Where we've cruised so far ...

Cygnet is a retired Coast Guard boat and extremely seaworthy. We updated it to have twin 300 hp Yamaha motors and it cruises easily at 30kts. We treat Cygnet like a “car” using it often to drive between places near our home on San Juan Island, primarily Victoria Canada, Port Angeles Wa, Anacortes Wa, and Lopez Island, Wa. That said, we plan on extending our cruising radius (for Cygnet) in the coming years. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mAKhON0QWo

2024 was our last year with Cygnus. It was a great boat, but too small for us. We ran it around locally a few times, including Anacortes, and I vaguely remember running it to Port Ludlow and back, but mostly the boat sat at Roche Harbor waiting for someone to buy it (which did happen!) We miss Cygnus. It was a great boat! Fast, fuel efficient and reliable. We had some seriously fun times.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXbaFyGWBTc

Cygnet is a retired Coast Guard boat and extremely seaworthy. We updated it to have twin 300 hp Yamaha motors and it cruises easily at 30kts. We treat Cygnet like a “car” using it often to drive between places near our home on San Juan Island, primarily Victoria Canada, Port Angeles Wa, Anacortes Wa, and Lopez Island, Wa. That said, we plan on extending our cruising radius (for Cygnet) in the coming years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-utciwLJZQ8

Covid clipped our wings. 2023 was the first year the Canadian border was really open. Cygnus was bought with an intention to take it around the world, but thanks to Covid that never happened. In 2023 we wanted to do some cruising, and wanted to head north to Canada, but were already starting to think Cygnus was too small to do all we wanted. We cruised north to Desolation Sound, stopping on Bowen Island, Ganges, Montague Bay, at Pender Harbor, Nanaimo and more. Overall it was an excellent year! We had a rough passage on the Strait of Georgia which helped make the decision to list Cygnus for sale. It was seaworthy, but .. our Nordhavn 68 was a tough act to follow.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCU7MsrNZhI

Cygnet is a retired Coast Guard boat and extremely seaworthy. We updated it to have twin 300 hp Yamaha motors and it cruises easily at 30kts. We treat Cygnet like a “car” using it often to drive between places near our home on San Juan Island, primarily Victoria Canada, Port Angeles Wa, Anacortes Wa, and Lopez Island, Wa. That said, we plan on extending our cruising radius (for Cygnet) in the coming years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0F5h9dyDcg

Local cruising in the Pacific NW. Covid was winding down, but the border didn’t open until too late in the season for us to head north.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDHtx7Vw4ng

Local cruising in the Pacific NWhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcsiqhtJvtI

Our first season with the new boat! However … Covid meant we couldn’t cross the border to Canada, or go much of anywhere. We ran the boat between the San Juan Islands and Tacoma, and managed to have a good time, but it wasn’t the season we planned.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYxaMoyF-GE

Local cruising in the Pacific NWhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNC-M3fX7Bo

Sans Souci, our Nordhavn 68, was an incredible boat, but in 2017 we made the decision that it was getting big for us to handle alone and we wanted to downsize. We sold Sans Souci and ordered a custom Grand Banks 60 to be built.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_E79MmOEA

After cruising Menorca and Mallorca, we shipped the boat home to Seattle.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qxQm0UCh-I

I am a hard core Francophile. I love France and consider it my second home. Roberta, doesn’t mind it, but isn’t nearly as addicted to France as I am. We spent the summer bouncing around the southern coast of France sometimes nailed by horrible bursts of wind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg8e9MazlXQ

After some great times cruising in Croatia we decided to head to Italy. Along the way we visited Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, with many stops along the way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQR-y4_ya3U

We cruised from Turkey to Croatia, with stops in Athens, Mykonos, Paros, Corfu, Dubrovnik, Kotor, Montenegro and more. We went through the Corinth Canal which was amazing. Croatia is the best overall cruising in the world, when it is good. But, when the wind is blowing … it’s not so fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMsAgXUt7q4

If you ever get a chance to cruise Turkey, do it. We wintered the boat in Gocek Turkey and cruised both east and west stopping many places along the way.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uAOlukNcCk

We were worried about pirate attacks and loaded the boat onto a freighter from Hong Kong to Marmaris in Turkey. To our great surprise, cruising in Turkey was wonderful! Plenty of wonderful bays, friendly people, beautiful anchorages. Some of the best cruising in the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KD7NRNgo2s

Cruising Japan, with stops in many places, Tokyo, Yokohama, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Kyoto, Ishigaki, Okinawa. Then to Taiwan for a visit to Nordhavn’s Kaoshiung factory, finishing up the season in Hong Konghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez19fJvLhEk

The trip of a lifetime!!! We left from Seattle, went up the inland passage to Alaska, then across the Aleutian Islands, into Siberia Russia and down into Japan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDROXW0nHsEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNwtMsm9ohwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyr8V1gMy_w

We ran the boat from Puerto Los Cabos marina in San Jose Del Cabo Baja Mexico, to Golfito in Costa Rica, stopping many places along the way, including Bucerias, Puerto Vallarta, Barra, Tenacatita, El Salvador, etc. In Golfito we planned on shipping the boat on a freighter, but it became a total mess resulting in litigation. Ultimately, the boat returned to Seattle on its own bottom.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8buzMkOfXX4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avzm9wSb8Ochttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQkYBynqvfc

An incredible year with our new boat. We wanted to shake it down HARD, and we did just that. We ran it to Seattle, Victoria Canada, up the inside passage to Pender Harbor, Desolation Sound, Roche Harbor, Sucia, through Deception Pass, and back to Dana Point for some warranty repairs. We then took it down the west coast of Baja Mexico, stopping several places before going into Cabo San Lucas, and finally the marina in San Jose Del Cabo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW7rHcIvs-Uhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtjXlY67lIE

Probably our craziest adventure was a little catamaran called Mas O Menos that we bought to fill the time while waiting for our Nordhavn 68 to be built. We overloaded it with everything; air conditioning, gas stove, generator, etc. The boat was so heavy that the swim step was underwater. We had some great times on it cruising the west coast of Canada and then had it trucked to Florida where we somehow managed to run nearly 2,000 miles crusing the Bahama islands. We were young and overly confident in the Glacier Bay. We almost flipped it a couple times and took massive amounts of water into the boat creating all kinds of electrical havoc at one point. After one particularly ugly swamping we engaged a local (we suspected) drug running fast boat to take us to a luxury hotel. Sadly, when we were in Nassau we put Shelby, our dog, briefly into a local kennel where she was caged during a lightning storm and was freaked out. We think it was hard on her heart and she was never the same after that. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAmmGKsTTP4

In 2004 Nordhavn, the maker of our boat, announced that they would be having the Nordhavn Atlantic Rally (NAR). It would depart from Ft Lauderdale Florida and complete in Gibraltar. It was our first chance to cross an Ocean! We loaded the boat on a freighter bound for Florida and then drove back to Europe to our own boat slip near Monaco. Along the way we stopped in Portugal (Horta and St Miguel), various ports in Spain, Ibiza, Formentera, Marseilles, St Tropez and back to Beaulieu.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHmjBmPodpYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsHNB3BTaog

Cruising the south of France. Monaco, the islands around Cannes, and St Tropez with various other stops along the way. Good times!https://youtu.be/cKt3QUJtCsM

In 2002 we decided to extend our cruising and worked our way all the way to Barcelona, Marseilles, Ibiza and Formentera. In Formentera we were hit by a serious storm with gusts to 65kts! Many boats went aground, but our anchor held. On the way back to Barcelona our main engine failed and without our wing (backup engine) we’d have had a very bad time. Because the backup was slow it took us over 3 days to reach Marseilles through a long series of not-fun squalls.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzj_tiK0H00

Sans Souci (Nordhavn 62) was our first ocean crossing boat. I don’t have blog entries that go back that far, but we actually took delivery of Sans Souci in 1997 or 1998. The boat has a legendary history having been initially ordered, and configured, by Prince Rainier of Monaco, who bailed while the boat was under construction. We took over his position and cruised the west coast of Canada for a couple years, and then had a delivery crew run the boat to France! In actuality the delivery crew only got as far as Costa Rica (I think?) and then we loaded the boat on a freighter to get it to France. In France we purchased a boat ship just outside Monaco in Beaulieu-Sur Mer and cruised locally between Monaco, Nice, Cannes, the Iles St Margarite and St Tropez.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZLM6aeBQ5g

Looking at this map it doesn’t appear we did much cruising in 2000. I’m not sure why not. Roberta was working to finish a game. Maybe that was why? Or maybe because we were getting ready to take the boat to Europe? Anyway, we spent time at Roche Harbor and Victoria. We have had a boat slip at Roche Harbor continuously since 1998! (And, I think even before that for our prior boat….)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05EJHxFPQXwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xawlw-mMIzs

This was Roberta’s and my first chance to really enjoy cruising the west coast of Canada. We ran the boat to Desolation Sound, anchoring along the way and having a great time. That said, I had my first encounter with a log and wound up in Vancouver hauling out the boat to straighten a bent prop. Oops. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkLrUHdtDao

Our first long ocean passage. It turned out to be the worst ride I’ve ever experienced and a great lesson learned. Dan Streech, Nordhavn’s President was aboard. I remember him lobbying me to wait for better weather and me saying, “You sold me a boat that can withstand any conditions. Let’s go!” That was a serious error. Within an hour of departure we were all puking off the side of the boat and the conditions never improved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv5EEuGH1W8