Salty Kisses

family sailing adventure blog with vlog

interior of our sailboat

by Filed Under: Caribbean

I’ve been excited to see our new (to us) sailboat for so long I never thought the day would come. As time always does it clocked around and we flew out of Portland, Maine without a hiccup.

The kids were amazing on the flight, and Carl behaved too. When we got into Saint Maartin we were hit with a wall of heat and humidity. Hooly Dooly, we woke to a dusting of snow in Portland and found ouselves beading with sweat less than 8 hours later in the Carribean.

Portland Maine hotel

the view from our hotel room in Portland, Maine. Our house is 2 hours north.

The first night was miserable, the girls couldn’t sleep because of the heat and Crew woke every hour screaming – turns out he picked up a bug from the flight. [Read more…]

packing up for the Caribbean

by Filed Under: Caribbean, Maine

Caribbean packing

It’s a little crazy around here, our little Maine house is lacking floor space. We have 4 sleeps until we fly to Saint Martin on Monday.

We don’t have mountains of clothes, they all fit in one case but it’s the power tools, toys, homeschool books and foul weather gear that has taken up all our space. [Read more…]

change of plan

by Filed Under: Caribbean

 FullSizeRender (002)Change of plan, fancy that. Originally, Carl was to fly down to the Caribbean and bring our new Abeona north to Florida where we would all move aboard and make her home but once in St. Maartin Carl didn’t see why we were going to sail her so many miles in the wrong direction, I concurred. Sadly Sean, our friend who flew down to help Carl deliver our boat, only found this out once he arrived in the steamy Caribbean. Sorry Sean.

Sean and Carl for the last few weeks have been working on the boat getting her ready for our arrival. The head has been replaced, the pilot house made into the master cabin and a really expensive dinghy was purchased – man does it look fine!

Carl came home today after 3 weeks of being apart, giddy like a school boy about the projects he has completed. We are going to try and book flights tomorrow and spend our final days or weeks in Maine packing up the house, winterizing it and tying up loose ends.

We are all excited for the next chapter of our voyaging lives to commence. This time around we are going to be smarter. [Read more…]

Fall in Morrill, Maine

by Filed Under: Maine

Carl is leaving us (again) on Saturday to get our new boat and the kids and I will start the process of packing up the house. We’ve only been in Maine for about 6 months but I’ve fallen in love with the area. Having four seasons makes each and every moment special and different. For now we’re going to keep our little cabin in the woods, how could we ever shut the door on this backyard. If ever again we feel the need to have a bit more space and long hot showers we’ll always have the option to come back to soak up Maine’s pine scent.

Here are some pictures of the Maine fall we are experiencing, it’s everything that everybody said it would be, and so much more. If only my pictures were scratch and sniff.

All pictures were taken in Morrill, our small town with a population of around 1000

morrill-fall-01-2016_edited-1 [Read more…]

meet our new to us boat: SV Abeona

by Filed Under: kids on board, Maine, projects

Global 48 aluminum cutter

Abeona exterior

She’s our go anywhere boat

Other than the dramatic downsize the first thing you’ll notice about our new lady is that she’s aluminum – gasp! A lot of people get freaked out by aluminium and to be honest I’m not really sure why. Electrolysis is an issue but we plan to move, move, move and stay out of marinas.

Aluminum vs Steel vs Fiberglass

Aluminum is low maintenance compared to steel, we don’t like to paint, especially hard to reach bilge areas. Our new to us boat has a painted hull and we plan on blasting it off. Metal boats are not better than fiberglass, they are just better suited for icy waters. They are also typically dry boats with no deck penetrations like on fiberglass such as stanchions, winches, sail tracks, cleats, chain plates – these are all bolted through the deck (on fiberglass boats) and allow water find it’s way in where as aluminum or steel boats are mostly welded. [Read more…]

red pill or blue pill?

by Filed Under: Maine

matrix red pill

Capri asked me today why people don’t live forever. I answered with a question: if you lived forever would you enjoy everyday knowing that there are unlimited days to follow? Of course she looked confused and said that everyone should still live forever.

Life needs to be cherished, I always hear “live each day to its fullest” but that’s pretty hard to do, some days all you want to do is stay in bed all day and each chocolate. To spend a day in bed every blue moon is fine but make sure you’re not coaxing through life in a daydream. [Read more…]