Category: Uncategorized
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Before Odysseus Was Cool
If you have been following this blog (before it was cool), you may recall that Quintessa visited Ithaca last year, and we were able to appreciate the beauty of the island where Penelope awaited her husband as he struggled to return to her following the Trojan War. Our stay there prompted us to do a…
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Last Visitors and Goodbye for now
Our last visit of the season was short but very sweet. Our son brought his family to stay in a lovely space just steps from the harbor in La Maddalena, at the northern tip of Sardinia, where we shared four days together. We enjoyed walks, meals at a garden table at their place, feeding the…
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Garibaldi
Quintessa is backed up to the quay here in the quaint town of La Maddalena, on an island of the same name north of Sardinia. The piazza behind the boat features a monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi; in fact, there are tributes to him all over this town. There is lovely village far, far away…
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OohShiny Part 4
[OohShiny is an occasional series about changes made to Quintessa this year.] Energy is a hot topic in national and international headlines, for sure. On a different scale, cruisers are always ready to talk about energy. On land, in the US at least, we take for granted that in some fashion we will be able…
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Splice
On a stormy March morning in Chania, Crete, we broke a line. Specifically, a line rigged to the “shock absorbers” that help us moor safely in heavy weather. An axiom of boating is that “things break,” and when they do, you fix or replace them. We needed to get that piece of equipment back in…
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More Sailing Visitors
We have again had the pleasure of sharing our Quintessa adventures with fellow sailors. Joe and Heather have crewed regularly with us on Iris, racing on the Columbia River on Sunday afternoons. They joined us in Malta and we journeyed together to Cagliari, in southern Sardinia. Finding each other to be quite compatible as travel…
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C.A.N.N.O.N. (Crazy A** Nonsense Not Overtly Noticed)
Hello blog readers, I’m beginning to wonder about you. That APRIL 1st post about A.N.C.H.O.R. preservation was supposed to be satire, but apparently the silliness was not sufficiently applied. Seriously, I was certain the word salad regarding “technodiversity” and reference to propagation would be called out by someone (gtberne, where were you?). The true part…
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Testa di Moro
We have returned to Sicily, land of, among other things, lemons, volcanoes, and ceramics. When we were here last year, I noticed, in every shop window and on every balcony, pairs of ceramic planters in the shape of heads, lavishly decorated with crowns, jewelry, or fruit. What on earth? Sit down and listen to the…
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Rolly
Traveling along the south coast of Italy, it came time to stop for the day in a place where there was no harbor or even a little bay. This particular day, while we were sad to be motoring due to the absence of wind, we also had the most serene water ever—we kept commenting it…
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St. Barbara
Did you know St. Barbara is the patron saint of artillery? And of miners and anyone who works with explosives? Also armourers, military engineers, bomb disposal experts, tunners, geologists, firefighters, and first responders. I did not know any of this either! Barbara is also a protector against lightning, thunder, and fire, and some gunners call…
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