Taking Advantage of Internet.....

Welcome to our Blog. Our latest entry always comes up first... 
Click this link if you want to start at the beginning:
FIRST BLOG ENTRY
If you want to start at the beginning of our trip:
START OF TRIP
If you want to see the story of our trip from South Carolina
(where we bought the boat)
 to Lake Ontario Click this link:
  SOUTH CAROLINA

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Now that we live n the hook and away from a marina, access to internet is much more difficult.  Sometimes that is a problem, but for the most part, in all honesty, we really don't miss it as much as you might think...

In an emergency, we have our VHF radio for short distance communication, our SSB radio for long distance communication, our SPOT Connect for short message and emergency satellite transmission, and if EVERYTHING FAILS, we have 2 EPIRB's (Satellite/GPS locating beacons)....
So, living away from technology isn't as scary as one would think...

Further, we haven't looked or listened to any news for months now, and quite frankly, we are living with much less stress because of it.....  I realize that may rub some people the wrong way, but our prescription for life isn't for everyone...

That said, here are a few more stories from the last little while....

First, there is a budding artist in the love of my life... Shelley has been learning to paint from a good friend in Bocas, and Michelle brought her and "adult" coloring book.... Who knew?  I am very proud of this effort, and some of her watercolors are making the interior of our home more beautiful....

Life on the hook is very different from life on the dock, or life anywhere else for that matter.  We find that there is time to do many things that most people never think of...  Shelley has been re-starting a vegetable/herb garden.  When we went from the USA to Cuba last year we were forced to destroy her garden before we arrived...  I the time we will be in Panama, there will be lots of time for a new garden to grow...

Here are some more pictures of some of the things we created using Calabash.

The other day I had to change all three of our fuel filters.  I decided to get up really early, and get this smelly job done before Shelley woke up.  Perhaps I should have slept in.  I opened the engine room hatches then took some extraneous stuff up to the cockpit.  on my way down the ladder, I "forgot" the hatches were open and fell 4 feet into the engine room...  I survived, but I think my ego is worse off then my foot.

Yesterday, it dawned on me that for the last year, I have always helmed (driven) the dinghy.  I am not even sure we ever gave it much though, Shelley drives the big boat as much or more often than I do.  Not so long ago, Shelley was waiting for me in the dinghy and it drifted away from the dock.  When I told her to start the engine and come back for me, she just stared and said, "How should I do that?"

It was then we realized that driving a small dinghy with a small outboard, isn't something people would innately know how to do... SO, yesterday, after we bought a few gallons of fuel from some Indians, Shelley took over the helm of the dinghy....  With only a few minor hiccups, she has turned out to be very competent.  It looks like I have successfully given away some more responsibility... :)

This morning we were invited to join Joanna and Mary (who live in homes on Dolphin Bay) at a lovely, rustic restaurant for Sunday breakfast. We loved the food, and the company, but were blown away with the ingenuity of the people who live in and around the area where the restaurant is located.

They live in a Mangrove swamp and so if you want to go anywhere you must take a boat or swim.  These folks use simple technology and have created an intricate network of raised walkways to get around...  NEAT!

The "Outhouses"
"Look ma!, No pipes!"

After breakfast and after a lovely tour around the bay, we were invited to use Joanna's internet.  So with computers and IPad's in a dry bag we hiked to to top of the hill where she lives... What great people live in this world!

So this is it for a while... Thank you all so much for following along on this life changing adventure with us.  We are looking forward to seeing a bunch of school supplies arrived before the end of September.  We have a list of a whole bunch of really worthy kids for this stuff...

I will leave you with a picture that pretty much sums up our life...  This morning just after sunrise, I came on deck to find a pair of small birds perched on our bow pulpit.  Even though there is no doubt that they saw me, they didn't seem worried.  In fact I went back down the salon ladder and retrieved our good camera, returned to the cockpit and they were still there...  To live with harmony like this, just changes the way you see the world....  Each evening, instead of watching sad, sensationalized news, we watch monkeys and parrots settle in the highest trees for their nights rest, we listen to the hundreds of different sounds that emanate from the night jungle, and we know, all is right with the world...

Cheers!