Sea Life
By Todd Duff, photos courtesy Todd Duff
Sea Life is our “new to us” 46-foot Amel Santorin ketch. We’ve owned her since November 2023.
After over 30 years of active ocean cruising and visits to 38 countries it’s amazing how many of us are still out there, clinging to this special lifestyle while the world changes around us. There is nothing else like it. For the last five summers we tried RV camping and covered the US as well as some of Mexico and Canada. But we came to the realization that RV life just isn’t all that challenging and not nearly as engaging — and certainly much more regulated than international cruising. So we have the RV up for sale. After another month or two of updates we plan to head back down to the Caribbean and will not return to land travel.
This is our third Amel. Our first was a 53-foot Super Maramu. We sold her back in 2016 as we felt she was just too big for two people. She’s now in the South Pacific Ocean with her Dutch family. In 2017 we bought an Amel Maramu, the 46-foot predecessor to the Santorin. That boat was a real find; she was immaculate and was to be our “retirement boat,” so we were refitting her for another trip to the South Pacific, but then Hurricane Irma came along and destroyed the boat, my car, and my business, and changed our lives forever.
Since that time we’ve had several “not quite right” but very nice boats: an Alden 50, Bristol 43.3 and 47.7, and a 42-foot Hallberg Rassy Mk II. None of those were quite right for us so when we found this well-upgraded Amel Santorin, we jumped at it. So far so good.
We named her Sea Life for two reasons: Obviously we love all the sea life we encounter and secondly we love the sea life — living on the sea and traveling as we have been since the 1980s.
