Author Archives: Mark
The Ultimate Trade Deficit
Lately in the USA, trade deficits are in the headlines. It is impossible to read anything in the news without articles on tariffs and trade wars. It seems to be the consensus of the American people having a trade deficit with economic partners is a bad influence on the US economy. The focus of the […]
Bumbling About Bonaire
As islands go, Bonaire is not a very big one. We rented a car for a couple of days and drove around the island. And, I mean we drove all the way around the island. We did this in one day. Well, it wasn’t really even a full day; it was more like half a […]
Red Tape
When I retire I want to travel. How many times have you heard someone say this? Or, I want to see the world. And even, I’ll have all the time in the world and can go slowly and take it all in. Sounds like a good plan doesn’t it? But, doing it is not easy. […]
Living in a Boatyard
Why are we living in a boatyard? The simple answer is: great WI-FI. Football fever! The whole island of Curaçao has this disease. The symptoms are such that for about 2 hours every day, sometimes twice a day, infected people must migrate to the largest TV in the area for treatment. If there is […]
Bags and boat parts
See the big pile of bags? This is what we lugged all the way back to Curaçao. We have been living out of the two backpacks while in the USA . The rest of the pile, the three large duffle bags, are parts for Cream Puff. We took full advantage of being in the USA […]
We Visit Wimberley Texas
Continuing our trek, we departed the Texas coastal plains and headed inland to the little town of Wimberley located just outside of the capital city of Austin where we planned to visit with Cindy’s brother. Our journey took us mostly on back roads where we could take in the rural landscapes and small […]
Rockport Strong
We are back in our old stomping grounds. We made a stop in San Antonio for a week to visit Cindy’s sister. For the past few days we have traveled around the Corpus Christi Bay area in Texas. I can’t believe I can write sentences beginning with the words, “Thirty years ago”. This makes me […]
Road Trip
Big cars! We rented a Toyota Camry in Miami. For us, the car seemed huge. We have rented tiny cars on the islands and have become somewhat used to bumping shoulders in the front seats. I move Cindy’s knee out of the way when I need to shift gears. When we first sat in the […]
USA Bound
We got a very short peek of Curaçao before heading off to the USA. Curaçao is the middle island of the ABC’s (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao). Our sail over from Bonaire was really uneventful which is always a good thing. There are quite a few cruising boats hanging about Curaçao during hurricane season (July – […]
Bonaire – The Dusty Island
We had the luxury of a few unplanned days on Bonaire due to our re-routing. It turned out to be a really good move. We arrived on the island during some sort of holiday and everything was closed. And, I mean everything. The downtown looked like a ghost-town. Then, the cruise ship arrived. Things came […]
Oops – Wrong Island
We loved being at Îles des Saintes but all good things come to an end. We reluctantly departed setting sail for Curacao, some 450 nautical miles away across the Caribbean Sea. We estimated the trip to take about 3 days and nights. We departed on a Tuesday and expected to arrive Friday morning. Little […]
Îles des Saintes – 2nd Time Around
Cindy and I both agree Îles des Saintes is our favorite place we have visited so far in the Caribbean Islands. It seems a little odd for me to say this since it really lacks the social environments we enjoy at other anchorages. Most of the boats here fly a French flag and there […]
Guadeloupe – The last few days
Our time in Gwada is coming to and end and we rented a car one last time so we could visit the few remaining little towns on the island we had not yet seen. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know I am a little tight with the money. The […]
Exploring the Wings of the Butterfly
One of the things we have notice on the French islands is the local people really seem to enjoy the beaches. When we traveled in the Bahamas, we were both fascinated by the fact the Bahamians wanted nothing to do with beaches or water sports for the most part. There were some islands with sailing […]
Walking in the Tree Tops
Guadeloupe has a pretty cool botanical gardens and zoo park. It is not a big place but it is one of the most unique places we have visited. The park is situated on the side of a mountain in the greenest part of the island, which means it rains a lot in the park. We […]
