kateandjohnsail.boats

Here’s an item for the “better late than never” department. Because there is only so much storage space on Quintessa, we had been keeping my folding bike assembled and lashed to the rail, even when we sailed. In hindsight I can tell you this is not a nice thing to do to a bike you…

Now and again we will come across a bitty little island like this one, and on that bitty little island will be a stout and venerable lighthouse steadfastly keeping seafarers safe. Which begs many questions: How often does a human have to service that outpost, and how do they get up there? (There is no…

Well, that just happened. We are on our way from Sicily to Valetta, to explore Malta, get a few boat things, and eventually pick up our next visitors. We are motoring (sigh) because although there is enough wind to sail, it is directly on the nose and we don’t have time to tack back and…

This new change to Quintessa is not glamourous, but falls under the category of making a safer boat. Pictured here is our life raft, in its new location. If we should need to deploy it in an emergency, the procedure would be to pull a pin in the top rail so that the container falls…

If you read the last post, about our family’s visit with us in Crete, you know that we braved through nearly two weeks of daily rain and wind. After the family left, we saw even worse stormed predicted, and we caught a break in the weather to shoot out of Chania. In an overnight sail,…

We were planning a family visit—twelve days with our daughter, her husband, and four delightfully squirrely children, in the spring. “Visit Crete,” people said. “It’s always sunny there.” We did a little research and found that Chania, on the north (normally less stormy) side of Crete has a snug harbor and a welcoming old town,…

Several thoughtful blog readers have inquired about the disposition of our old anchor, once we attached the new one. Very good question. It turns out many retired anchors sink to their destiny in the watery deep, joining other unwanted objects, such as outboard motors and 1989 Peugeots, on the bottom. Others, like this one pictured…

We have just said goodbye to Quintessa’s first guests of the season. Johanna and Paul are Pacific Northwest friends who were bitten by the sailing bug in the last decade and got serious quickly, taking classes and entering into boat ownership through San Juan Sailing Club in Bellingham. A formative experience for John and me…

A storm was brewing to come down on Chania from the north, and we know how to prepare for a storm. We got out the winter lines, which are like shock absorbers. These are kept in our “garage” and I always feel resentful of the space they occupy with their heavy, ungainly presence, but of…

Q: How is in anchor like a glass of warm milk? A: Both are sleep aids. When your boat is bouncing in a bay in a 50 knot storm that is blowing over the top and swinging the boat around, the quality of your sleep will very much depend on how much you trust your…