1964 was the year I graduated from Taft High School in Woodland Hills, CA. An unofficial class ballot indicated I was least likely to succeed. I played football and tennis, surfed, and goofed off.
Read More The Great Alaskan Pajama PartyVal and I have always thought that it was better to build memories rather than just acquire stuff. When we started cruising in 2006, we realized that the boat was a great tool that allowed us to get to remote places, and with friends and family, to experience things together that would be exciting and […]
Read More Making MemoriesLast season we didn’t have time to entertain guests. But we’re making up for that this year! Our friends Tamara and Johnny from Seattle came to spend a week with us exploring Prince William Sound.
Read More Prince william sound with tamara and johnnyOn April 20, we and our two cats flew from Bellingham WA to Homer AK. Three flights + two cats = long day!
Read More Homer to valdez 2023We spent the last few weeks of our short season doing a big fly-by loop from Homer, along the Kenai Peninsula on the coast of the Gulf of Alaska, into and around Prince William Sound, and then back to Homer.
Read More Kenai Peninsula and Prince William SoundI reunited with Stan aboard Buffalo Nickel in Kodiak, Alaska. And so did our two cats! At two years of age, this was their first plane trip. Three flights and all day… they did not love it, but did amazingly well.
Read More Alaska: Kodiak to HomerIn our last blog post, I mentioned the several-day passage Stan and Steve made up the Sea of Japan, from Fukuoka on Kyushu, to Hakodate, on Hokkaido. I think I called that passage a nightmare, due to the poorly predicted weather conditions they had to grapple with.
Read More through the aleutians july 2022So it’s been a while. QUITE a while, in fact. I might have made a blog post last spring, all about how we were getting ready to get the Buffalo out of Japan, finally, and on to Alaska for the summer cruising season. You might have noticed that this did not happen.
Read More Japan to alaskaOur last post was January 2020. We all know what happened next! But finally, over a year later, we have some new cruising plans to report.
Read More COVID InterruptusThere are approximately 180,000 temples and shrines in Japan. On a per capita basis that’s more than the number of churches and synagogues in the US. Like churches and synagogues, temples and shrines are very different.
Read More Japan: Is it a Shrine, a Temple, or Both?This post shares some of our favorite pictures taken while scuba diving in Fiji and Indonesia.
Read More Underwater FavoritesWe spent our first three months in Japan island-hopping at a leisurely pace between Ishigaki (our port of entry) and the mainland island of Kyushu, where we are now.
Read More Cruising Japan’s Southwestern Island ChainWhile curating our photos yesterday, I came upon some gems from a “land travel” side trip of several weeks to Vietnam and Cambodia, which we never got around to posting on our blog. I thought some of you might appreciate an armchair tour in photographs.
Read More Looking Back: Vietnam and CambodiaTen years ago next month, Val and I retired and left the States to go cruising. Our plan was to cruise most of each year, leaving the boat in a safe port from time to time to fly home to see family, take care of our personal needs, and take a break from the rigors […]
Read More Ten Years of Cruising: a Retrospective in PhotographsAfter making the 2.5-day passage together from Raja Ampat, Indonesia to Koror, Palau, I spent a week with Stan, at anchor in the gorgeous Rock Islands and snorkeling in its pristine waters.
Read More Palau to Ishigaki, JapanOur last travel-related blog ended with us making our bedraggled landfall in Sydney, Australia after a somewhat traumatic crossing of the Tasman Sea from New Zealand. By way of catching up, we spent a lovely few weeks in Sydney, including a visit from my sister Jody and her good friend Valerie. Cruising your own boat […]
Read More Raja Ampat, IndonesiaFirst, we tested our new steering design in New Zealand waters. Then we “enjoyed” some rigorous shakedown across the Tasman Sea, and from Australia to Japan via Indonesia and Palau. We are now ready to declare our Buffalo’s steering issues fully resolved, with harmonious and alarm-free relations between steering and autopilot! Here, we summarize the […]
Read More Steering Issues: Resolution[Val here. I write nearly all of our blog posts, but since Stan’s been researching in the aftermath of our recent passage, it’s only appropriate that he write this one. You’re in for a rare treat!
Read More Crossing the Tasman SeaWelcome to the second half of our guided tour. Today I’ve got photos of the deck areas and fly bridge.
Read More Welcome to Our Home, Part IIIf you are in the mood for a guided tour of our beloved new Buffalo, then follow me and I’ll show you around.
Read More Welcome to Our Home, Part IIt’s been exactly three months since we arrived here in New Zealand from Seattle to get aboard our new FPB 70. What on earth have we been doing all this time? And shouldn’t we be gone from here by now?
Read More Breaking It Down, and Breaking It InA tad over two years in gestation, but it looks to us like she is worth every moment of the wait. Less than a week ago, FPB 70-1 finally splashed! It seems like forever ago that the pic above of Stan was taken with our skeletal calf. I know many of you have been waiting, […]
Read More Introducing Buffalo Nickel the Younger
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