kateandjohnsail.boats

Mi displace is usually translated I’m sorry, but really it means my bad. It comes in quite handy when one commits yet another unintentional blunder in the character-building business of living in a new culture. Italy is not a difficult country to navigate, but it’s easy to be tripped up by the little things, like…

Here’s something else that makes me happy: this little basil plant. It was very much an impulse purchase in the huge Bollerio street market in Palermo. The vendors were yelling, motorbikes were squeezing through the aisles, and various creatures from the sea stared at us with vacant eyes as we wandered past. This plant was…

We have had our first guests on Quintessa. Fittingly, they were a couple without whose mentorship we would not be prepared to cruise on our own boat. John and Janet Colby are the owners of Iris, a Hylas 42, sister boat to ours, which they keep on the Columbia River in Portland. They are Portland…

Back to our tour de volcanoes: as promised, we are sitting in the shadow of Mt. Etna, in Riposto, Sicily. We settled in last night under a cloudy sky, and didn’t know what to expect. There was no drama during the night, but morning dawned clear and beautiful, revealing a dramatic closeup of the crater,…

Forget about muscling up killer inclines in the Alps; my kind of bike ride includes a gently graded path and a cannolo. This morning in Syracuse, Sicily, we had a little business to do before riding, as my rear brake cable was failing and I do rely on that one a lot. We found our…

Nothing beats a downsize and a move to help refine your thinking about what makes “home.” Certainly the people are the essence of home; on our sailing journey we miss our family and communities of friends. Physical objects are less important: only a few suitcases came with us to Quintessa, and those contained mostly clothing…

When we pulled up near Mt. Vesuvius last week, we had no idea this would be the beginning of a volcano tour. We visited Pompeii, awed at the destruction of a city that happened in one day in 79 AD when the mountain next door blew up. Then we strolled through Herculaneum, which experienced the…

In our week in Sardinia, we observed that the people there are connected to the land and take pride in their agricultural traditions and practices. Food sold in stores and restaurants is specifically marketed as being from the region, and it is evident that creating goods of exceptional quality is a highly regarded societal priority.…

It’s been a hectic couple of days, and the temptation is to fixate on the tiredness and missteps, but oh my, let’s take a breath and focus on where Quintessa sits at this present moment. We have “accidentally” ended up in the heart of Naples (again, another story…). As I sit in the cockpit, the…

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…