Cute Sailboat Candles Make a Great Gift

I was just reading my friend's blog (My View From 30,000 feet) and in her latest post she mentions that she's down at her sister's place working on their business website...

Well, I checked it out and found these really cool little sailboat candles...



You can order them on their website HERE

This is a great gift idea for our sailing / boaty friends! I'm going to look around and see what else they have :)

Tasty Appetizer or Dessert Recipe for Easter BBQ

Here's a tasty and easy appetizer that you could try with your Easter BBQ this weekend: Tropical Fruit Egg Rolls!

Found this at the baynews9 who gives credit of this recipe to Chef Javier De Jesus of Pacific Wave Restaurant in downtown St. Petersburg.

The filling is basically pineapple, mango, dried cranberries, toasted sweet coconut and macadamia nuts.

Tropical Fruit Egg Rolls

What you need:

• ½ cup diced pineapple
• ½ cup diced mango
• ½ cup dried cranberries
• ½ toasted sweet coconut
• ½ cup macadamia nuts
• 1-cup pineapple juice
• Egg roll sheets
• 1 egg for an egg wash
• 1 tablespoon each of brown and regular sugar and cinnamon

What you do:

• Put all these ingredients in a pot.
• Pour in some pineapple juice and let it reduce on low heat.
• The pineapple juice will simmer and slowly evaporate to create a sort of a syrup with the cooked fruit.
• So you get a nice thick consistency.
• To prepare the egg roll, place an egg roll sheet on a flat surface.
• You can buy these at any supermarket and if you can't find them, go to an Asian specialty store.
• Put a nice dollop of the mix off center of the egg roll sheet.
• Roll it once.
• Brush a little egg wash on the edges of the sheet.
• Now fold the corners in and roll it until it's compact.
• You have to deep fry the egg roll, so make sure you use canola oil and it's at 360 degrees.
• Just drop the egg roll in the deep fryer.
• That will cook for about two to three minutes or until the egg roll is golden brown.
• Take it out of the fryer and let the grease drip off.
• Now they're going to be very hot, so be careful.
• But take this opportunity to cause an outside sugary layer.
• Place the egg roll in amixture of brown sugar, regular sugar and cinnamon.
• And roll the egg roll on the sugar mixture.
• Trim the ends off or keep them and enjoy this tropical fruit egg roll with some ice cream.

Mmmmmmmm.... try it you'll like it :)

Adobe Photoshop Elements PC & MAC

This morning I received an email from Amazon.com to let me know about the great deals they have on Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 (PC version) and Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (MAC version).

I used Photoshop Elements on my old MacBook which died last year. I was sad that the version of Photoshop Elements that I had did not work with my new MacBook's operating system (10.5).

They talk about the product for storing photos, etc (sort of like iPhoto). I liked it for it's graphics potential. I could use drawing tools and remove backgrounds, blend images, add text, etc. This is what I want it for...

I believe that the user interface of this program has changed somewhat between version 2 and version 6, but it was such a good, easy to use tool and, at an affordable price of $76.99, I think I'll bite the bullet and go for it!

It's another beautiful day in St. Maarten!

Today's chores

Today, I feel pretty good because I've just updated a big portion of our website ParadiseConnections.com, adding and updating pages for charter destinations other than the Caribbean. It is still a work in progress, of course, but whew!

Also, I just finished a new post on our European Canal Barge Cruise Vacations blog. There is a new barge that is being converted and fitted out. We received photos from the owners and have posted them. For several years Bob & I lived on a barge that was being converted into a houseboat on the Seine outside of Paris (La Péniche "Black Moon" in Port Marly, France), plus we built two sail boats, so we really enjoy "baby" pictures :)

Now it's past time for a sundowner... But, we are still going to have a Pastis (how French!) on the foredeck and have some quality time together with the cats.

St Martin Marine Flea Market Postponed & Today's Photos

Today we went to the French side to pay for our storage at Time Out Boat Yard. We found out that Dominique only works until 2pm so, we'll have to go back tomorrow. We don't mind... it's a bit of a dinghy trip (and sometimes into a nasty chop), but we can buy a nice baguette which makes it worthwhile.

We heard a rumour that there would not be a Marine Flea Market / Boat Jumble this Saturday (normally 1st Saturday of the month from December through June). This has been confirmed. Fabrice is getting married! Felicitations!!!

There will not be a flea market the following week because that is Easter weekend... My guess is that it will not happen this month. JC is back and he'll probably make an announcement next week on the SXM Cruisers Net (VHF Ch.14 @ 07:30am, Mon-Sat).



We walked over to the store (US Import) and bought a hunk of brie, two baguettes, a $3 bottle of Pastis! Mmmmmm!!! Guess what we are having for sundowners today.

We then returned to the Dutch side and stopped in at Gourmet Marche to pick up a couple of things, returned the DVDs, and checked our mail at The Mailbox.

We had to laugh and get a picture of the menu signboard outside of Taco Macho...



Moosrum sauce?!

A dodger like this megayacht's dinghy has would come in very handy when traversing the lagoon.



They are definitely going to keep their shopping dry.

And here's a picture of Buffy... doing what cats do so well :)



This is one of their favorite places to sleep... on top of the cat carrier. How they have grown!

It has been a beautiful day. Hope you're having a good one!

More April Foolishness!

Check this out :)

CLICK HERE

Hope you're having a great day!

April Fool's Message

As Steve Martin put it so well, some 30+ years ago...

Best Fishes

for poisson d'avril !!!

Happy birthday, Wacka

Skype on iPhone and iPod Touch

It's here! Skype has arrived for the iPhone and iPod Touch.



This is so cool. I've been looking for a VOIP phone and we've been wanting a iPod Touch, so why wait any longer!

I'm going to check them out on AMAZON and probably get mine there!

iPod Touch

We find Amazon really easy to work with. They are a great solution for boat folks like us!

PLASTIMO liferaft recall

Yesterday, on Island 92's (91.9 FM St Maarten) Yacht Blast program, presenter Gary Brown said that PLASTIMO is recalling their liferafts manufactured between May 23 and October 30, 2008, due to a problem with the triggering mechanism.

I'll do a quickie search to see what I can find out, but you definitely don't want THAT problem. Does it go off at the wrong time or not at all????

More soon come!

Here's something from Yachting Monthly:
http://www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20090224155509ymnews.html

There's also something on the Plastimo (http://www.plastimo.com) home page which gives you a link to here: http://www.plastimo.com/uk/services/defaultuk.php

Thanks for the info, Gary!!!

It's another beautiful morning in St. Maarten. Maltese Falcon is back with us in Simpson Bay... there goes the neighborhood :)

Friday Boat Cat Blogging... Fun stuff!

Hurray, it's still Friday so I can put up our Friday BOAT Cat Blogging post!


Here's a boat cat that has her own blog (Bree, the Cruising Kitty's Blog), although she hasn't written in a while... must be busy doing cat stuff.

You know, something like this...

Buffy and Willow at the tender age of 16 months are getting pretty good at it :)

While the humans of Lealea were waiting for Bree to get her act together and put together her first blog post, they typed up a little about her... http://americanvega.org/lifeinthesticks/bree.html


I loved the photo of Bree in her kitty life jacket. Back when we were moored in Joinville-Le-Pont (just outside of Paris) France, we ordered Wacka & Bullwinkle PFDs. They couldn't walk in them. Poor Wacka would take a step and fall over sideways! Don't know why, maybe they were just smart and knew we wouldn't make them wear this cute little yellow fashion statement :)


In her blog, Bree says "I feel just like one of those Viking Kittens" which is referring to this Flash video which made me laugh. It was also enlightening because I've never gotten all of the words to Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song.

Thanks guys!

Big Boats on Their Way Out - St Maarten

There were quite a few big boats waiting to leave the St Maarten Simpson Bay Lagoon this afternoon at the 4:30pm bridge opening.

It was starting to rain so I didn't have much time to take pictures. Click on the photo to enlarge.


(Photo © 2009 Paradise Connections)

The 230-foot megayacht Sherakhan was in first place. Sherakhan is a charter yacht which accommodates up to 26 guests in 13 cabins, has a crew of 19, and the jacuzzi takes up to 18! Contact Paradise Connections for more information about yacht charters (smaller boats than Sherakhan, too!).

Here's a beautiful yacht...


(Photo © 2009 Paradise Connections)

There were also a couple of Perini Navi sailboats manuevering about. I assume everyone is on their way to St. Barths for the Bucket Race.

By the way... I'm very happy with the Cats Pride Kitty Litter. I hope I can find some more :)

We've Got Wood... and Gas!

Yippee! This morning we went to Home & Tools on the French side of St. Martin.

They had wood!

We bought four 2-meter lengths of pine, sort of 1x1's. It came to $17.75 for the 4 pieces. But they HAD them!!!

We stopped by the gas station on the way back. They have fixed up their dock since Hurricane Omar. Much nicer than we've ever seen it.

This was much nicer as well...



The number for the Price (31.37) was LOWER than the number for the Volume (41.27). They take US$ for euros at a 1-to-1 rate, so $0.76/liter, which comes to about $2.88/gallon.

Wow, such a deal !!!

Today's Quest... Lumber

We need a few lengths of pine 1x1's to do some light framing for various boat projects, the current one being a new box to enclose our new electric motor.

At about 2pm we dinghied over to Budget Marine and then walked up to BIP which is on the road to Marigot. It wasn't a totally useless trip, although we didn't get what we set off for.

We dumped our trash at Budget and took a quick look around the store. A Coke would have been nice but you can't trust that vending machine (you've been warned!).

We then stopped at Carl & Sons Bakery and each had a piece of cherry-topped cheesecake & a cup of coffee. Mmmmmmmmmm!!!

(By the way, they had ONE bag of Fresh Step clay kitter litter in their little store)

As we passed by NAPA, we noticed that they didn't have any cars in their parking lot, and neither had the bakery. Not much in the way of traffic... Is it a holiday? Don't think so.

Then a bit further along the road, we stopped at the mattress/upholstery place because we can really use a new mattress. They don't have any foam at the moment but they are expecting a shipment in 3 days. We've heard that story a few times before :) But he gave us a good price and we'll check again next week.

Then we arrived at the top of the street, turned right past the little shopping center and checked out what BIP (a building materials store of tiles, roofing, wood, flooring) had for us. We went into their wood warehouse and we surprised at how bare it was. We then went into the section where they have the finished wood moldings, etc. Surprise! No 1x1's or even 2x2's. Not much stock. Bob asked if they were going out of business. The man said that we were not the first customers to ask that, but no they just weren't making any orders right now. He did suggest Ace Hardware, but even when they do have something, it is really poor quality. I want to say "crap" but that doesn't sound nice. OK, they have crappy wood when I have seen it in the past. RANT!

On the way back down the hill, we stopped by Carl & Sons Bakery again to pick up a bag of sugar (so we can try that pressure cooked walnut bread recipe, see below) and a treat for breakfast tomorrow.

So, it was not a wasted trip. Plus, on the way back to the boat I took some pictures for Bob's BoatBits blog of the mermaid that graces the bow of the Irish Jongert "Orchestra".

We'll go over to the French side and check out Home & Tools tomorrow. Fill up the dinghy's tank, too as it's a little cheaper over there.

BBQ PIZZA - PIZZA ON THE GRILL

We just refilled our BBQ propane tank so maybe we'll try to cook a pizza on the BBQ grill.

We have a PIZZA STONE that we haven't tried yet, though Bob just saw a video on this VillaWare PizzaGrill BBQ Pizza Maker and it looked quite interesting. Although, this is less expensive alternative, ZaGrill Pizza Cooker.

While I was over at Amazon, they suggested a couple of books:

• Pizza on the Grill: 100 Feisty Fire-Roasted Recipes for Pizza & More
• Grilled Pizzas and Piadinas
• List of BBQ COOKBOOKS

And this would be a good addition to our BBQ accessories:

• Outset F810 Grill Surface Thermometer

Today is the 3rd day of Spring, so it's time to get your BBQ fired up!

SPOT Personal Locator Beacon - Special Offer

UPDATE, 8 June 2o09: SPOT special rebate offer, see post HERE

Yesterday, Bob blogged about SPOT, What is SPOT? SPOT, although not an EPIRB, is a very handy device... We ordered one yesterday (Saturday) and we hope we do not get an email tomorrow saying that they can't deliver to a PO Box... Fingers crossed :)

They define SPOT as a Personal Locator Beacon, and also as a handheld satellite communication and safety device.

There is a special offer which is valid March 19-27, 2009 where you can basically get the SPOT unit for FREE. Go here for details: http://www.findmespot.com/robby/ Note the Promo Code because you will need this when you order.

When we ordered the unit, it gave us the total of $300-ish but after filling out the credit card info and the Promo Code on the 2nd page, the confirmation page (3rd page) showed the correct adjusted total.

You will be sent a Gift Certificate to use when you are ready to activate the service. There is an inexpensive insurance that you can purchase at the time of activation that we will probably do as well.

We plan to sail up to Newport, RI later this spring and this will give my brother peace of mind that we are OK & it will be fun to follow our progress. Maybe our GlobalStar phone will work and we can speak to him from time to time :)

GlobalStar... now there's a rant I can do!!!

It's another beautiful day in St Maarten.

More on the Kitty Litter Saga...

Well, yesterday we were successful. HURRAY!!!

We trekked up to Ace Hardware and they had three 14-pound jugs of Cat's Pride scoopable kitty litter. I know we should have bought two because we'd have to use the whole jug to fill the cat box, but it would have been too much to slog back to the dinghy.


I hope I haven't "let the cat out of the bag" so to speak, and now you'll all rush up there and buy them out and there won't be any for me next week. Oh well, so it goes!

Maybe I should get this book from Amazon.com. We have friends on the charter yacht FLAME who have trained their cat Jacob to use the toilet. And, he only uses the crew toilet and not those in the guest cabins. Clever boy!

How to Toilet-Train Your Cat: 21 Days to a Litter-Free Home
I like this factoid from the Editorial Review Product Description
Last year Americans spent $400 million on 1.8 million tons of cat litter--enough to fill the Empire State Building two and a half times!

That would sure make things easier!

The word is YACHTING... not YATCHING

Bob showed me this posting on the blog, litoralis. The title is "Just because you can use PhotoShop, doesn't mean you are smart enough to use a dictionary". I love it!

Another common misspelling I see all the time is "dingy" for "dinghy".

Quite often we have clients who ask us about chartering one of our "ships" for a yacht charter. To me, a ship is a BFB... a Big Boat... a commercial ship or a cruiseship.

Brits tend to call all personal sailboats "yachts". I guess this is a cultural thing. My boat is definitely not a yacht :)

Friday Boat Cat Blogging... My little helper

The cats are not supposed to get up on the salon table but Buffy is allowed to cross it on her way to the space behind the settee where she likes to hang out.

But, you know how cats can be, plus I can be too much of a softy where our kittens are concerned...


Here's a photo of Buffy offering her opinion on a recent post... Maybe she wanted a different photo displayed that day as her sister is in the forefront :)

They're good girls!

How bizarre... Cat Litter & Hemp-Flavored Energy Drink...

I just re-read the title of this post and realized that it can be construed wrong... It is referring to two separate items... 1) Cat litter, and 2) a Hemp-flavored drink.... Not a drink flavored like kitty litter AND hemp! That would be really, super BIZARRE!

This afternoon we made the trek out to Cost-U-Less as they usually have cat litter (Fresh Step scoopable) and they did the last time we were there. RULE #1 of living in the islands is: If you see it and need it, buy it! You don't know when or if you'll ever see it again :)

So, of course, they didn't have it. I asked someone if they'd have some next week and she said they are getting more, but not next week. Oh my goodness! Our plan is to hike up to Ace Hardware in Cole Bay (walk up from Island Water World) first thing in the morning and hope that they have something suitable. We are getting desperate here! I saw some Fresh Step CLAY kitter litter at the store across the street from Palapa Marina, but I want scoopable. That's probably gone now though. We're all just waiting for the great kitty litter container ship to come :)

While we were waiting for the bus to take us up to Cost-U-Less, this truck parked across the street. Fortunately I had the camera with us as this was something to be documented.

(Photo ©2009 - Paradise Connections)
Click photo to enlarge...

It says: ENERGY DRINK OF THE CARIBBEAN. An Energy Drink with Hemp Flavor.

Is this an oxymoron? The words "energy" and "hemp" just don't seem to go together :)

All the best!

St. Maarten Friday Art Exhibits

The Sint Maarten Yacht Club (SMYC) will be having art exhibits on Friday evenings.

The SMYC is located right next to the bridge (with dinghy dock!) and is a popular happy hour spot to view the boats passing through the bridge openings at 4:30pm and 5:30pm.

For more details, click on the image below to enlarge.



Maybe our cat Willow can have a spot, too. Willow is into making toilet paper lace creations. Perhaps we can frame these and get some use out of these sheets as they can no longer be used for their original purpose :)

Chilly Chickens? Knit a sweater

This was an interesting story from the BBC...

Battery hens get woolly jumpers

A woman from Oxfordshire has started knitting sweaters for rescued battery hens that have lost their feathers.

Read the full story HERE. What a nice lady!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I have a bit of Irish in me somewhere, way back... Mom's grandfather??? That's where the "Sheila" comes from...

Anyway, might have a bit of Bailey's for our sundowner tonight!

Wintry Day Here in SXM but...

It was fairly nice this morning when Willow & Buffy were up on the bimini, but it has become a pretty gray day. Right now, if I didn't know better, I'd say that it looks like it is going to snow, but the thermometer on the bulkhead behind me says 80F, so that's not going to happen. We've had periods of calm and then some gusty, rainy spells.

But, it's not like this photo my brother sent me. My sister-in-law had to drive to Tacoma from Eastern Washington and the pass was quite snowy with 5 to 9-inches of snowfall predicted for today.

The last time I experienced snow was back in December of 2006, when I went to Nashville for a Final Cut Pro video editing workshop. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr it was cold there in December! I had to wear socks!

Bob's going to make us some hot cocoa for sundowners today :)

Comfortable Cats

Willow and Buffy love to lounge on the bimini. Here's a picture I took this morning.



We planned to make a hard dodger and bimini combo, but the cats would be disappointed if the bimini was not cloth. One of their favorite games is what we call "Double Tap" ... Yes, like an assassin!

If they see a bump in the bimini which is someone's head, they will jump on it with a one-two front paw punch. Sometimes they'll jump off of the boom onto one's head for extra impact!

So, for now, the plan is to do a hard dodger with a soft bimini attached, cuz we love our kittens!

RECIPE from Charter Yacht MAKAYABELLA

Sue and John from the 65-foot charter yacht, Makaybella, have sent us this superb dessert recipe and we'd like to share it with you...

HOT PASSION PINA COLADA'S (serves 4)

• 2 ripe passion fruits
• 4 tbsp icing sugar
• 4 pineapple slices (rind cut off)
• Rum of your choice to taste (Malibu coconut rum is our favourite)
• Coconut ice cream to serve

Slice the passion fruit in half and scoop out the seeds.

Sift the icing sugar onto a plate and press the pineapple slices into it on both sides.

Heat a non stick frying pan. When hot, caramelise the slices in the pan. This will take a few minutes, be patient and they will turn a gorgeous golden brown.

Serve immediately on individual plates, drizzled with rum or Malibu. Top with a scoop of coconut ice cream and the passion fruit pulp.

Serves 4

MAKAYABELLA is a 65-foot Naval Chantier sloop, owned & operated by the British couple of John Nicholson & Susan Bruce. While having four guest cabins, Makayabella charters a maximum of six guests. They are available for crewed yacht charters / sailing vacations in the Grenadines.

• View Makayabella's online brochure
• Contact Paradise Connections for more info on yacht charters

Let us know how you liked the recipe!