Author Archives: Mark
All Systems Go – Or, So We Thought
Well, we are kinda sorta ready to get going. We have enough food to feed an army. We have full tanks of fuel and water. We have our repairs done and most of our projects completed. We have good easterly winds that would make our trip down the west coast of Florida perfect. There is just […]
Shopping, Car Towing, Parades and Boat Shows
We have a car this week and have been provisioning so we can leave Tampa Bay and head off to sunny islands somewhere. Definition of provisioning: going to Wal-Mart, Publix Grocery and Costco, spending an absolute boat-load (pun intended) of money. Stashing food and goodies in every nook and cranny of the boat while watching […]
Help! I’m Locked in the Head
As a follow up to our last post about me doing stupid things, earlier this week I locked myself in the bathroom (head – for you nautical types). On Amel boats, as with most brands, doors can be fastened closed from both sides or fastened open. Doors need to be fastened one way or another […]
Doing Stupid Things
Every once in a while I do something really stupid. I’m really good at doing stupid things. Today was the day. Picture this; I am in the engine room working on the Onan generator. Onan is the brand of our generator. The work was nothing major, just boring routine maintenance stuff like changing the oil. […]
Circus Act
I first became familiar with the phrase circus act quite a few years ago. In the late 1980’s to early 1990’s we were in Texas and kept our boat Water-Melon at the Corpus Christi Municipal Marina. Our next door neighbor on the dock was Celica S. Celica S was a beautiful antique classic motor yacht. […]
We’re Still Here…
The blog has been a little neglected lately. Sorry about that. It is not that we have given up on this whole sailing adventure. It is simply the fact we have been busy having some fun as well as finishing up on a long list of projects we had when we arrived in Tampa Bay. […]
Seriously! Again?
I’ve been watching way too much television lately. Not the normal stupid election stuff or crappy network programming. Instead, I am glued to watching hurricanes. It started a couple of weeks ago with Hermine and now continues with Matthew. I am glued to it. It is like the car accident on the highway that you […]
Segwaying Around St. Pete
If you find yourself walking the promenade along St Petersburg’s waterfront and see a group on Segways coming toward you, do not assume the operators know how to control them. We often find ourselves walking along waterfronts. We are usually heading to the grocery store or a local dining option. The broad sidewalks offer the […]
Hunkering Down for Hurricane Hermine
I may very well be responsible for hurricane Hermine that just hit Florida. Most cruising sailors, or at least the smart ones, spend the hurricane season outside of the hurricane zone. June to November is the hurricane season with August – September being peak. The safe zone is north of Florida or the very south […]
Sarasota, FL
I’ve been in a bit of a melancholy mood lately. We have several projects going aboard Cream Puff causing us grief. We are replacing carpet. We ordered new marine carpet (special backing – non-mildewing – double the price) and planned to save money by installing it ourselves. We cut it to size using the old […]
Free Solar Energy?
We are finally joining the ranks of many other sailors who spent a lot of money to capture free energy. We have had an Air Breeze wind powered generator aboard Cream Puff since taking ownership. Air Breeze generators are known for being very robust reliable pieces of equipment. Ours broke in the Bahamas earlier […]
Cuba?
Oh, decisions, decisions, decisions! A big part of our logic about spending this hurricane season in Tampa Bay is that we thought our next stop might be Cuba in November. Now I am reading about Cuba and I am having serious second thoughts. Cuba has long been an attractive cruising destination for Canadians. Most […]
Road Trip
We landed in the USA with a long list of things to repair and buy. In our first couple of weeks here, we have spent an absolute boat load of money (pun intended). If you are wondering why the Amazon stock price has sky rocketed recently, you needn’t look any further. We are single handedly […]
Please Stop the Noise
There are quite a few things we have missed since hanging around in the Bahamas for the last six months. We missed Italian food, Mexican food, Chinese food, and well… we missed good food in general. The Bahamian Islands, or at least the ones we visited, are not well known for culinary creations. That is, […]
We Made It – Back in the USA
It took us 7 days of sailing to cover the 850 miles from the southern Bahamas to Tampa Bay. Our trip was uneventful. Uneventful is a very good thing. We really really like uneventful. We made one stop unplanned stop in Key West. When we started out, we knew the winds would be moderate. We […]
