Author: Dean Bromiley

In the northern summer of 2015 my wife and I were vacationing with her eldest sister and husband in Scandinavia and Europe. We had just been to Sweden to celebrate her youngest sister’s wedding and now we were attending another wedding in Spain, that of a good friend of my wife’s oldest niece. This was my first ever visit to Spain, a country that for some reason I had never had the opportunity to experience since the beginning of my journeys in 1965 as a 6 year old when I travelled from my native New Zealand to Somalia with my family. During the visit to Spain, I was drawn to the appeal of having a boat to explore the Mediterranean and it gave me pause to reflect upon the fact that our 39’ Nordic Tug would not be suitable for an Atlantic crossing from our home port of Annapolis Maryland, USA.

We often say that things happen for a reason and it was during a quiet moment on that trip when I was flicking through personal emails and came across a brokerage flyer for which I subscribed. Being a boat owner, I always look at other boats. I think we all do this and some may argue that this is driven by a desire to have something better or bigger or simply just different. For me, it was the nagging realization that ultimately, I wanted something that we could live on and that could safely take us very long distances. But I was not really in the market to buy another boat and my perusal of the brokerage email was more out of curiosity than driven by a particular quest. After thumbing through the normal name brand boats, I happened upon a unique looking trawler. It was a 48 foot steel Diesel Duck and her configuration represented well, the description of a sturdy long range trawler. This was my first glimpse of Slow Dance, the vessel that we now own.

A few days later my wife and I returned to our home in Annapolis with my mother in law in tow. I had already made an appointment with the broker to visit Slow Dance and we drove the two hours to Solomon’s Island where the boat was on the hard. I will never forget my 70 year old mother in law, with her bad knee, climbing up the ladder to inspect this strange looking thing that her son-in-law had become so infatuated with. The boat was a mess having just been delivered from Cartagena, Colombia but I could see great promise in what she offered. Within 2 months of that initial viewing, my wife and I became the proud owners of Slow Dance and hence began a journey of ownership and quest that, on many occasions, has proven challenging but most importantly, has given us the possibility to realize and build upon our dreams.