What? We are Doing?

When we stared the blog it was to let people know where we are and what were doing. The adventure goes on today.

We Just Went for It

We have wrote a test book to see if we could sell a book and this has been an adventure so far. Every one we talked to that has tried has failed if making “any” money is the score. All these people have stories of their failures and who’s fault it is. We have been trying for over a year now with no success to see how to get it published. We been to libraries. To book stores. Talked to students graduating from collage. Always trying to find a publisher to even talk to us. The biggest let down is checking in to the advertisements on TV or the internet. They say let us get you published. First they want to know what the book is about. Then they say, it sounds like a best seller with their help of course. Now all you have to do is deposit ten thousand dollars in their account and they will help. The most common thing with asking people with a collage education if they can help “is” always. How far did I get in collage? If I say eight grade only. They say, “Can’t be done.” You have to have some one write it for you and you need to pay then to write your book. No one with out a degree can write a book. You being from the south in the US you can’t even talk with out your grammar getting in the way. I never tell them the book is about a boy growing up in the south and it is just how they talk down there. In hearing Einstein’s theory MC square I have no clue. He did say how ever doing the same thing every day and waiting on change is dumb. I’m smart enough to understand that. In using that we decided to just do something and we got a computer guy to help us just publish it on line. Now with every one thinking they have a story to tell and their book is out there. How to get some one to even look at the book and maybe find it and maybe buy it. We have never even tried to expand our blog so we are clueless how to are what we can do to sell this book. In our life we have had a psychiatrist in our inner circle for some time and no I was not under his care. He has a boat and we buddy around some. Pam says he liked to play mind games with me saying I think out of the box what ever that means. One thing I learned from him is we live every day making decisions to just get through the day. That is all life is. Just making decisions every day. One bad decision can wipe out a lifetime of good decision. The internet to me is an open frontier. Wild in a way. If you type in the name of our home built sailboat we designed and built from scratch ourselves to go cruising. Building most all of it from her hull to her mast to her steering wheel. This is a home built boat for sure. We built every thing. You type in Schooner Pamela Ann (named after my wife of 58 year) what popped up yesterday was an article we were mentioned in Cruising World magazine. She has been in the movies too, the series Dawson’s Creek, the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race. Newspaper articles as we travel but with all that how do we get people to look for our book. For now we don’t know the answer to that. Pam says I’m a writer now but I “sure don’t feel like it”. Next week we are going back to our little house in Kansas and there we have a small following with my art. Doses that make me an artist?

All ways painting something.

Some people say I have always been an artist just not that successful in the market place. Now that seems is to be were it all at. The market place. Maybe there is where we need to work now. We don’t need fame as I think some people do we need just a little money. Not a lot to complicate our lives but a little to go on cruising but this to may be just how you see it. The adventure goes on. Our boat is still up the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala in the Western Caribbean where we are reworking it from some damage we had so we can go on. We may try soon to put some short videos on You Tube so people can see just how we live. Maybe one where a wild monkey came down to see I guess what we were doing and stayed most of a afternoon in a tree next to the boat. Watching us work on our boat. Things dreams were made of when we were building the Pamela Ann. Dreams do come true.

Have a look. Maybe you will enjoy it.

If you want to see the book go to Amazon Kindle Books (Little Lies by Timothy C Pennington). If you like it spread the word and help us keep on cruising. If you are internet smart or know someone that is maybe you can help keep the dream alive by spreading the word only if you like what we are sharing now. The adventure of life goes on. Reinventing ourselves at our age is almost funny but what a life we have had so far.

Some Dreams Do Come True.

More Freedoms In Guatemala

Living Aboard The Schooner Pamela Ann In Guatemala

Living aboard a cruising boat in Guatemala and what it’s like. What it’s like to live aboard any boat depends on where your at. We built our boat with our own hands to live simple. Simple suits us fine. Up north a little pot belly wood heater works great to keep the boat warm. Even gathering fire wood along the way is an adventure. This far down south. it’s stay where the wind blows and 12 volt fans. Food is always a challenge. It’s not so much finding food. It’s food you like. Why do we cruise? For us the constant challenge of seeing what is just over the horizon and finding what we need to live well as we go is the adventure of a cruiser life. We been on this boat over 20 years. Doing the east coast of the US all the way to New Orleans on the Gulf side. Both of the sounds of North Carolina. The Chesapeake Bay and a lot of rivers where boat can go. Being here in Guatemala up the Rio Dulce river this is a great place to hide from hurricanes so a lot of boats come in here. To tell anyone what a place is like it’s just the way we see it. Other people may see it Differently.

Police Protection?

With my wife and I and most of our friends the big thing is loving not having so much police protection here. There is a freedom in that you can feel quick here. Not having the police every where in your life protecting you and collecting money for doing it. Being from the United States it’s on most police cars. “We are here to protect and serve.” Here there is no police coming to your boat wanting to see your life jackets as you’re putting you boat on a trailer leaving the water. I saw this happen where a young couple had 7 life jackets on board leaving the lake with two made to fit there two small kids with one in to bottom of the boat. The oldest little girl had been playing with that was dirty and had a tare in it and they had to pay a heavy fine for having faulty equipment aboard with this one old life jacket. Remember they were 4 of them with 6 new jackets. That is really protecting you with them leaving the lake and the little girl playing with an old life jacket and as always they had to pay. I have put in our blog where I pulled a VW convertible forward with the top down one time to move 20 feet strait forward in a parallel parking spot and got a ticket for not putting my seat belt on. One hundred dollars for pulling forward 20 feet in town. I really felt the “I’m here to protect you with that.” You see tour boats here with life jackets but most cruisers in their dinks and all locals never have life jackets. Women hold baby’s and let them nurse while riding side saddle here on the back of motor bikes. Most old women ride on the back of bikes side saddle and no one wears a helmet. These little women here most around 5 feet ride motor bikes in high heels. Is that proper foot wear? I got a ticket one time for riding a 49 cc moped to a store to get a Pepsi bare footed up the street from our dock where our boat was in the US. You don’t have to worry about this kind of protection here.

Ride In The Back Of A Pickup Truck?

Loading Up to head back to a remote village after spending the day in town. (pueblo)

Most places in the US you cannot ride in the back of a truck. Here it’s their way to get to town. As many as can ride. Women, children with there supplies going home. They don’t know they need police protection. I guess? The little buses that run between towns here with no more room to pack you inside they ride on top holding on. Years ago we were here getting ready to headed to the Bay Islands in Honduras. I was working on our boat and cut my finger off. It was hanging on the side with a little skin. I put it back on and went to a doctor where he cleaned it up and Pam and I got on a clectivo the little buses that they ride on top and hanging on the back and side to a hospital in the next town. I had my hand raped in the same rag I had on it going to the doctor. It is so hard to explain how comfortable and at ease I was knowing the hospital and surgery was not going to charge us more that we could pay. Two days one night in the hospital put to sleep by an anesthesiologist, surgeon, a pen to put in the bone to put it back together back up visits less that eight hundred dollars US. What would that cost in the US and why? What if you need a policeman here. They will be here in minutes but a lot of time just call the fire department if you’re hurt or need to help with some one that is hurt. You may see a drunk here but “not often.” We were at a lighting of a Christmas Tree, a drunk fell down in the street and the fire department people put him in a wheel chair and pushed him around asking if he had any friends there. Some one told them to put him in the back of an old truck and they did. Problem solved. No police protection necessary with him just drunk. No paying money to the police and jail time. No getting hit or roughed up. This is a different culture and they’re not prone to call the law quick. It’s called machismo. A man is a man so be a man. You won’t see a women driving tractor trailer truck here. I saw a man selling steering wheel covers out of the back of a pickup with them to the top of the bed. Where did any one find that many wheel covers. He stopped where other people were selling stuff and was blocking them now. When fist stared flying, they went at it till they both were give-out with the man with the steering wheel covers getting the worst of it leaving bloody. It was like being back in grammar school when I was young. Maybe that has changed now in the US too but back then it was a man is a man and the best man wins. Every one just standing there watching. The man with the wheel covers left and no one called the police. How do I explain today how free that makes me feel. Free from the police protecting you. That is what the police told me righting out a ticket costing me a days pay for riding a moped bare footed to the store. The bus came in here late the other day as they sometimes do and some one there called the police station and they brought a friend of ours here to the marina late at night. He is old like us and his phone wouldn’t work so he was trying to get them to call us on their phones and some how in translation they just solved the problem and got the police to get him here. Is there crime here? I’m sure there is but we never see it. It’s always among themselves like it is most places in the world. How about the privilege of a man wearing a dress and changing his name from Alex the Alice. Stay in the US. Here they won’t understand how you’re felling alone can make you become a women and now you demand to be treated as one. We will be going back to the US in three weeks and as most people traveling back I’m dreading the police protection there. In Key West you can’t sleep on the beach at night but you can during the day. Power boaters wash their big power boats daily in the US with all that soap going in the water but you will pay a fine if your overboard value in you head is in the closed position but not locked. Not just closed but locked. Peeing in a bucket is legal, trowing it over the side but not running it through your commode. You have to have a throw-able life ring for man overboard in the US are pay a find. How much protection is that if your by yourself and you fall in. In these places down here common since still rule and not having police protection feel good. Tomorrow if you’re in places where you have police protection if your wife has both legs broke and is in a wheel chair don’t park in the handy cap parking spot with out your DMV sticker. The police might be there protecting you with a big fine with out it when you come out.

No permits for selling food.

 Here in Guatemala, if you want to sell food you prepair you just cook it bring it out on the street and start selling it. No premits or inspections needed. If you have a place to sell it that is good but if you want to be where you can get alot of people to come by you might have to pay who ever owns the propety to set up your table.

This is a lady’s kitchen where she cooks the food to sell. Cooked with wood fire.

This is where she sells her food.

Living at little free for now up the Rio Dulca river in Guatemala and loving it.

                                         The Adventure of Life Goes On.

 

Rio Dulce, Guatemala: A Step Back In Time

Growing Up Simple: Hunting, Fishing, Trapping

Traveling and just living being raised on farm at the end of a dirt road the world is a marvelous place I never dreamed I would see. As I have put in a lot of our blogs my up bringing has a lot to do with how we live now. My people lived simple with simple ways. When they went fishing it was for food. Hunting the same way. I went and trapped with my granddaddy. Now when I read or hear about running a trap-line always reads as if it’s so romantic. We were just working. A way to make money.

Guatemala Still Lives This Way

That way of life is gone now but traveling I still see it. Maybe not in a good way with the hunting or fishing here, where we are right now in Guatemala. The way they see it they’re going after food. Don’t get this wrong, there is plenty here to eat here they just want a little of the old ways but with the population of the world now the way it is that is gone. There is very little law here and one man has killed all the iguanas here. Got him a gun and killed them all. Killed one not a foot long and skinned it out. When they fish here nothing goes back. Nothing. There are very few fish in the river near here big enough to eat the way I see it now. Yesterday a man and his wife fished here in the marina most of the day and had maybe ten fish all under three inches.

Heart fish basket

Here is what they called a heart basket made of wood. Who ever made this basket is a craftsman but in the US this is as illegal as it gets. This basket is deadly. Fish, when they are spawning like to rub against something and if the swim and rub against this as they go around in the split going on inside they can’t find the opening to get out. You catch all the fish there. All of them. Leave nothing. Here I have seen them catch fish as small as one inch and lay them whole just the way they come out of the water in a tortilla. Wrap then up put them on a grill and eat it with the whole little fish inside. Where I grew up as a country hayseed is unrecognizable and sure not country and still growing houses.

The Jungle Gets Smaller Every Year

Mainly all that grows there now is more housing developments. Here the jungle was near here just a few years ago but there is less every year when we come back here in out boat. The jungle is losing the battle to survive but here in the marina there is still some trees trying hard to live.

Here is a tree that has these pod that fall and explode are maybe they just bust open and make a lots of noses and make a mess. In the real jungle there is all kinds of things that will hurt you like this cactus thing that grows down and will hurt you if you walk into it.

The Town Is Built For an Old Way of Life

Here the town was not built for cars and most people don’t have cars but as in all places some people have more than others. Here the well-to-do park their cars under the bridge and walk like most of us do around town. It’s hot here and these women are under the bridge to get out of the sun with there kids. Notice the women with her basket on her head. This is normal here and she is wearing traditional clothes that are hand made here. They still weave their own cloth. More than likely she only wears these close going to town for the hold day when they come to town maybe packed as many as can ride in the back of a truck.

Pam and I are getting old now but no where near stopping our life of adventure and travel but I’m glad we have seen this before it goes too like the life I had as a kid in the U.S. Simple is hard to hold on to. The most content thing in life is change.

                                        The adventure of life goes on.