Author Archives: Mark
St Petersburg – The Arts
One of the things we’ve noticed during our stent in St Petersburg, FL is art. No we are not talking Garfunkel. St. Petersburg has built into the cityscape wonderful murals and statues. Taking a short break from readying Cream Puff for our escapades, we took a walk about the city armed with cameras. We have […]
Under 30 Days
We gave our marina office the required 30 days notice we will be vacating our slip and applied our security deposit to our last month’s rent. Our list of “must do’s” is shortening daily. We have a list of tasks that must be done and a second list of things we would really like to […]
Frustration
A day in my life. “Hey Cindy, today I’m going to install the new GPS unit I bought. You remember me telling you about it. It tracks the Russian satellites from the GLONASS system as well as the USA system. I think I told you about it, didn’t I? Well, during the cold war, the […]
Adjustments
Our time in St Petersburg is getting short. We are slightly giddy with excitement about our first passage as cruisers. Although, we are not sure where we will go first. As it stands right now, we will hop to the Dry Tortugas, sail around Key West (been there, done that), and hit some stops up […]
A New Rig
This week was the most expensive week of our lives! Ouch. Okay, perhaps the day when we purchased a house or one of our boats was really the most expensive week of our lives. But, we don’t have jobs anymore and when money goes out, it doesn’t come in (this is really quite scary […]
We’ll know in a couple of hours…
Am I about to die of food poisoning? I have an insatiable curiosity. It is who I am. Because of this, I read. A lot! As our plan to go sailing came closer into view, I substituted my reading material of investment prospectus’ and sales related leadership books to boat blogs, cruising guides and […]
Earning Checkmarks
10 Things to do before going cruising, made easy: Set a 20 year savings plan allowing us to retire before 55, afford a boat and not have to worry about money during our sailing adventures Work Hard Save money Avoid buying […]
Fortune Cookies
We ate Thai food tonight. Here are the fortunes from the fortune cookies. We had a real chuckle when I opened mine (the bottom one). When we opened Cindy’s we were looking for the Candid Camera.
Surprise Surprise!
Nobody is more surprised than I am at the number of people who follow our blog. We really enjoy doing the updates and hope we can bring a smile to a reader’s face every once and a while. We do the blog mostly for selfish purposes. It is a way for us to look back […]
Almost Homeless
So, the blog has been quiet for a little while over the holidays. Just the opposite is true in our lives. We returned to the house on Christmas day to clean up the yard and rake leaves. As I write this, I am so happy to think it will be a very very very long […]
Our First Christmas on a Boat
St. Petersburg never ceases to impress me. The downtown activities here are nonstop. There seems to be a happening just about every weekend. There are always concerts, festivals, parades and even a Grand Prix. This weekend was the lighting of the Christmas tree and a lighted boat parade. Allow me to digress here for a […]
Our Home Entertainment System
For the past few years, we have stashed a few books in the closet with good intentions of reading them later. Almost all the books you see here where given to us or we swapped with some of our friends. Knowing one day we would be sailing and have some time for rest and […]
Over & Under The Sunshine Skyway Bridge
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is an impressive piece of architectural engineering spanning the mouth of Tampa Bay. This Thanksgiving I had a wonderful opportunity to do something unique. I left Cream Puff, drove over the bridge and returned back to Cream Puff by coming under the bridge. How on earth did I do that, you may […]
Life on a Boat
Our first week on the boat was marvelous. Our pace has slowed from crazy go like a mad thing to slow but sure. We hoped to do a little sailing but the weather this week was yucky. But hey, we have plenty of time for sailing down the road. We spent most of our time […]
Moving onto the Boat – Part 2
For the past nine weeks at our house, our daily routine has been get up, eat breakfast stuff, pack stuff, throw away stuff, clean stuff and repeat. We have worked our little derrières off and our fingers to the bones. Each night, after a 14 hour day of this routine, we lay in bed and […]
