Author Archives: Mark
Hacked!
Our credit card was hacked and shut down by our bank. Not a big deal, you say. Just have the bank send you another card and credit any fraudulent charges. If only it were this easy. Being a boat nomad makes some of the simple things in life become very complicated. Receiving a single piece […]
Birthdays and Boats on Bonaire
Every morning when I wake up I set a new personal record for most consecutive days alive. This last week I celebrated a birthday. Cindy and I have been cruising full-time now for about four years and it has taken us this long to get away from Hallmark. Like most people living on land, we […]
Bonaire Washington Slagbaai National Park
We decided to take a tour of the Bonaire Washington Slagbaai National Park. Based on what we read about the park, it is highly recommended to have a truck or utility vehicle to explore as the roads are unpaved. When businesses, national parks or tourist boards outside of the USA make recommendations such as this, […]
Making Bubbles in Bonaire
I recently read something very interesting about parrot fish. They create most of the sand on the beaches around the world. A single parrot fish creates about 200 pounds or 90 kilograms of sand per year. How? Parrot fish munch on rocks as they feed on the algae attached to the rocks. When underwater, we […]
Bumming About Bonaire
Have you noticed yet every post from Bonaire contains a picture of a flamingo? This post is not different. Here you go. Your random flamingo picture from the beautiful little island of Bonaire. We spent a little bit of time exploring the east side of the island by car. This is the windy side and […]
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 […]
