02/23/2013, THRID DAY'S Winter Mooring
I really can't even start to describe our last 30 days, but what I can do now is say that THIRD DAY has both a summer and winter mooring!
This afternoon we exchanged signatures and checks in the Morro Bay Harbor office to finalize our purchase of a mooring. We will now be able to spend the winter storm season in the protected calm of Morro Bay and then enjoy the best time of year out on our mooring in Port San Luis.
I would love to dive into the details of the last 30 days, but I will have to leave it there with just this quick update. My USCG Captain's test is on Tuesday and I have to make some time to study because I'm sure there will be more on the test than where to find good eats in Mexico.
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Comments [2]
02/10/2013, It May Taste Better...but it won't be cheaper.
I can still remember our first Pizza in Mexico. As an Italian boy, you don't soon forget the horrors of seeing pinto beans and diced up hot dogs on something called a Pizza. The experience scared me and I learned one of my first cruising lessons in Mexico: If we wanted good Pizza, really good pizza, you have to learn how to make it yourself. Now, yes you can find good pizza here and there in Mexico, La Paz, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta but what about everywhere else? So we honed our Pizza making skills only to be surpassed we will admit by Patrick on SV Just A minute.
Flash forward and we are now back living in the United States, land of everything you could ever want and more including Costco Pizza. We lived on it our first week back to the point of burn out because it was easy and cheap. Now that normal living has hit us, our pizza making was rekindled and now is questioned from effort, clean-up, time and even cost. By the time you buy the toppings, make the dough, and mess up the galley there is just no denying that a take-n-bake Costco pizza is hard to beat. Just tonight, I made three home made pizzas from scratch and yes they were great and tasted better than a Costco tank-n-bake, but were they worth the hour in the galley compared to the 5 minutes tops a Costco Pizza would take to throw in the oven and serve up? Honestly, no. Not in a world of schedules, deadlines and having more to do in a day than is humanly possible in a 25hr day. In the chaos of life in the States the $9.99 Costco Pizza trumps the $8.00 home made pizza for much the same reason why people pay to have their oil changed or lawn mowed, the precious resource of Time.
If I could add the topping of Time to my home made pizza then I would be onto something. Until that happens, when Lori sends me a txt message to pick up some spare Time for dinner, I will come home with a Costco tank-n-bake pizza knowing that at least the heat created by the oven will help warm my chilled bones.
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02/08/2013, The Good Life of Living Aboard
I know it's been some time since my last blog post but I have a good excuse, I was at the Seattle Boat Show selling water maker and alternators. One side of me dislikes the boat shows while the other side loves them. I hate the travel, headache, long hours and being away from home. But I love meeting and talking to cruisers getting ready to start their adventure and of course sealing a record January sales number and getting February off to another record start. When you are away from home two things can happen. One - you like where you are better and don't want to return or two - you can see just how good you have it by missing it. My two weeks in Seattle with almost constant rain put our Port San Luis and Morro Bay living into clear view....I love it.
Of course part of me misses the warm weather of Mexico, the cheap tacos of Mexico and the slower paced life. But when I talk to other boat show carnies it's pretty clear how good our lives are. With the purchase of a Morro Bay mooring, we will not have a summer home in Port San Luis and a winter home in Morro Bay.
A common question I was asked was what it was like being back in the States? The truth is that we have been back now long enough to only know it's more expensive and have a memory of our old ife. Life, work, the kids school schedule...they all suck you back in so fast that before you know it "normal" goes from living on a boat in Mexico to living aboard in Morro Bay of Port San Luis and sending the kids off to school at 7AM and having them come back at 4PM. We felt "normal' down in Mexico and we feel "normal" now. The thing we enjoy about living aboard is the separation it gives us from what we still call "chaos". We drive into it, become part of it, blend in with it, but at the end of the day we look at it from the safety of the cockpit feeling like we have escaped it and are safe from it for the night. Our view of society and our culture was never that flattering and we enjoy living on the edges of it knowing that we are using it like fire at a campsite. It keeps us warm, is a means to an end, but we also know it can burn you if you don't keep it contained.
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