It’s been a while – the year of 2021
Sailing Ker Marie
by kellybontje
2y ago
Oh my oh my – That has been a serious while – I am sorry, I have not really been keeping up to date with the blog. Well, let’s try to give it a go again, so I can tell you all about everything that happened since my last blog! In my last blog (14th January 2021…oops) we crossed the North Atlantic from the USA towards Ireland. You can read more about that crossing here if you would like. We safely arrived in Kinsale/Ireland. Kinsale is a historic beautiful port and fishing town in the County Cork.  We arrived during the pandemic in full force and foreign vessels were not allowed in the cou ..read more
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The North Atlantic Crossing
Sailing Ker Marie
by kellybontje
3y ago
In my last blog we were in Gloucester in the USA to wait for a good weather window to start our North Atlantic crossing to Europe. Towards Ireland/Kinsale to be precise. It might be a long blog for some of you, but maybe a nice insight into an Atlantic Crossing.  We left Gloucester on the 5th of August in the afternoon when the wind finally calmed down a bit around 20 knots from the Tropical Storm Isaias the night before. The whole sky was opening up when we left and we got treated with the sun and great wind on the beam. Ker Marie was flying along with 8 knots…not a bad start. We were he ..read more
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The USA
Sailing Ker Marie
by kellybontje
3y ago
I just looked when my last blog post was….I was ashamed. It was on the 8th of June. That has really been a while but we have done so much sailing in the last 6 months that I just didn’t get around it. So here we are; The last time I wrote we just sailed from the Caribbean to the USA. We arrived in West Palm Beach to sort out our cruising permit for the boat. I will take it from there again… After obtaining our cruising permit in West Palm beach we decided to go to Charleston. Charleston is a city in South Carolina, it is defined by its cobblestone streets and pastel houses in the elegant Frenc ..read more
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Sailing Route Summer 2020
Sailing Ker Marie
by kellybontje
4y ago
Deciding our sailing route for the summer. An unpleasant welcome in the USVI and we set off for a 1300 mile sail!  After being in lockdown for 6 weeks in Antigua we were allowed to move between anchorages again. We left Green Island, the place where we dropped anchor at the start of the lockdown. It felt so good to get the sails up again. Complete freedom! We went for a short (35 mile) sail to Barbuda, a small island north of Antigua. Barbuda has amazing white/pink beaches with unbelievable turquoise waters. We spent a week in an anchorage with no one around other then our new friends Phi ..read more
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The Atlantic crossing
Sailing Ker Marie
by kellybontje
4y ago
Last bits of work in Valencia, saying goodbye to our friends, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and our current situation.  It has been way too long after my last writing. Sorry, but somehow it was busy and didn’t find the time to do so. But here we are, it will be a long one. Going quite a bit back, when we were in Valencia. After installing our last bit of kit; a new hydraulic autopilot, plotter and radar we finally left Valencia. The installation was fairly straight forward but it involved a lot of thinking/debating bAfter 3 months of work on the boat we finally left Valencia. We have done so ..read more
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Upgrades & Changes
Sailing Ker Marie
by kellybontje
4y ago
A lovely visit to Asturias to visit friends. All the boat work almost done, but still ‘stuck’ in Valencia. While we thought we would have left by now we are still in the marina in Valencia. We missed a very good weather window last week. Unfortunately David got a sudden dental issue which he needed to fly back twice to the UK for. A bummer but Valencia is not a bad place to spend some time. With being most of the boat work done I thought I give you all a little update of what exactly has been done. So, it is going to be a bit of a technical nerdy blog this one. Before we arrived we made a ..read more
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Preparations For The Atlantic Crossing
Sailing Ker Marie
by kellybontje
4y ago
Leaving Sicily to cross back to Valencia. A storm underway and undertaking a lot of work on Ker Marie in order for crossing the Atlantic Ocean. I love to write and always intend to do it more often, but time on the boat is going so quickly at the moment. In my last story we ended up in San Vito Lo Capo in Sicily where we waited for a good weather window to cross back to Sardinia. Well actually, Valencia, but Sardinia is our first stop on our way. After four days of waiting the weather looked good enough and we hoisted our sails in the evening towards Sardinia. After 42 hours of sailin ..read more
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Summer summer summertime!
Sailing Ker Marie
by kellybontje
4y ago
Sailing down the coast of Italy, celebrating my birthday in lovely Ponza and Spanish influences on board Ker Marie. After a lovely sail from Imperia/Italy we arrived in the middle of the night in Corsica. Waking up after a night sail is always a great surprise. You have no idea where you anchored and then in the morning it is most of the time a big treat, which it was. We decided to stay for the day in the anchorage for a bit of relaxing time because we didn’t catch much sleep the night before.  We hoisted our sails the day after towards Capraia Isola island, an island just off the coast ..read more
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A Sailors Worst Nightmare!
Sailing Ker Marie
by kellybontje
5y ago
From Ibiza to Mallorca + Menorca and back to France. David’s brother spent his holiday onboard Ker Marie and we experienced a sailors worst nightmare.  After the rigging, that has been done in Hyères/France we set sail back to Ibiza. Ibiza is easy. The island is relatively small so If you need to hide from certain weather you can go to the other side of the island in a fair amount of time. We have spent quite some time in Ibiza before so after a few weeks it was time for something else. We hoisted our sails and were heading for Mallorca where we were picking up David’s brother, Stephen, who ..read more
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