I’m Kayleigh, this is James — and this is our sailboat Mon Ami, a 41-foot Jeanneau Sun Legende from 1987. But how exactly did we end up here? Well, we met back in 2020 — just weeks before the world went crazy during the pandemic. So, instead of being locked down, we jumped in our four-wheel drives and drove across the country. First stop: the infamous Telegraph Track on the Cape York peninsula. From there, we continued west through sand, dirt, and endless corrugations — camping under the stars in the Northern Territory, dreaming about what big adventure we could go on next. And that’s where we first spoke about buying a sailboat. As we drove on, we had mud spas, surfed with new friends, and eventually crossed into Western Australia — ending up in Exmouth, the place that became our home for nearly three years. We settled in, found jobs and the dream of owning a boat finally started to become real. So with this goal in mind, we worked as much as we could and even spent a whole year living in a swag, which we called rent-free 2023. James — or Gibbo — was working as a deckhand on the whale shark boats, later moving to the tugs, while I worked as a sea kayak guide. We were both pulling 12-hour days for weeks at a time, saving every dollar we could. In between our work, we even managed to afford a budget holiday to new Zealand where we cycled our bikes across the entire country and lived in our tent - but that’s a story for another day. We started to look at yachts online and noticed there wasn’t a huge variety in WA. So we packed up once again (minus the Suzuki) and drove 6,000 kilometres back to Queensland — across the vast Nullarbor Plain, where we broke down, ate many jaffles, and even picked up a joey along the way - another reminder to always check the pouch! After looking at a few fixer-uppers, we finally saw a listing for Mon Ami.. and well, the rest is history.. We spent our first few months sailing around Moreton Bay, learning the ropes — literally — and getting to know our new boat. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing: we found diesel bug cappuccino, leaking hatches, and a badly corroded rudder post that forced a haul-out. As new boat owners, this wasn’t exactly how we wanted to spend our time. We fixed, polished and anti fouled the boat before, quitting our jobs and moving aboard full time in April. It’s now the end of September — and we’ve sailed nearly 2,000 nautical miles along the Queensland coast. Along the way, we’ve welcomed friends aboard, explored remote reefs, and sailed alongside giants. It’s been a pretty wild ride — with some of the best moments, and some of the toughest. But the journey’s not over yet - and we’d love to take you along for the rest of this adventure… and every one after that.

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🇫🇷 Des énormes grains pour Paul Meilhat, le skipper est confronté à des conditions de vent très variables alors qu'il remonte actuellement l'Atlantique. 🇬🇧 Huge squalls for Paul Meilhat, the skipper is facing highly variable wind conditions as he makes his way up the Atlantic. ------------------------ ➡️ SUIVEZ-NOUS ! // FOLLOW US ! 🔗 Website : www.vendeeglobe.org 📸 Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/vendeeglobe/ 🐦 Twitter FR : https://twitter.com/VendeeGlobe | Twitter ENG : https://twitter.com/VendeeGlobeENG 🕺 TikTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@vendee_globe 💻 Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/VendeeGlobe 💼 LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendée-globe/

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Unexpected wildlife encounters are by far the very best travel experiences, like this chance meeting with a sperm whale that SeaTrek Sailing Adventures was able to share with our guests on a cruise across the Banda Sea in Indonesia in 2019. So, how can you see them? Whales are unpredictable creatures and it's not always easy to know where they are, but they are easily seen once they surface to take a breath, with their their tell-tale waterspout being a dead giveaway. On SeaTrek Sailing Adventure cruises when we are sailing across the Banda Sea and up through Raja Ampat waters between September and April, there will often be a huge cry from the crew of 'paus, paus! (whale, whale!), and all our guests will rush to the side of the boat with binoculars in hand to catch a glimpse of these magnificent creatures - as happened just this very week with a very up close and personal encounter on Katharina in September 2019.  It's not just sperm whales that we see on our cruises, and there are many different species around, from spinner dolphins all the way up to blue whales. If you would like to take a chance to see whales on the open sea with SeaTrek while enjoying all our other myriad experiences, contact us now and find out more. Get all the trip details at http://bit.ly/EastIndiesSpiceExploration = = = 𝗪𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐨! 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮: https://www.instagram.com/seatreksailingadventures 𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬: https://www.facebook.com/Seatrekbali 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥𝘐𝘯: https://www.linkedin.com/company/seatrek-sailing-adventures Visit our website: www.seatrekbali.com

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Owning a boat is a constant cycle of work and reward… this video includes some shots of haul outs and projects we’ve complete on our sailing catamaran, and some rewarding moments of smooth sailing, dolphins, and sunsets.

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