kateandjohnsail.boats

It’s true that getting off the dock can be the trickiest part of sailing, as you are never 100% ready. We have finally traveled, though. Our shakedown run was a 2-hour crossing to France! Bonifacio is an ancient city set high above a hidden harbor on the island of Corsica, just north of Sardinia. We spent one night there and roamed around the beautiful harbor and town. The next day we returned to our berth in Sardinia and reported to the harbormaster to check back into Italy in a more official way than we had done before. (Long story there, one for another day…) The following afternoon we said goodbye to Dirk and Sabine again and headed eastward. The plan was to anchor overnight in the La Maddalena marine preserve, and then set out in the morning for mainland Italy. As we approached La Maddalena the sky got iffy behind us, so we chose to move away from the weather and continue on an overnight passage to Ostia (near Rome).  Good thing, as we arrived in perfect weather the next afternoon, but in the hours that followed enough wind arose to make us glad to be in a sheltered harbor. Hard to describe how nice it is to be cozy in the cabin listening to the rain pattering on the enclosed cockpit above.

You can track Quintessa’s travels if you are so inclined. The “Track Us” button on the home page will take you to a site called Spot Tracker. You will need to sign in using QUINTESSA. Then in the upper right you will be able to ask it to show a period of our travels; you will likely want to choose 7d (7 days)  or 1m (one month). Our track will show up as a series of connected dots. The map is interactive, so you can do things like pinch in for detail; for example, try to find the place on our crossing where I had to zig and zag to stay clear of a huge freighter!