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
Thanks for the link to your Staniel Cay post. It was fun to look at the pictures you took and compare them to ours 🙂 Such a pretty and photogenic settlement.
The Exuma Islands were our favorite spot in the Bahamas. We also really liked Hope Town on Elbow Cay, really beautiful there.
I am currently in Grenada and enjoying it. Perhaps we can meet up when you get here. I enjoy reading your blog. Thanks for posting.
Oh, Anchoring! I feel your pain. I think that’s one of my least favorite parts of boating. Did we dig in? Are we holding? Are we moving? Ugh! Glad to hear you found a good spot and are enjoying a new location. The town looks lovely.
Hi Marie,
The town was lovely. And since it is the end of the season, there were not very many tourist there and we had the place to ourselves. We would have really liked to have stayed longer.
Cindy misses anchoring in the Bahamas. When we dropped the anchor there it stuck 100% of the time, first time. St Croix was a real challenge because of the grass. The grass also made the water taste a little funky (when we ran our water-maker). But, we’d go back there in a heartbeat.
Mark
Hi guys. We’re just about to make the big move ourselves, and we’re wondering how you arrived at your decision to flag in the BVI?
Hi John and Christa,
There are two reasons we flagged BVI. 1) $28,000 in USA Sales Tax 2) Mark is not a US citizen hence we cannot document in the USA. The USA requires citizenship for vessel documentation. Cindy is a US citizen so we could have done it in her name. However, we wanted to have joint ownership of the vessel. We know a couple where the boat was in his name only and he died while cruising in a foreign country. The vessel is then at the mercy of the estate laws of that country unless ownership can be proven. It took her months to get the vessel out of the country (Dominican Republic). She had to pay a local lawyer a small fortune.
There are many advantages to documentation outside of the USA. Insurance cost is also a big factor. Some large reputable global marine insurance companies will not issue policies in sue happy USA. If you plan to cruise outside of the USA, consider options available to foreign flag the vessel. If you plan to spend most of your time in the USA – foreign flagging the vessel will be too much of a pain unless you can leave the USA every year for 3 weeks. (I am assuming you are in the USA).
Hope this helps.
Hope to see you out here one day soon.
I am always amazed and enchanted by the beautiful colors in these more tropical places. Those intense colors with the blue sky and blue water: stunning!
We think it is because the sun is so bright and the sky is clear. And, no air pollution!
What a beautiful rain forest! I think I would have jumped in the water with my clothes on. Wash the sweat off the clothes, the body, and cool down all in one. That pool looks yummy.
I would have fallen off a rock and killed myself 🙂
It was truly a beautiful area. So glad we got to be here and enjoy it. Days like this one keep us going.
I like your style in letting the tour group leave you behind and getting those photos. Nice work! Also good job surviving what sounds like a survival of the fittest approach to traffic control. I think I might make a hard pass at driving there. On the other hand, it does sound like they know it’s up to them to survive. So there’s that.
I did the Bacardi tour some years ago while on a cruise. I too was disappointed by the “tour”. We should have done the fort instead. Enjoy your company!
Your mail solution sounds perfect.
We had a great long weekend. Lots of sleeping in (7:00am is sleeping in for us), some really nice weather, visits with marina friends and a couple nice boat rides. It is still cool here in the mitten; so we won’t be swimming for a while yet.
Although I did take an unintended swim on Monday. Ugh. I was just short of ten years being a boater and I was so proud of myself for never falling off the boat. I was stepping into the dinghy and it moved. (Imagine that) I was lucky, I did not hit the big boat swim platform and lost only my dignity. I hope it’s another ten years before it happens again.
Hey Marie,
Almost everyone I know has missed the dinghy at least once. Welcome to the club. 🙂 Glad you were not hurt.
Sounds like you guys had a nice long weekend. Glad to hear it.
Thank you for the comments. It is always nice to hear from you!
Palmas Del Mar sounds like it would be really hard to leave. It sounds so beautiful! I often wondered about getting mail along the way. It’s nice to know that Puerto Rico gets regular mail. I would have definitely been taking advantage of Amazon Prime!
Hi Marie,
Yes it is going to be hard leaving here. They are really spoiling us.
We use SBI for mail: https://www.sbimailservice.com/
Just about every company we do business with (bank, insurance, etc.) we have managed to go completely electronic. On the rare occasion that we do get mail, like from the government, SBI will scan it for us and we can look at it on-line. The service is pretty inexpensive and enables us to keep a USA address. Some cruisers use a relative. A few years ago, these options weren’t available and cruisers had to have the mail forwarded from a PO Box somewhere. It was very costly and slow.
Here is a link to a funny post we put up about 3 years ago about mail: https://www.creampuff.us/2014/06/please-cancel-our-mail-forever/
Hope you are enjoying the long weekend.
Mark and Cindy