Four Seasons

A seven-year, 28,000 nautical mile odyssey

Four Seasons anchored off Mazatlan, Mexico in 2005

Above: Russ and Donna Sherwin describe living and cruising full-time aboard their 46-foot Nordhavn trawler Four Seasons in Mexico, the West Coast, British Columbia and Alaska. Click anywhere on the picture of the boat or the link to see the photos.

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Mission Statement

The purpose of this website is not to brag about our accomplishments. Others have, before and since, done much more and different things than we have. If anything, it is to say thanks to those who helped us in the beginning and throughout our odyssey by passing on some of the wisdom we gained from them, and to offer encouragement to those who may be contemplating “cruising” in their own boat as a lifestyle.

The vast majority of the population, when you mention you’re thinking of “cruising” will say something like, “Oh, you’ll love it! We took the Sun Princess cruise last fall up to Glacier Bay. A whole week. It was wonderful!” No, that’s not it. Cruising, as we boaters define it, means going places and living on your own boat for long periods of time—months or years, not a week or two.

Or, as one of our good cruising friends, Earl Fields on M/V Sea Lark defines it, “Buying expensive parts and fixing things in exotic places.” To which I offer the following:

Diesel Dirge

By Russ Sherwin

M/V Four Seasons

If the diesel in the belly of your trawler goes kaput,

And the air around the back of it is filling up with soot,

Then it’s time to get the wrenches out and tighten up some stuff;

Or the pusher won’t be pushin’and it won’t go fast enough.

If the oil needs a’changin’ and the coolant isn’t cool,

And contamination in the tanks is gooping up the fuel,

And the air supply is choking and the engine room is hot,

You might think you’re going cruising now, but sorry, chum, you’re not.

Well, the batteries are low now ‘cause the charger isn’t working,

And it’s hard to keep the beer cold and the coffee always perking.

Gosh, the sounder quit some time ago and so’d the GPS,

So I guess instead of cruising we’ll be fixing all this mess.

But before we open up the hatch and get the rags and tools,

It will help to read the manual so we won’t be total fools.

If the parts we get are not the same as what is now inside it,

Then the job we do will surely fail and we won’t be delighted.

A dozen trips is all you need to get the stuff to mend it.

That’s assuming you can find the store that has it and can vend it.

That’s the rub, you soon find out, your parts are out of stock;

The other place will have it though—the one just down the block.

Buy some parts, and take ‘em back, you thought it would be easy.

All day you’ve spent just getting stuff; your hands aren’t even greasy.

On and on throughout the day, the trips are getting boring,

But finally now you have them all just when you should be snoring.

Maybe I will find the time tomorrow morning early

To fix the stuff that needed fixin’, make the engine whirly.

Check it out and wipe it down, it’s not the time for snoozin’.

I’ll start it up and if it runs, by damn I’m goin’ cruisin’!

End

About Us & Contact Information:

Photo by Mike Ford, M/V Number One

About Us:

Briefly: In the fall of 2000 we sold a perfectly good house in Sunnyvale, California, sold or gave away nearly everything else we owned, and moved aboard our new Nordhavn 46-foot single-screw trawler, Four Seasons. Thus began a 7-year major lifestyle change in which we transited the Baja from San Francisco to various points in Mexico three times; the West Coast from San Francisco to Sidney, British Columbia and thence to Alaska twice. We had one or two German shepherds on board most of the time. We put 5000 engine hours and 28,000 sea miles on the boat with very few problems. We converted about 15,000 gallons of diesel fuel into pictures, memories and new friends.

Old friends, of course, thought we were nuts. Many counseled against selling the house and cutting all the ties to land, but we could not keep a house and a boat. When we sold the boat in May, 2008, we bought an equivalent but cheaper house in Prescott, Arizona. I wouldn’t call it a great investment plan, but it was sure a great life! We miss it every day and we would do it all over again in a flash. Your results may vary.

An update: We have owned a series of RVs during and since the boat, culminating in our current one, a 25-foot Class B+ motorhome which is the vehicle that took us to Alaska in 2014. This is the best we can do since we discovered there is no ocean in Arizona.

Contact Information:

Trawlerdogs website copyright Russ and Donna Sherwin, 2010-2015
Prescott, Arizona

E-mail: trawlerdogs@gmail.com

The content of this site is intended for information only and is not to be construed as professional advice.
We do not sell anything; we do not collect or sell any information and we do not accept ads.

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Russ, Gracie and Donna on the beach at Isla San Francisco, Baja Sur, Mexico.

For information about Nordhavn, click on the image below.

Russ, Amateur Extra AD6ZL

Below: Russ and Donna Sherwin describe a 3-month RV trip from Prescott, Arizona to Alaska and back in summer 2014. If you’d like to see it, please click on the link or anywhere on the map below to enter the RV Trip to Alaska site. (Hint: there are bears!)

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RV Trip to Alaska

A 3-month 9600-mile driving trip by RV