Author Archives: Mark
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 […]
Death in Paradise
Doesn’t Death in Paradise sound like a great name for a movie or television series? Well, that’s because it is a name of a television series. It is a British and French production that airs on the BBC. Season 1 aired in 2011 and the 8th season has just been commissioned. Cindy and I love […]
Hanging About The Marina in Gwada
Some cruisers, for some strange reason, think staying in a marina is taboo. We think otherwise. We stay in a marina when we can because the amenities are simply awesome. We can walk to restaurants, grocery stores, chandleries and markets. We meet neighbors and have made a ton of new friends whilst staying in marinas […]
The Rescue and a Walkabout – Gwada
So here we are, stuck in the middle of nowhere at Cascade aux Ecrevisses. The key to our rental car is lost. Everything we brought with us on our day trip is locked inside the car. This includes our rental car agreement with the contact information of the local agency from who we rented. It […]
Welcome to Gwada
Gwada is the pet French Creole name for Guadeloupe. It is also a brand of a local beer I have happily sampled since arriving. Thumbs up! Guadeloupe is also known as the butterfly island because of its shape. One wing of Gwada is pretty flat and the other is mountainous. The area in-between the wings […]
Dominica
Dominica was hit hard by hurricane Maria last year. This little island was devastated. Since Dominica is a country they struggle to get any aid. For example, St. Maarten was hit by Irma and is a French island. It wasn’t long before aid started to arrive from France. Puerto Rico received aid (eventually) from the […]
Bubba Takes a Hit
For the past few days we have worked our way up the western side of Martinique. I wanted to stop in Les Anses-d’Arlet for a couple of days but it was just too crowded with boats. This time of year in the Caribbean there is a phenomenon called Christmas winds. From December to February, the […]
