Ensenada, Mexico
This morning we headed out looking for a fast internet connection to place some orders and call family. The connection at the marina can get a bit sluggish especially when the cruise ships come in. When we got into town the first thing we noticed is that it was eerily quiet and everything was closed - including our favorite coffee shop. Everyone must have been sleeping in or at church. [...]
Coffee and Culture
Ensenada's Cultural Center is just across the street form the marina. They have a cozy little coffee shop with free WiFi so we head over there to make phone calls once in a while since the WiFi in the marina is not fast enough to use Skype.
Full moon
Beautiful full moon here in Ensenada. The Santa Anas have been blowing all day so we don't even need to turn on the heater tonight.We had another whirlwind weekend in California. Dropped off a bunch more things at our storage trailer. Spent many hours at West Marine and hardware stores. Took our biennial First Aid/CPR class to keep our captains licenses up to date. And even had [...]
A Successful Day
Our current home port - CruisePort Marina in Ensenada The view up our dock Most things on a boat take at least twice as long, cost twice as much, and are three times as difficult as anticipated. But today we had two projects that took hardly any time and cost us nothing at all! The fridge had been running a bit too often. Not a [...]
A New Year
A great start to a new year because we're finally doing what has been in planning stages for years. We're living on our boat and traveling the world at five miles per hour! We've slowly been getting tasks checked off the list. Watermaker install is nearly complete, liferaft and new (smaller) dinghy are on order. It's getting a bit chilly here in Ensenada so we hope to [...]
Passion
I love Passion Tea Lemonade from Starbucks. Unfortunately, it's just not in our budget for daily consumption, so I was really excited when my dear friend gave me a box of Passion tea from Tazo, along with a handwritten recipe card, as a going-away present. It was not only a great gift because I love the tea so much, but because Tazo's headquarters in Portland, Oregon - where [...]
Fire Safety
On a boat you can't simply step outside and call the fire department if something catches on fire - unless of course you happen to be in a marina. We're planning on spending a lot of time at anchor, so being ready for a potential fire is important. While working aboard ships, we both attended several days of shipboard fire-fighting classes, both in classrooms and fighting "fake" [...]
Space Saving Ideas
Storage on a boat is at a premium. Since we first started talking about preparing to move onto a boat we have been getting rid of bulky stuff and buying tiny versions of everything we wanted or needed. But being tiny isn't the only requirement to make it aboard. Serving double-duty is another. Hardly anything on our boat serves just one function. Tables make [...]
Shopping… again
Friday morning we drove to San Diego for another mega shopping-spree at West Marine and to pick up our new watermaker... but not before getting one more taco near the local fish market.We're back on the boat now putting away and installing our new acquisitions.
Going aloft
Mike took a quick trip up the mast to figure out what types of bulbs need to be replaced with LED.
Introducing Camille | The Head
We love Camille's huge head - that's the bathroom for you landlubbers. It has two separate areas, a shower/toilet area and the vanity/sink area. It can be entered either from the master stateroom (aft cabin) and from the saloon (and yes, that is saloon with two Os). Excellent ventilation with four opening ports and two large drains in the floor make for easy maintenance and [...]
Water
We've already been in Mexico for over a week and our water tank was starting to near the empty mark. It was time to get it filled so we could continue doing the dishes, flushing the toilet, brushing our teeth, etc. In Mexico that is a bit tricky as the water here is not of very high quality and can make you pretty sick. We [...]
Shopping
We rode our bikes into town today to do a little grocery shopping. After looking over the receipt I realized that avocados cost us a tenth of the price of what we pay in the US. We also bought fresh eggs that were unrefrigerated, which means they won't have to use up precious fridge space on the boat. For other great galley tips and onboard [...]
Introducing Camille | The Saloon
The saloon is the main living area on a boat. On our little boat this includes the living room, dining room, galley, and navigation station. Under all the built in furniture are water tanks, fuel tanks, batteries, an inverter, a battery charger, food, gear, water and head pumps, a refrigerator compressor and countless other things to keep a boat as self-sufficient as possible. Today we took [...]
Border Crossings
We are getting settled in Ensenada. Our goal for the next month is to outfit the boat so that we will be able to make fresh water and have enough battery power to run all the systems that are onboard Camille. This weekend we took the bus back to the border to pick up our van from the US. We don't want to stray too far [...]
Arrival in Mexico!
November went by fast! Portland one week and Mexico the next. After (finally!) finding a boat which suited both of our needs, we jet-setted down to San Diego for survey and sea trial in early November. After given the all-clear from the surveyor we only had 14 days to finalize the sale, put our jobs on hold, move out of our house, sell all the big things and [...]
Introducing Camille | Guest Bedroom aka V-berth
We are slowly getting moved aboard and it is amazing just how much stuff a little boat can swallow up. The weather has been San-Diego-perfect and after the freezing temps we were experiencing in Portland we feel like we have found paradise already! Read more about Camille... Coronado Bridge Downtown San Diego Camille's V-berth (guest bedroom) looking forward Camille's V-berth (guest bedroom) looking aft
s/v Camille – Our First Home
We spent our first night aboard Camille last night as her new owners. We are very thankful this Thanksgiving. For more info about us and to see more photos of Camille visit our About pages. After our last day at work in Portland, we had less than a day to finish packing the van and trailer in order to make it to San Diego [...]
Drying Fruit
Down the street from our house is an empty property that once must have had a grand house on it. What's left is a beautiful garden complete with fruit trees. A few weeks ago we harvested several bags full of fruit from the pear trees that adorn the circular driveway. They finally finished ripening and we are drying and vacuum-sealing the pears after giving the sliced [...]
Food Preservation
With summer and the growing season clearly coming to an end, we've been canning beets, beef, salmon and today peaches. We've also been drying all of our favorite fruit. Yesterday we had a fun time with our neighbors making sauerkraut from scratch which should be ready to can in a few weeks. We are using the Blue Book by Ball which has easy to follow [...]
