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
How exciting/scary to move on to the next great adventure. I can’t even imagine how you provision for a journey like that. The dry stuff/can goods, paper products are probably pretty easy. And you can hide beer and wine all throughout the vessel. Fresh veggies and fruit last till they last. And are probably available in some ports. But I know you have limited refrigeration; how do you store protein?
I will be interested to hear the conclusion to the passport story.
Hi Marie,
I hope you are doing well today.
It is a bit daunting, we have to admit but exciting as well.
The provisioning has become much easier over the (almost) 5 years we have been cruising because I keep a spreadsheet to keep track of what we use. That way if we are in a country or area where I find something we need or like I know how much to purchase. For instance, if I hear something like flour for example is hard to find at the next two stops I can load up now. But if I hear something like flour is readily accessible and cheap then I do not load up on flour and use the valuable storage space for something else. Unlike the USA where everything is plentiful, many places we visit do not have the things we want or need. When I do find those things I can look on the spreadsheet to see our usage and buy a supply. That way I do not over buy and use up precious storage space or waste money on things we do not need (or expire before we use it). At the very end, when we have all the things we need for survival stored (haha), I buy fun stuff like favorite treats.
As far as protein, there are always canned meats like tuna, salmon, ham and chicken. On Cream Puff we have two refrigerator/freezers that are under the settees. They can be either a refrigerator or a freezer but not both (yeah, the instructions say otherwise but not in reality–like so much on a boat. LOL). So I make one a freezer and the other a fridge. I use the same spreadsheet to make meat purchases. I have found chicken is available in most places so we will load the freezer with other things I know I cannot find or that will be more expensive in the next few ports. I use a vacuum sealer because it takes up less room in the freezer if the food is vacuum sealed. It takes a lot of research, time and planning. The information and it is not always readily available or easy to find so I use common sense and experience as well. I hope this helps. Thanks for the great question. Have a wonderful day!
Love the photo of Atlas and his rubber tree burden. enjoyed hearing about Tigre and how they are a sitting on water. (much like Venice) Travel will always have adventures included. It’s all in how you handle them…..
You guys are experts.
Our boat is of course; officially on the hard. Wrapped tight for winter. Let the boat projects begin…..
Yeah, boat projects are one of the things we can always count on in a life of uncertainty. LOL. I hope all your projects are successful and painless. 🙂
My sister is in Argentina right now. They were there three plus weeks and due home on Thursday. My brother in law’s family immigrated to the US when he was 16. He has not been back in close to 48 years. They are visiting family; mostly in the mountains, Angastaco, Salta, Cafayate and Purmamarca. Her pictures on Facebook are beautiful. I look forward to hearing all about their stay.
I hope you get your fill of beef and have a great time!
OMG – the beef here is incredible!
We plan to stay in the Buenos Aries area. We are already talking about returning one day for an extended stay so we can take in the rest of the country. We can already see how staying in BA for an extended time would make a great base to visit the rest of S. America.
Have a great time!
Thank you! We are loving it here.
Mark and Cindy, It is always such a treat to find a post from you in my inbox. I love reading about your adventures, good and bad. It sometimes seems unfair that I know so much about you and you know me not at all.
I can’t even imagine living in Panama for a month without air conditioning. I know the Panamanians do it; but they been conditioned to since birth! We too replaced an air conditioner on our last boat. It was nice to see that they finally replaced the metal drip pan with some kind of poly plastic. No MORE rust stains down the side of the boat. It was not nice to see that they flipped the hoses from one side to the other. We also made a couple trips for parts to get it all hooked up. (Sometimes it seems that EVERY boat project requires multiple trips to the local chandlery) On our new to us boat this year; we had to replace a mother board on an air conditioner. Creature comforts rule.
Our toaster is getting to the point where it might need replacement as well. I have to flip the bread halfway through if I want the same level of doneness on both sides. I just replaced my electric tea kettle. Hubby drinks coffee; I drink tea. I cannot stand tea made with water from the microwave. I will do it at last resort; but I really prefer actually bringing the water to a boil. My kettle was about ten years old; so I think I got my money’s worth. We’ll see how this new one stacks up. I bought it at Costco; so I don’t even need to save the receipt to return if it dies too soon.
Panama looks so lush and green! I’m sure being in a rainforest has its ups and downs. The butterflies and frogs are so beautiful. Not sure I would want the rest of the bugs that come with it. My biggest pet peeve docking in Florida was the cockroaches, (my husband can call them Palmetto bugs all he wants; they are awful invasive bugs). They were all over the docks; I just couldn’t handle them being on my boat. We brought them home to Michigan with us; and I threw everything in my arsenal at them. We have spiders in the Great Lakes; and that is enough. We have spider hunts every Saturday night. I wield the flashlight and Dan squishes em. If they didn’t leave purple poop all over everything; I’d let them be.
I love being up high; as long as I am fenced in. How did Cindy do on the tram?
Thanks, Marie
Hi Mark, Please tell me where you’re tied up on the Pacific side. We will be transiting the canal and want to able to stay closer to panama City rather than travelling there from Shelter Bay.
svTracenJ
I love doing touristy things with people who visit. And your friends saw a sloth! That’s so cool. We wanted badly to see a sloth in Ecuador but never did. Lots of monkeys of all kinds, big bugs of all kinds, but no sloths. The Panamanian weather sounds, as they say, no bueno to me. But I get it that when the sun comes out from behind clouds, it’s bloody hot. Same here.
Finally having beautiful weather here in Michigan! Less rain, more sun makes for happy boaters. We got our haulout letter in the mail yesterday; makes me want to cry. But, the reality is that October 11th is only 8 weeks away. We are enjoying every moment we can.
Glad to see that you are doing the same.
Hi Marie,
Thank you for your comment. It is always great to hear from you. We are glad to hear you are enjoying the weather while it lasts. We hope your 8 weeks are full of fun and sunny days on your boat. ENJOY!
Your comments about getting old are on point. Not for the faint of spirit. We have just spent time in Martin, TN with Mike’s mother, and now with my mother in Washington. My mom is in her 80’s and is certifiably ‘old’ now. It’s scary. I do not want to go to there, you know? Mike’s mom is having health issues and either one of these people could disrupt our plans for the foreseeable future with only one phonecall. So we look forward to getting back to the boat while the getting is good. Their worlds are so small now. Stop dissing on my Starbucks. I will admit, in private company here, that I don’t care much for their coffee anymore since I’ve been in the sun in Mexico so long. And most of their other drinks are filled with sugar. But when I look at my stock portfolio I love them all the same. I feel compelled to purchase a drip coffee now and then just to keep the spirit alive. I bought early and never sold. I figured in the Pacific Northwest, coffee is a contact sport so they couldn’t lose.
Sorry to diss your Starbucks 🙂 Good for you in getting in there early. When they first started to open, a friend told me to buy some stock. He said it was an American company making European style coffee. I went to a Starbucks and decided not to buy their stock. My thought was, how could a company sell coffee when they keep burning the beans. I never had burned-bean flavored coffee when living in Europe. I wonder if Howard Schultz happened to go to a coffee shop in Italy on the day they forgot about the beans being roasted in the oven. Sorry now that I passed on it. We could’ve had a bigger boat 🙂
I am always wowed by your adventures. You probably don’t think about yourselves this way; but you are very brave. It takes a lot to completely leave your comfort zone and learn and make your way in a wonderfully different lifestyle. It would be tough to have to make the decision you are making now. I would imagine staying in the southern latitudes would be much less expensive than heading north. Have you ever wanted to cruise the coast of California, Oregon, Washington? What about Alaska?
My daughter lives two miles from a Sams club, 2 1/2miles from Costco; and now they are building a PriceMart within a mile of them both. I will be interested to see how they compare.
We picked up our new boat three days ago. We crossed Lake Michigan from Sheboygan, WI and are currently in Frankfort. We leave tomorrow for our Cheboygan in Michigan. We look forward to spending the 4th of July there. I love the new boat; hubby is still reserving judgement a bit. We did have a couple issues; but things are good now, at this moment in time. With a boat each moment that you don’t have something going on is a good moment.
Really appreciate your continued blog.