WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU
I know this is against the norm in the blogging world but, I try to keep the site clean and easy to read for our reader’s enjoyment. For this reason, I opted to keep comments to one page. We would love to hear from you. Do not let my wacky thought process deter you from expressing your feelings regarding our postings or another items of interest you want to share.
- Thoughts on the cruising lifestyle?
- Do you have an favorite sailing destination or a place you think we should avoid?
- Send us your favorite recipe.
- Have you read any good books lately?
- What would you like to know about us?
Please include your e-mail so we can write back to you (email addresses are kept private)
Thanks for connecting to us!
Mark and Cindy
Congratulations on your safe passage and your changing of oceans. I understand the Pacific is not as “salty” as the Atlantic. I wonder if it something you will notice. I am looking forward to hearing about your tentative plans for the next few months.
We leave this Thursday to pick up our new (used) boat. Can’t wait for our TWO week vacation!!
Awesome post. I love that you guys do your own fact checking and don’t rely on word of mouth. I do the same and always have to bite my tongue when I hear things that aren’t quite right. I am on a Carver owners Facebook group; there are times I am just amazed by the level of ignorance, err inaccuracy.
I think I would have been equal parts excited and scared silly setting all this up and getting ready to go. We transited the Welland Canal (Niagara Falls bypass) and it was a very interesting experience. We had friends as line handlers. Whic worked out well; but we were very fortunate that a boat transiting with us had a professional advisor. (93’Burger). He was awesome about keeping the whole group up to date; not just his boat. We tipped him and the line handler advisor on another boat.
Can’t wait to hear the rest of the story.
Looking at your map; I never realized how relatively North/South the canal is. Always pictured it as being very East/West. LOL. Many bloggers write about the Caribbean; it will be interesting to follow you in the Pacific!
Hi Marie, Yes! I had always thought of it as an east west passage. Our schools must have used the same geography books.
So far, loving it in Panama!
Panama! Adventures in the Panama Canal. Wow, I did it on a cruise ship and was just fascinated. Can’t wait to read your posts about it.
Details comming soon 🙂
I have spent some time wondering what a mola is, but I finally looked it up…amazing work! I would love to see some of the molas you have purchased. I am very much into arts and crafts and this fascinates me!! So neat to see the various works in other cultures. – Kendall & Nahum (a frisky little black and white “thing” (okay dog) that loves to be part of the fun!)
Hello Kendall,
Thank you for commenting on our blog. 🙂
I stored all the molas away on the boat to keep them out of the humidity while we were living without air conditioning on anchor. I will take pictures when I get them out again and send them to you. In the meantime, check out our post San Blas-Chichime Islands for pictures of the molas on the day we bought them.
I apologize for the delay responding. I hope you are doing well.
Best wishes,
Cindy
Love your post about Karma. I always hope that Karma plays a place in the universe. I try to be the considerate person, the one that lets people into traffic, volunteers, recycles, goes the extra mile on the job. There are times that it really does seem that I get “paid” back.
Enjoy reading your blog so much; I love your descriptions of the places you see and how the people live. Your wanderings are very entertaining. I laugh when you describe hoisting your phone up to get a hotspot. LOL
I look forward to hearing your observations of going through the Panama Canal eventually. I did it on a cruise ship many years ago. It was fascinating.
In Michigan we are starting to launch boats. Water is VERY high on the Great Lakes this year. Always nice for running gear; but it does cause some issues at the dock and along the lakeshore for some.
Our boat is in VERY early this year (for us); because we SOLD it! Long story short, the equity we’ve managed to build back up due to hubby’s ongoing projects, is allowing us to PAY off our house and buy a new boat that is just a bit smaller.
We are now less than three years out from retirement and are rightsizing our financial obligations. Things are looking really real…..
That’s a new USED boat. LOL
The best kind!
Hi Marie, Thank you for the kind words 🙂 It is hard for us to imagine you are just now getting warm weather. We have been sweating in the heat for about 4 years now. Today is no wind, hot and humid. No doubt we’ll spend the afternoon floating in the water.
So glad you have the retirement light at the end of the tunnel. Work really gets in the way of things 🙂
Oh I love love love this post on the San Blas Islands. I remember reading about these islands in posts by other bloggers when we were planning our trip. HOnestly, we are thinking of crossing to the South Pacific next year, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather go through the canal and explore the other side. Especially after seeing these photos. Just stunning and I am envious of your Molas! Over on this side it’s the Huichol art that is heartbreakingly beautiful to me. We’ve invested in a number of pieces. It’s hard to walk away. i’m glad you got to visit with the artist and have his wares personally presented to you. That’s fantastic.
I had a good laugh about your one pair of extra flip flops. On board Galapagos, I have many pairs of sandals. Many. Maybe 15. They live in one place (ok, some of them live up in the cockpit in a basket) but I pretty much wear one of two pairs all the time. The others are my ‘back up’ sandals.Many sailors think this is an excessive number of shoes but their opinion is meaningless to me. I also have a pair of hiking boots and a pair of tennis shoes. Mike learned a valuable lesson last year (read: he learned to listen to me) when he discovered that his one pair of sandals was hurting his feet. Rubbing, blistering, etc. There was no help for it but that he needed to dig out his extra pair…which he DID NOT HAVE BECAUSE HE DIDN’T LISTEN TO ME when I told him he should likely not leave the dock without backup footwear. Oh the pain. We are in Mexico. They do not have the selection here that we have at home in our extraordinarily too-many-choices country. Mexicans also, as a rule, have smaller feet. So he has had to look long and hard for another pair of shoes. We finally found a nice pair of Crocs and paid a premium for them at one of the local resorts. His feet are happier than our wallet now. But we’ll be making another visit home this summer during sandal season. Guess who will be coming back to Mexico with some backup footwear? Not me. I already have plenty.
When will us fellers learn to listen to the smarter half of the marriage? LOL
I have never owned a pair of Crocs. Neither has Cindy.
BTW – we are thinking about a canal transit in the July’ish time frame. This puts us on your side of the continent. No doubt we will hang about Panama for a while so there is a chance we may bump into you 🙂
Cool! We’ll be on the lookout for the guy with one pair of flip flops. And I hear you about crocs. But beggars can’t be choosers. They aren’t the first choice for sure, although these have a fabric top and seem pretty comfortable. Still, as a fashion statement, forget about it.
Thank you for your posts, unless read and thoroughly enjoy every one. I would start my own blog, but have no idea where or how to start. Tips?
The University of You-Tube is a great place to start. We use wordpress as a host. It is pretty easy to understand and set up.
Congrats on four years! It seems like just yesterday you guys were setting off – time does fly.
Thanks Ellen! Some days it seems as though time has flown and other days, well… not so much. It is not an easy lifestyle but it is well worth the efforts. When we started, a lot of people asked how long we plan to cruise. We said, we will do it for as long as we enjoy it. I guess we are still enjoying it 🙂