Well, here I am again a boat widow in La Paz. Gary has done his yearly "we need to increase the cruising kitty" thing, and is back driving truck for a friend of ours in Canada. He also of course gets to visit with kids and grandkids and friends etc. So all in all he feels he is keeping his hand in and his license updated. Altho, at 71 I do think it is time he allowed his license to expire.

I, on the other hand get to boat sit, and catch up on some marketing etc. etc. and also update my blogs, which have been badly ignored this year.

We had our last SASS (sisters acquiring sea skills) today. And it was a great meeting, altho much smaller than usual. The bay has really cleared out for the summer with some people heading up to the USA and others heading up to the sea, and of course the gang that puts their boats to sleep for the summer. (a reverse hibernation that the bears all do). One thing that came up at the meeting was how many topics we all wanted to cover this year and didn't get time to do, so our agenda for next year is already covered, and I'll bet we don't get them all done then.. But we did have some great meetings covering, self defence, banking in Mexico, first aid on board, dinghy management etc etc. So it was a great year.

I want to do a meeting geared to all the handy stuff we find we can't live without on our boats, and get everyones ideas. I know I have a couple of very special goodies. One of them is my vegetable tupperware containers. And for all those people who haven't looked at a tupperware catalogue for years, they really do have some great NEW things. and these containers are in that category. They have little toggle vents which you change depending on what you put in them, and they keep veggies fresh for just ages. I have had tomatoes that have been great for weeks, and lettuce that just won't go bad, I eat it too fast. But it is great for carrots, etc etc etc. Check out the tupperware website, that you can probably find at tupperware.com or some such. Also their onion keeper is a real find. Snaps shut and you can throw it in any fridge and no smell and the onion keeps for ages.

My other thing that I am going to talk about a bit today, is a little closer to my heart and that is our Shaklee cleaning products. Environmentally safe, biodegradable, and works great. I am trying not to sound like a commercial, but these products work, and for a boat they are terrific because they take up so little room. One bottle and a few squeeze bottles and you have cleaner for your windows, for spots, for walls and floors, for eye glasses for countertops for fine fabrics etc etc. If it needs cleaning try this product first.

And for boaters this is one place where you can make a huge difference. When you get the "Get Clean" kit instead of the normal super market stuff, you can keep 110 pounds of packaging waste out of the system. And you can eliminate 248 pounds of greenhouse gases. That is really substantial. In the 80's when we did the south Pacific we were amazed at how many plastic bottles etc were floating around in the oceans hundreds of miles from shore. And although the farthest I have gone this time around is down here to Mexico, I don't think it has gotten any better out there. So we all need to make a difference.

Anyway, I will get off my soap box, and leave you to it. If anyone has other products that are things you really find great, send me an email, and if you would like to check out the shaklee stuff go to http://strattons.myshaklee.com