Emerald coast at its best! Secluded beach, plethora of shells and sea creatures, gentle waves, soft white sand, healthy dunes all abound on Shell island. A barrier island shared by St Andrew State Park and the Tendall US Air Force base. #sailingeclipticseas #sailboatlife #beaches #pristinebeach #sailing #tartan #tartan37 #livingthedream

Sailing ? miles in the Gulf of Mexico, Pensacola to Panama City. Overnight sail with beautiful sunset and sunrise. Hope you enjoy, please comment. Much love, Ottis & Kim #sailingeclipticseas #tartan37 #sailboatlife #boatlife Products mentioned: C cushions inc B & G Zeus 3-7 West Marine Go Anywhere Seat 2

The Blue Angels practice at their home base, Pensacola Naval Air Station, near Pensacola Pass on the Florida panhandle. Just west of the pass is Redfish point. Between is a perfect anchorage for a south wind, which is where we are hunkered down behind the dunes. Before the upcoming storm, we take advantage of a perfect day to sail our 9ft Hood designed dinghy with a Norman Cressy sail out for a ride. We call her Lil' Al. Lucky for us, "The Blues" practice day was this day! What a fun time we had, fighter jets soaring right above us while we were sailing in the bay. Thrilling. Once ashore, our path was interrupted by the nesting grounds of the shore birds. On the east end of the nesting restricted area we found a break in the dunes, probably from hurricane Sally, that gave us an easy path to the Gulf of Mexico to sit on the beach and listen to the surf.

We love it when we can sail to our destination using just the wind! In this video we traverse a narrow channel into Boot Key Harbor, after sailing under the 7 mile Bridge. The span of the Bridge to Nowhere is 60', no room for error! Boot key harbor is in Marathon and the anchorage has 100's of boats on either side of the channel. We are proud of ourselves for using sails only to make it to our mooring! We did have to run the Iron Ginny for 6 minutes because we were not exactly sure which mooring ball was ours! Now to really learn about "living" full-time aboard S/V Stella Maris!

A 5 minute montage of some fun times aboard SV Stella Maris and our dinghy "Lil'Al". We stopped for a few days in Little Shark River awaiting a weather window to sail to Boot Key Harbor, city of Marathon Marina. #sailingeclipticseas

This video is a quick tour of inside s/v Stella Maris as we are transiting the AICW after getting her out of hurricane storage at Indiantown Marina in January 2020. Also, our arrival to Virginia key, Miami, where we have the right conditions to put sails back on her. Please leave a comment, we want our videos to be a means of communication. Also remember to click like and subscribe!

Our passage from No Name Harbor, Biscayne Key Florida to Boot Key Harbor. This video is a portion of the trip. We were not able to edit in our normal software. Pretty raw footage using GoPro without wind protection on mic. Hope you enjoy being with us, we had a blast!! See you soon! Ottis and Kim

Ottis and Kim travel to Old Algiers for Christmas where they receive their long awaited portable Freezer. Our installed Isotherm refrigerator icebox has been very adequate for keeping our food cold on Stella Maris but we have not had a freezer to extend our fresh food provisions or to preserve our fresh catch for later meals. We are so happy to have the Engel 12 volt DC powered freezer that will easily keep food frozen solid powered from our solar panels using about 45 ampere hours per day. A plus is now we will be able to have ice without going ashore or doing without. Just for fun we head over to New Orleans on the day after Christmas dressed in our Santa and Mrs. Claus "Casual attire". We ride the Mississippi river ferry and hop on a street car trolly to the French Market and the Central Grocery for an Original Muffuletta. We are so looking forward to getting back aboard Stella Maris in just a few days. Our next video we hope will be from Indiantown Marina in Florida as we remove all the hurricane preps we made and put the sails and other items back aboard to make her ready to sail again. Ottis & Kim

Ottis, Kim and Stella Maris's wish for this Christmas season is Peace on Earth and Good Will to All. The peaceful and calming sounds of our Gennaker billowing in a gentle breeze takes us all hopefully to a reflective and quiet place. We hope you enjoy our video Christmas card. See You Soon, Ottis and Kim. Digital artwork by Kim using the program Procreate on an iPad.

Introduction of s/v Stella Maris , Ottis and Kim. Thanksgiving 2019.