The Adventures of S/V Amante

Our Stamp of Approval

What's New ( 9 January 2010 Happy New Year!):

OK, here's the situation. We sailed from Malaysia to Thailand to get our bimini/dodger replaced and get the admiral's teeth tuned up. Unfortunately, our intrepid Capt Hub has been having shoulder pains and so got an MRI to see what might be wrong. Plenty. It showed a couple of torn tendons. Now our plans to cross the Indian Ocean this year are scuttled. Recovery from surgery will take months. So, our heroes are currently stuck in Phuket, more precisely here , at Yacht Haven Marina. It's not at all convenient to the hospital or anything else, but it's safe and doesn't require our crippled captain to operate outboard motors. Who knows, maybe we can finally get some material up on Cambodia. Yes, our lameness is now official.

(No, we still haven't done the Chinese museums either)

No, we haven't updated this as it requires check-in with our HAM service and we haven't updated it, so please don't check our current location here. We'll update it when we can. And check out the Satellite View! Please note you'll need Javascript enabled as it uses google maps.

This site was originally intended to answer the perennial question from friends and loved ones, "So, what have you been doing lately?" (they ask anyway). It sort of just grew from a few simple pictures of what for many are "faraway places" to a major pile o' files, which we are now trying to organize into a more useful and attractive travel narrative. It also helps us to remember just where in the hell we've been.

Dear Reader,

"Amante" is Spanish and can mean sweetheart or mistress. The mistress in this case is mature but experienced in sea-worldly ways, a 1977 Morgan Out Island 51. Like most mature mistresses, she is a high-maintenance and sometimes demanding broad.

The crew is experienced but thankfully not very mature. The intrepid Captain is John Williams, a semi-retired geophysicist: The Admiral is Vera Williams, who now applies her nursing skills full time to the Captain, who really needs help, badly.

Contact Us. But please be patient as we we're not always on-line. We do appreciate people just saying "hi", but please don't expect a reply unless you specifically request one.

Here we see the Captain, showing his age; the helpful Admiral/Nurse; and the Mom, who keeps the crew supplied

Amante started its voyage from Corpus Christi in December, 2002. It was a disaster. After getting 100nm offshore she limped back to Corpus needing lots of repair. In the second attempt she barely made it to Key West, but she did make it. The rest is ongoing history.

We hope this website appeals to a diverse audience. It was intended initially for friends & family, most of whom think port is a kind of wine and knot is just what you tie. It is hoped that it will also prove useful to our sailing friends who may plan to visit a lot of these spots in the future and would like to know stuff like whether you can buy fuel in the Galapagos (yes, and it's cheap), whether you can stay 3 months in French Polynesia (yes, and it's not!), etc. The style has drifted, we'll keep working on it.

While writing copy for this we did a lot of google searches for proper names, and in the process found that everybody's sea dog has a sailing web site. Many are more polished than this humble effort and we advise those interested to seek more info, given the many keywords you will find herein.

If you got this far and haven't seen anything, start at the beginning.