence and caused us to cancel dinner plans ashore. If we can’t trust the boat to stay put, how can we leave it? We were well-set and had been here a couple days, but with the constant shifting of the wind, and constant jerking of the boat due to the swell, the anchor came unstuck. Normally it would re-set itself immediately, but Posidonia has a mind of its own.

Our view while dining on the aft deck of Sans Souci last night. As you can see, we weren’t suffering. One thing to note — see the guy that looks like he is walking on water? He is on a motorized surf board of some sort. It is smaller than a surf board though; more like a single ski. He circled the entire bay for over an hour! I’ve never seen such a thing before. Very cool! He never fell and seemed to be doing it more for his evening’s exercise than for sport.

Anyway … I am making this sound much worse than it is. There have been plenty of good times, and we are having fun. It is just the luck of the draw with respect to the weather. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. The swell has been like a dripping faucet in an otherwise beautiful home. Over time, hearing the drip drip drip can make you crazy.

This looks like my normal navigation screen — but, what you can’t see is that it actually an ipad. On nights when I want to monitor the situation closely I use Remote Desktop running on an ipad to connect to the ship’s navigation computer. This lets me see at a glance, while still lying in bed, where we are in our

Each ring on the radar represents 150′ of distance. As I’ve mentioned previously my normal goal is to get three rings from other boats. That is unrealistic where we are cruising. But, you can see we did fairly well and have two empty rings around us — which is much better than most of the other boats.

I was up early because we had a couple squalls this morning (sudden rain and wind.) They weren’t bad, and under normal circumstances I’d ignore them. But, given how close we are to the other boats I’m sitting anchor watch.

Today is supposed to be the last day of the wind and swell. A period of calm should be settling in. We expect to be headed for Ibiza tomorrow at this time and these days of bad weather will soon be a distant memory.

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and, Keeley and Toundra)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

I am typing this at 6:40am. I have been sitting in the pilot house watching the monitors since 5:30am.

A bit of background….

Normally, Roberta and I love to be at anchor. We tend to think of the boat as a means of transportation whose primary purpose is to deliver us to the good anchorages.

However, in a complete reversal of our normal behavior I sent an email to my friend Steven Argosy (Nordhavn 62, Seabird) yesterday saying that we had moved our flights to go home a week sooner, and that a huge factor was that we were tired of being at anchor.

We have been at anchor the majority of the time over the last two months. Most of those two months have been great, but not all. We have struggled with swell and wind. There have been many nights without much sleep. We have had a couple of instances with dragging anchors, including another one yesterday.

The good times have far outnumbered the bad times, but the cumulative effect of the bad times has ground us down.

The Western Med (Italy, France and Spain) do not have a huge number of great anchorages. All of the Med is known for high winds, but wind is not a problem if you are sitting in port, or in a well-protected anchorage. In Croatia, Greece and Turkey we sat through winds over 30 knots that lasted for days, but they were non-events because we were in anchorages that offered good protection.

Starting last year with Italy, we have had a heck of a time finding well protected places to anchor. We have it better than most, in that Sans Souci is a heavy boat and we have flopper stoppers. Typically we roll the least of any boat in an anchorage. No one should feel sorry for us. That said, most other boats have options that we do not have. Most boats head to port when the wind blows, whereas we do not have that option partially because it can be hard to find moorage for a boat our size in high season, and primarily because it is hard for Roberta and I to enter a port (Med-Mooring) without assistance. It is also probably true that a lot of the boats around us are more accustomed to “toughing it out” and do not mind the roll. Most of the boats around us are sailboats in the 20 to 40 foot range, and they roll unbelievably. It must be miserable inside of those boats, but they don’t seem to mind.

One moment that stands out from a few nights ago. It was 2:30am, and we were rolling quite a bit from side to side. Normally I put a second line on the tender when we go to bed, just as an extra layer of protection. We had traveled all day and I was exhausted and forgot to add the second line. Given the swell, I decided I shouldn’t wait until morning to add another line to it. So, I went back to the swim step which was rising and falling quite a bit, only to discover that my towing line which had been sitting on the swim step had fallen into the water. It shouldn’t have been left sitting on the swim step, but … sometimes when fatigued, mistakes happen. The tow line was still attached to the boat but part of it was flopping around in the water. So, there I was at 2:30am, being bounced around on the swim step, hauling in a loose tow line, and re-tying the tender. All of that went fine, so I decided I should probably check that the swim ladder (a small ladder that comes from under a trap door in the swim step) was secured. To open the trap door I had to lie on the swim step, and as I opened the door the boat descended into the swell. Water gushed up from beneath the opened hatch and became a geyser totally drenching me in salt water. Was I happy to be laying on the swim step in the dark dripping salt water at 2:30am after a long day and sleepless night? Well …no. It was my own fault, but I can’t say it was fun.

Also helping to keep life on Sans Souci interesting…

We are in the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera.) They are beautiful and fun islands, but the anchorages are often filled with seaweed, called Posidonia. Apparently Posidonia is important to the environment and is being aggressively protected. Laws have been passed protecting the Posidonia. Boats anchoring on it can be fined and there are patrols to keep you honest.

http://lifeposidonia.caib.es

Mooring buoys have been placed in anchorages and boats are encouraged to use the mooring buoys. It’s a nice system in that boats can go to a website and reserve a specific buoy in a specific bay for a specific date, and there are people assigned to see that you get your buoy. A boat could explore the Balearic islands without ever needing to drop their anchor. However, the buoys can only handle boats of a certain size and Sans Souci is beyond that size (I think the limit is 15 meters, and we are nearly 22 meters, plus very heavy.)

Dropping an anchor on Posidonia is not easy. The anchor slides across the top rather than digging in. In order to get good holding you need to seek out a patch of sand and drop the anchor on the sand. In rare bays there is lots of sand to pick from, but in many, such as where we are now, most of the bottom is covered in Posidonia with occasional splotches of sand. To anchor I had to stand at the bow looking down while Roberta drove the boat until I found a tiny patch of sand. We then put the anchor onto the sand and hoped it set on the first try (which it did.) If we had to re-anchor at night where we couldn’t see the bottom … I’m not sure what we’d do.

Boats anchor where they can find a patch of sand, not where they can obtain the most space for themselves. This causes boats to anchor closer to each other than they normally would.

The bottom line:

–          Boats are anchored close to each other, limiting the amount of rode (chain) you can put out

–          Finding a place to anchor is difficult, and when you do, you can still have a problem if the boat rotates 180 degrees. When the boat rotates around the anchor it can come unstuck. This could potentially place it onto Posidonia where it will slide like on ice, rather than re-setting

–          The anchorages are open to the sea, allowing swell to enter

Yesterday was frustrating. We rolled all night making sleep difficult. Then, during the day we dragged in light winds after the wind changed its mind directionally so many times that we were spinning around the anchor like a second hand that couldn’t figure out which direction was clockwise. We noticed immediately, and quickly re-anchored, but it undermines confidence and caused us to cancel dinner plans ashore. If we can’t trust the boat to stay put, how can we leave it? We were well-set and had been here a couple days, but with the constant shifting of the wind, and constant jerking of the boat due to the swell, the anchor came unstuck. Normally it would re-set itself immediately, but Posidonia has a mind of its own.

Our view while dining on the aft deck of Sans Souci last night. As you can see, we weren’t suffering. One thing to note — see the guy that looks like he is walking on water? He is on a motorized surf board of some sort. It is smaller than a surf board though; more like a single ski. He circled the entire bay for over an hour! I’ve never seen such a thing before. Very cool! He never fell and seemed to be doing it more for his evening’s exercise than for sport.

Anyway … I am making this sound much worse than it is. There have been plenty of good times, and we are having fun. It is just the luck of the draw with respect to the weather. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. The swell has been like a dripping faucet in an otherwise beautiful home. Over time, hearing the drip drip drip can make you crazy.

This looks like my normal navigation screen — but, what you can’t see is that it actually an ipad. On nights when I want to monitor the situation closely I use Remote Desktop running on an ipad to connect to the ship’s navigation computer. This lets me see at a glance, while still lying in bed, where we are in our

Each ring on the radar represents 150′ of distance. As I’ve mentioned previously my normal goal is to get three rings from other boats. That is unrealistic where we are cruising. But, you can see we did fairly well and have two empty rings around us — which is much better than most of the other boats.

I was up early because we had a couple squalls this morning (sudden rain and wind.) They weren’t bad, and under normal circumstances I’d ignore them. But, given how close we are to the other boats I’m sitting anchor watch.

Today is supposed to be the last day of the wind and swell. A period of calm should be settling in. We expect to be headed for Ibiza tomorrow at this time and these days of bad weather will soon be a distant memory.

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and, Keeley and Toundra)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

I am typing this at 6:40am. I have been sitting in the pilot house watching the monitors since 5:30am.

A bit of background….

Normally, Roberta and I love to be at anchor. We tend to think of the boat as a means of transportation whose primary purpose is to deliver us to the good anchorages.

However, in a complete reversal of our normal behavior I sent an email to my friend Steven Argosy (Nordhavn 62, Seabird) yesterday saying that we had moved our flights to go home a week sooner, and that a huge factor was that we were tired of being at anchor.

We have been at anchor the majority of the time over the last two months. Most of those two months have been great, but not all. We have struggled with swell and wind. There have been many nights without much sleep. We have had a couple of instances with dragging anchors, including another one yesterday.

The good times have far outnumbered the bad times, but the cumulative effect of the bad times has ground us down.

The Western Med (Italy, France and Spain) do not have a huge number of great anchorages. All of the Med is known for high winds, but wind is not a problem if you are sitting in port, or in a well-protected anchorage. In Croatia, Greece and Turkey we sat through winds over 30 knots that lasted for days, but they were non-events because we were in anchorages that offered good protection.

Starting last year with Italy, we have had a heck of a time finding well protected places to anchor. We have it better than most, in that Sans Souci is a heavy boat and we have flopper stoppers. Typically we roll the least of any boat in an anchorage. No one should feel sorry for us. That said, most other boats have options that we do not have. Most boats head to port when the wind blows, whereas we do not have that option partially because it can be hard to find moorage for a boat our size in high season, and primarily because it is hard for Roberta and I to enter a port (Med-Mooring) without assistance. It is also probably true that a lot of the boats around us are more accustomed to “toughing it out” and do not mind the roll. Most of the boats around us are sailboats in the 20 to 40 foot range, and they roll unbelievably. It must be miserable inside of those boats, but they don’t seem to mind.

One moment that stands out from a few nights ago. It was 2:30am, and we were rolling quite a bit from side to side. Normally I put a second line on the tender when we go to bed, just as an extra layer of protection. We had traveled all day and I was exhausted and forgot to add the second line. Given the swell, I decided I shouldn’t wait until morning to add another line to it. So, I went back to the swim step which was rising and falling quite a bit, only to discover that my towing line which had been sitting on the swim step had fallen into the water. It shouldn’t have been left sitting on the swim step, but … sometimes when fatigued, mistakes happen. The tow line was still attached to the boat but part of it was flopping around in the water. So, there I was at 2:30am, being bounced around on the swim step, hauling in a loose tow line, and re-tying the tender. All of that went fine, so I decided I should probably check that the swim ladder (a small ladder that comes from under a trap door in the swim step) was secured. To open the trap door I had to lie on the swim step, and as I opened the door the boat descended into the swell. Water gushed up from beneath the opened hatch and became a geyser totally drenching me in salt water. Was I happy to be laying on the swim step in the dark dripping salt water at 2:30am after a long day and sleepless night? Well …no. It was my own fault, but I can’t say it was fun.

Also helping to keep life on Sans Souci interesting…

We are in the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera.) They are beautiful and fun islands, but the anchorages are often filled with seaweed, called Posidonia. Apparently Posidonia is important to the environment and is being aggressively protected. Laws have been passed protecting the Posidonia. Boats anchoring on it can be fined and there are patrols to keep you honest.

http://lifeposidonia.caib.es

Mooring buoys have been placed in anchorages and boats are encouraged to use the mooring buoys. It’s a nice system in that boats can go to a website and reserve a specific buoy in a specific bay for a specific date, and there are people assigned to see that you get your buoy. A boat could explore the Balearic islands without ever needing to drop their anchor. However, the buoys can only handle boats of a certain size and Sans Souci is beyond that size (I think the limit is 15 meters, and we are nearly 22 meters, plus very heavy.)

Dropping an anchor on Posidonia is not easy. The anchor slides across the top rather than digging in. In order to get good holding you need to seek out a patch of sand and drop the anchor on the sand. In rare bays there is lots of sand to pick from, but in many, such as where we are now, most of the bottom is covered in Posidonia with occasional splotches of sand. To anchor I had to stand at the bow looking down while Roberta drove the boat until I found a tiny patch of sand. We then put the anchor onto the sand and hoped it set on the first try (which it did.) If we had to re-anchor at night where we couldn’t see the bottom … I’m not sure what we’d do.

Boats anchor where they can find a patch of sand, not where they can obtain the most space for themselves. This causes boats to anchor closer to each other than they normally would.

The bottom line:

–          Boats are anchored close to each other, limiting the amount of rode (chain) you can put out

–          Finding a place to anchor is difficult, and when you do, you can still have a problem if the boat rotates 180 degrees. When the boat rotates around the anchor it can come unstuck. This could potentially place it onto Posidonia where it will slide like on ice, rather than re-setting

–          The anchorages are open to the sea, allowing swell to enter

Yesterday was frustrating. We rolled all night making sleep difficult. Then, during the day we dragged in light winds after the wind changed its mind directionally so many times that we were spinning around the anchor like a second hand that couldn’t figure out which direction was clockwise. We noticed immediately, and quickly re-anchored, but it undermines confidence and caused us to cancel dinner plans ashore. If we can’t trust the boat to stay put, how can we leave it? We were well-set and had been here a couple days, but with the constant shifting of the wind, and constant jerking of the boat due to the swell, the anchor came unstuck. Normally it would re-set itself immediately, but Posidonia has a mind of its own.

Our view while dining on the aft deck of Sans Souci last night. As you can see, we weren’t suffering. One thing to note — see the guy that looks like he is walking on water? He is on a motorized surf board of some sort. It is smaller than a surf board though; more like a single ski. He circled the entire bay for over an hour! I’ve never seen such a thing before. Very cool! He never fell and seemed to be doing it more for his evening’s exercise than for sport.

Anyway … I am making this sound much worse than it is. There have been plenty of good times, and we are having fun. It is just the luck of the draw with respect to the weather. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. The swell has been like a dripping faucet in an otherwise beautiful home. Over time, hearing the drip drip drip can make you crazy.

This looks like my normal navigation screen — but, what you can’t see is that it actually an ipad. On nights when I want to monitor the situation closely I use Remote Desktop running on an ipad to connect to the ship’s navigation computer. This lets me see at a glance, while still lying in bed, where we are in our

Each ring on the radar represents 150′ of distance. As I’ve mentioned previously my normal goal is to get three rings from other boats. That is unrealistic where we are cruising. But, you can see we did fairly well and have two empty rings around us — which is much better than most of the other boats.

I was up early because we had a couple squalls this morning (sudden rain and wind.) They weren’t bad, and under normal circumstances I’d ignore them. But, given how close we are to the other boats I’m sitting anchor watch.

Today is supposed to be the last day of the wind and swell. A period of calm should be settling in. We expect to be headed for Ibiza tomorrow at this time and these days of bad weather will soon be a distant memory.

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and, Keeley and Toundra)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci