A Brand New Life – — never a dull moment

Kate February 4, 2019

Melody For Sale

I didn’t think I would have to write these words before the end of our circumnavigation, but journeys evolve and Melody needs a new crew to continue hers. For so long, returning to Melody and continuing the circumnavigation, kept me focused. The realisation that I will never see or sail her again is devastating. I fought it for a good while but inevitably you have to accept that life’s course isn’t always the same one you have charted for yourself. So, if we cannot continue with her, my hope and desire is that someone else will. That her new crew…

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Kate October 19, 2017

Sailing Magazine

I finally managed to get my hands on a digital copy of Sailing Magazine’s September 2017 issue! I’m especially excited about it because one of my images fronts their charters feature (left). It’s an honour to be included in such a prestigious sailing magazine, with more than 50yrs in print. This shot was taken from Ranguana Caye, Belize, while running a charter for Belize Sailing Vacations in Feb 2015. It’s of the Leopard 38 sailing catamaran we were based on for that charter, hosting an amazing couple from the US, Ken and Elizabeth, who are still friends to this day.…

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Kate October 12, 2017

Sayulita: surfing, shopping and where we stayed

This was our first stay in Mexico together – Rufus had never been except for our bus transit through from Belize to Cuba (Dec 2014) and back but I visited areas on the Caribbean side, on a weekly basis, while I was working on cruise ships after my studies. The “surfing” village of Sayulita is on the Pacific coast in the province of Nayarit, an hr or so drive north from Puerto Vallarta. We flew in to PV from Ft Lauderdale and then took the bus from there. Luckily for us it was off-season so it was quiet and relatively peaceful…

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Kate October 1, 2017

Sayulita

Every two months we leave the boat (we work on) securely in a marina and take a week off to travel, explore a destination on our bucket list, and use the time to rest, recharge and do the things we can’t while working/on the water. The first week we took off was last year, in early September 2016. One of the things Rufus doesn’t get to do much while on-board is surf, as the places we go are focused on a specific kind of fishing which, up till now, has rarely coincided with decent surf breaks. I had been in…

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Kate September 5, 2017

Back In Bocas

It’s been over a year since my last post… We have been fully focused on our work, running a private yacht, covering more than 5,000nm around the Caribbean Sea. Our semi-circular route began in the east Florida coast of the USA, heading east to the Bahamas, then southwards down the Eastern Caribbean Island chain and finally crossing west to Central America, ending in Bocas del Toro, Panama. It has been a phenomenal year in so many ways: The rare opportunity to set up a brand new private yacht from scratch, a beautiful blank canvass with almost total freedom to kit…

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Kate August 1, 2016

With a Sailing Yacht – Ambassadeur Joernaal

Our new job, setting up a new boat, means that we are bound to the marina here in Fort Lauderdale, while the works are being completed and until hurricane season is over… As a result, the only thing I have to document is a construction site of a catamaran. So, instead, I have been going through my archives and catching up on events that haven’t yet been included on the blog. This particular one is special because it involves some of our closest friends back home, in South Africa…

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Kate July 28, 2016

Behind the Scenes with Kia Motors

In my last post I briefly mentioned how we got the opportunity to travel to South Korea for 10 days with Kia Motors last year. In this post I have included another one of the marketing videos (the more adventurous of the 3, with surfing and zip-lining etc) and some behind the scenes photos showing what it was like in front of camera and our experience of the amazing country.

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Kate July 22, 2016

South Korea with Kia Motors

Facebook has been popping “memories” into my feed from a year ago. All the memories have been from our trip to South Korea last year, courtesy of Kia Motors! We were on charter in Belize last June and we got a message from one of Rufus’ friends, Faan, asking if we would be interested in being part of a series of online ads for the “all new 2016 Kia Rio“. Of course we said YES (!!!) and soon we were being whisked off to Jeju Island for 10 days of exciting activities. I will include some behind the scenes photos…

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Kate July 20, 2016

Another Detour

For the better part of this year so far the plan has been to complete our circumnavigation in 2016, by crossing both the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Pacific crossing was a peaceful time of reflection with little distraction – 5 weeks of thinking, dreaming and talking at length about what we want out of life, both together and individually, as well as our immediate and long term plans. One afternoon in the cockpit, during one of these discussions, I asked Rufus “What would you do if, when we arrive in Marquises, we get an email with our dream job offer?…

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Kate July 14, 2016

Hiking Hiva-Oa

A few days after we arrived in Marquises, our friends Natali and João joined us after making the same passage from Panama on their boat Babilé. They chose a route more north of ours, above Galapagos, and unfortunately had an entirely different experience from us – multiple squalls, auto pilot broke, main sail ripped and the list goes on. We were so excited to see them in our anchorage and they were obviously extremely relieved to have arrived safely and finally get a chance to properly rest at anchor after thousands of miles hand helming in bad weather. Once they…

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Kate May 26, 2016

Pacific Crossing: Panama to French Polynesia

FIVE WEEKS AT SEA. More than a month – 33.5 days to be precise – without contact to the outside world, other than our satellite phone and very limited credit to send one sms every few days with our position, to my dad who plotted our progress on google earth (Thank you Daddy!). On September 21st, 2012, Rufus and I set sail with Melody across our first ocean together – 4 weeks across the Atlantic from South Africa to Brazil, with a half way stop at St Helena Island. Exactly 3 years and 7 months later we left Panama on…

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