6 Day Break in Florida

Been back in Trinidad for a couple of weeks now with a six months visa. Just 6 days in Florida, what were we thinking?! It was a mad, mad rush driving from one place to another. Picking up boat parts, shopping for boat stuff, sorting out banking issues and sadly no time for sightseeing; not even the beach, but.. most importantly we made time to stock up on chocolate! {priorities!}

Just for fun, I'm going to describe our Day 0 in numbers. 
- 10.06.2017 was the day we flew out from Port of Spain (POS) to Miami (MIA).
- 3½ hours was how long our flight from POS, Trinidad was delayed.
- 22:30 was when we arrived in Miami.
- 1 hour was how long it took us to pick up our rental car.
- 370 km was the distance we drove from Miami to Sarasota.
- 03:57 was when we arrived at our accommodation in Sarasota.
There you have it. A day in numbers ;)

Our rental car in Florida (from Budget)

Day 1: Still exhausted from the day the before. We decided to take it easy and had a relaxing day. We checked out the supermarkets in the area such as Whole Foods, Publix and Trader Joes {we really enjoy checking out supermarkets}. Look at the lovely selection of fruits! We indulged ourselves with nectarines, apricots and cherries! 😋

Fruits galore @ Whole Foods

Just a photo of all the beers available and possible bottle caps!
p/s: I love taking photos of bottle caps I find on the streets (but none this time)

{Like kids in a candy store} We also bought a slab of Alaskan wild caught sockeye salmon, asparagus, corn, crackers, brie with mushroom, hard salami & liverwurst for dinner!

Salami, Brie with Mushroom, Crackers and Liverwurst

Home cooked Wild Caught Sockeye Salmon - Yum!

Day 2: We drove up to Clearwater Bay (near Tampa) which is approximately 94 km north of Sarasota in search of a fabric store that Alex found online. We were looking for a very specific material called Serge Ferrari Precontraint to make a new sail drive leg cover. 

As luck would have it, they did not have the colour we wanted in store but we found an offcut piece for just $10/yard albeit in an awful light green! Oh well, we were happy we saved $20/yard and even got some free remnants of Sunbrella material to make cushion covers! 👍

Somewhere in Tampa

That evening, we drove back to Sarasota for dinner with our friend Jim, whom we met in Sabah, Malaysia several years ago and met his lovely wife Tamara. It was a delightful evening and we also had a deliciously home made pasta meal in their beautiful home. Thank you both so very much for accommodating us. Our time in Sarasota was wonderful.

Day 3: We made a quick stop at West Marine, a chandlery in Sarasota before heading back to Miami but didn't find anything we really needed as we had already bought most of what we wanted online and shipped to ourselves here in Sarasota and Miami.

Our airbnb accommodation in North Miami

We got to Miami at 7pm, picked up the keys to our accommodation and went for dinner at Capri Japanese & Italian restaurant. About a week before our trip, I was hoping we could find some good deals like we did last year. Read our 'Groupon Our Travel Buddy' post.

We were very excited when we found a deal for a Japanese restaurant although it's really a Japanese & Italian restaurant. The reviews for the sushi were good so we went ahead with the purchase anyway.  

Unfortunately, the sushi was like mush! Maybe they had a bad night, maybe we were unlucky, maybe we should've known when we were the only customers there, maybe it was their first time serving customers food with broken porcelain, who knows.. but we were definitely disappointed with the food and service.. 💔

Coral Gables - Nice Neighbourhood

Day 4 & 5: The mad rush begins, when 24 hours a day is just not enough. The days we spent trying (in vain) to sort out our banking issues. Last year, Alex opened an account with Capital One bank in New York. Little did we know that there are no Capital One branches in Florida. So having transferred some funds from Australia to his Capital One account, we wanted to get some cash out for our travels in the Caribbean. You'd think it would be an easy task! But our experience proved otherwise..

We spent two days running around from bank to bank, talking to Bank Tellers, calling Customer Service & the bank's Fraud Team.  

Here's what we learnt: 

- You cannot easily transfer funds from one bank to another (within the US).
- You cannot easily transfer funds from one person to another.
- You cannot rely on what Customer Service tells you.
- You cannot withdraw cash over the counter via "cash advance" with your debit card (despite what Customer Service suggests). 
- The withdrawal limit at the ATM per day is only $610 for Capital One bank, and of course they have no ATMs in Florida, so you will be charged lots of fees to use another Bank's ATM.
- The bank can put your money transfer on hold for up to 10 days.
- If you try to transfer your money out of the bank to someone other than yourself the Fraud Team freezes your account ... in fact if you do almost anything, the Fraud Team freezes your account. Ours was frozen 3 times in just 2 days - each time necessitating a call to the bank, and a lengthy wait to speak to someone.

You can, however, get cashback at stores e.g. Home Depot (max $50), Walmart (max $100), Aldi (max $200) per transaction. And it seems this is considered a "purchase", so does not count towards your max daily withdrawal amount.

What's a cashback? "It's a service offered by stores to its customers whereby an amount is added to the total purchase price of a transaction paid by debit card and the customer receives that amount in cash along with the purchase." {but I'm sure you already know this}

What we think of 'em banks

Perhaps if we had more time in US, we could have found a better solution. But since our time was limited..

Here's what we did:

- Used cashback option at the stores.
- Bought money orders at the US Post Office (USPS) and had a friend cash it for us.

A lot of time, effort, research, merry-go-round, trial and error to get our cash but very glad we managed to sort it out in time.

In between all that, we bought a mixing elbow for our Yanmar engine, a pulley for our alternator (near Fort Lauderdale), and chocolates (from Aldi) lots of it! :)

So busy running around, we missed a couple of meals but we were able to grab a late lunch at DA Burger Shack on Day 4. :)

Groupon Deal - $7.50 for $20 value at DA Burger Shack
9753 Southwest 72nd Street, Miami, FL 33173

For $20, we ordered two DA Bomb burgers with fries and drinks! DA Bomb is topped with sauteed onions, pepper jack cheese, apple smoked bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato, chipotle mayo, and jalapenos. The patty was nice and thick, slightly overdone and avocados were crunchy.

Didn't have time for lunch on Day 5, but we managed to have dinner at Spris Artisan Pizza, located at South Beach. A nice place to people watch.

Lincold Rd, South Beach

Groupon Deal - $13 for $25 value

731 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach, FL 33139

Day 6: 16th June, our last day in Miami. We met up with Mike (a long time family friend) at the US Post Office to sort out the money orders/cash and went to Sushi Express by Yakko San for lunch. I wish we had asked Mike on places to eat in Miami earlier! Would've eaten here everyday! A lovely catch up and meal to end our trip. Thank you!

Thanks Mike for all your help!
Sushi Express by Yakko San, 17040-46 W Dixie Hwy, North Miami Beach

Us at the airport. Goodbye Miami!

Our flight departed Miami on time at 17:40, we arrived in Port of Spain at 22:30. Thankful we went through Immigration and Customs with no issues. Crazy as it may sound, but I was kinda glad to be back from our 6 day "break" cum visa run. 😅

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Recipe | Alex's Famous Salad

Alex's Famous Salad

If you're salad lovers like us, do try out Alex's salad recipe. It's famous! ;) Finally decided to post this so that we could share it with our friends and family. A healthy, hearty dish for you and your loved ones.

Serves: 2-4 people

Ingredients:

Base Salad

•     1 Red Onion (finely sliced)
•     1 Red Capsicum (diced)
•     6-8 Tomatoes (diced)
•     4 Cucumbers (preferably Lebanese - sliced)
•     1 Apple (Granny Smith or Pink Lady - diced)
•     1 Eggplant (cubed & pan fried)
•     ¼ cup of Cashew Nuts (roasted, unsalted)
•     Handful of Snow Peas (sliced)
•     ½-1 Avocado (cubed)
•     Cheddar cheese (cubed)

Season With

•     Salt
•     White Pepper
•     Fresh Lemon/Lime juice
•     Olive Oil
•     1 tablespoon of Apple Cider Vinegar (optional)
•     Sour Cream (optional with chicken)

Variations (choose at least 5 others)

•     Handful of Alfalfa/Bean Sprouts
•     Handful of Baby Spinach
•     4-5 Red Radishes (sliced)
•     1 small White Radish (sliced)
•     4-5 Eggs (soft boiled & chopped)
•     4-5 White Mushrooms (sliced & pan fried)
•     Chicken (pan fried & cubed)
•     Coriander (chopped)
•     Bok Choy (chopped & pan fried)
•     Asparagus (pan fried, but still firm) 
•     Zucchini (cubed & pan fried)
•     Feta Cheese
•     Smoked Salmon

Method:

1. In a large bowl, add all the prepared ingredients.
2. Season and mix it all up.
3. That's it!

In this combination we (by "we" I really mean Alex) made the base salad with bean sprouts, baby spinach, red radish, white radish, mushrooms, chicken and sour cream. See photo's below.

Radishes, Snow Peas, Capsicum

Apple, Cheese, Baby Spinach

Cucumbers, Onion, Mushrooms

Tomatoes

Pan fried Chicken breast

Cut Chicken into cubes

Season, Mix & Enjoy!

We hope you'll enjoy this recipe!

If you made this, we'd love to hear about it! :)

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My Sister's Hidden Talent

Okay, so this post is unrelated to sailing or travelling. It's a personal post for my dear sister to capture our memorable conversation over Whatsapp on the 5th day of Chinese New Year this year.
 
Feeling a little homesick, I sent her a photo of what I had made for lunch on the second day of Chinese New Year... "Nothing fancy, just plain noodles and stir fry veggies", I told her. 
 

"Ah.. Royal mix noodle with superior veggie and golden egg!", she replied. 😄

I immediately sent her a couple more photos of what I had made for dinner a few nights ago, and this is what she said..

"Double prosperity rooster with superior sauce and emerald greens!" she continued. 

"and this.. Empress ribs on 8 treasures!".

Isn't she the best? I swear this is her hidden talent - cheering me up and coming up with creative names for dishes! 😊 My feeling of self pity for missing out on all the good food back home somewhat dissipated after our conversation. She made me see that I had some pretty fancy dishes on board too! {haha}

Thank you my dear sister and Happy Chinese New Year to all! 😘💓

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Recipe | Chipotle Burrito Bowl

We had our first Burrito Bowl at Chipotle Mexican Grill in the US last September, and loved it! What's a girl to do when there is no Chipotle branch in Trinidad? She makes her own! :)

We had all the ingredients here except coriander! I've included it in the recipe below anyway because it's an essential ingredient and should be used when you have it! When on a boat in a foreign land, we have to make do with what we have.

Serves: 2-3 people

Ingredients:

Salsa

• 4-5 Tomatoes - diced
• 1 Red Onion - finely chopped
• 3 Cucumbers - diced
• 3 small Red Raddish (optional) - diced
• Handful of Coriander - finely chopped
• 1 Lime - cut in half

Veggie Stir Fry

• 1 Capsicum - sliced into strings
• 1 Eggplant - sliced into strings
• 1 White Onion - sliced into strings
• Broccoli (optional) - sliced into strings

Guacamole

• 1 large ripe Avocado - mashed
• 1 Lime - cut in half

Note: You can follow Chipotle's Guacamole Recipe if you prefer.

Rice

• 2 cups of Brown Rice
• 2 tablespoons of Unsalted Butter
• 2 tablespoons of Coriander - finely chopped

Others

• 1 can of Corn
• 1 Lettuce - finely chopped
• Cheddar Cheese - shredded
• Sour Cream or Greek Yogurt
• Chicken, Pork or Beef (optional)
• Beans (optional) - none for us, Captain's orders

Method:

Salsa

1. Mix the diced tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, coriander and red raddish in a bowl.
2. Squeeze in the lime and season with salt & black pepper to taste.
3. Set aside.

Veggie Stir Fry

1. Heat olive oil in pan.
2. Add in the onions and sauté for 3 minutes or when starting to brown.
3. Add in the eggplant, cook till partially soft.
4. Add in the capsicum and cook until vegetables are soft.
5. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
6. Set aside.

Guacamole

1. In a bowl, mash the avocado with a fork (chunky or smooth, it's up to you).
2. Squeeze in the lime and season with salt to taste.
3. Set aside.

Rice

1. Cook the rice as you normally would i.e. in a rice cooker or in a pot.
2. Once the rice is cooked, add in the butter and 2 heaped spoonfuls of chopped coriander.
3. Mix well. 
4. Set aside.

Assembling the Burrito Bowl

1. In a bowl (large enough to mix the ingredients later), first add the rice.
2. Then place some salsa, corn and veggie stir fry on top of the rice.
3. Add a spoonful or two of guacamole & sour cream.
4. Top it with chopped lettuce and shredded cheese.
5. That's it! Mix and enjoy!

It's a little tedious to make but definitely worth the effort! Healthy & hearty meal.

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What We Eat On Board

People who know me, know that I am no chef! But since being on board, I have had to learn how to cook and it's a skill I'm glad I learned/am still learning, even if its just making simple stuff like a salad, an omelette, stir-fry vegetables or baking banana bread.

Growing up in South East Asia, I can easily get by without knowing how to cook because I can eat out all the time. The food is good, there's lots of variety and it's cheap! In fact, its more expensive to cook at home, than it is to eat out. But being on a boat, we don't have that kind of luxury.

Here are some photos of our meals on board.

Yakisoba Noodles

Banana Chocolate Bread

Stir fried Prawns with Rice

Hainanese Chicken Rice

Rissoles with Stir fried Veggies, Salsa, Guacamole & Sour Cream

Vegetarian Chipotle Burrito Bowl

Bak Ku Teh

Alex's Famous Salad

What a Treat! Steak, Salad & Pumpkin soup for Christmas!

Baked Chicken and Veggies

Of course, most of the meals above were made when we were anchored or moored somewhere (where it's calm and sheltered). We usually make much simpler meals on passage e.g. salads, soups, pasta, one-pot meals. Not many have the stomach to slave in the galley to make fancy meals on passage (I know I don't!).

Provisioning

Before any passage, we stock up with as much fresh fruits and vegetables as we can for the estimated duration of our passage.

For fruits: we normally get apples, oranges and bananas, mainly because they're usually available everywhere, lasts well and are easy to eat.

For vegetables: we love salads, so we get tomatoes {oh wait! should tomatoes be on the fruits list? argh.. let's not get too technical here}, cucumbers, onions, garlic, snow peas, eggplants, carrots, zucchinis, pumpkin all of which lasts pretty well. What about leafy greens? Well, as much as we love eating them, they don't stay fresh in the fridge for long so we're better off not getting them on passages.

For meat: it's usually chicken/pork which we freeze in our mini ice box/freezer. We also try our best to fish underway and we do occasionally get lucky with a tuna or a spanish mackerel, but we can't always rely on it. I can count with my hands the number of times we've caught a fish on passage. And we've already crossed two oceans! We can't help but wonder if the oceans are fished out or if we need new lures or we're just not good fishermen! (tips on fishing are most welcome) 

 
We also stock up on canned goods such as diced tomato, tomato paste, corn, peas, tuna, salmon, ham, soups, beans. You name it, we probably have it or once had it and we still have more canned goods than we need.

Our actual sailing time is relatively short compared to the time we are anchored or moored off shore somewhere. Our longest passage thus far was across the Atlantic Ocean, which took 18 days from St Helena to Angra dos Reis, Brazil. We've also sailed around Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean for over a month with no access to supplies and we've never run out of food! 

Provisioning 😅

Would love to hear your thoughts on what and how you provision, as well as tips on food storage, fishing or recipes!

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Groupon Our Travel Buddy

If you are budget travelers like us, you might want to have Groupon as your "travel buddy" too. With the US dollar at an all time high ($1 USD ~ $1.40 AUD/SGD), we knew it would be too expensive for us to have meals in restaurants on our 3½ weeks trip in the US. So what did we do? We started searching for deals online!

Groupon immediately popped into mind as we often use it back home. This was our first time using it overseas though. It's a little tricky but not impossible. We bought some of the deals weeks in advance and planned it into our itinerary, but we also bought a couple more just hours before redeeming them. They worked out well and we were able to have several nice meals at half the price.

In case you're wondering.. no, Groupon is not paying us to post this, we just thought we'd share our experience. 

If you're not yet a member, sign up here @ Groupon USA! By signing up through this link and if you make your first purchase within 72 hours, you will give us a referral credit of $10 groupon bucks. You will also get a welcome $10 off your first deal for orders over $25. You can also go to Groupon website directly, we don't mind.

Do note that even though you are a member of Groupon in another country, you would need to sign up a new account for the US version. They seem to be separate entities. If you want to sign up for Groupon Australia or Groupon Singapore. You can do that through these links too!

Here are the deals that we purchased for/during the trip..

San Francisco

$30 value for two people for $15
Sakesan Sushi & Bistro
626 Clement St, SF 94118

Japanese food! Our favourite! This place has a nice ambience and was pretty busy. We waited for slightly over half an hour before we got our seats by the bar.

It doesn't look like much for the value of $30, but hey, we only paid $15 (not including tax & tips of course). The portion of the salmon on the Salmon Don was decent and the rest were fresh and tasty too. We enjoyed our Japanese treat so much we decided to try another the next night at Hanami Brasserie.

$30 value for two people for $15

Hanami Brasserie

1220 9th Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94122

Here we ordered a Chirashi Don and a Salmon Don. It wasn't bad but we preferred the food at Sakesan. To be fair, their specialty is ramen noodles so perhaps we should've ordered that instead. Nevertheless, we're always happy after Japanese food.

Las Vegas

We really enjoyed our Fat Burgers in Los Angeles. So we were super physced they had a deal in Vegas. Sadly, the burgers at this joint was not as good as what we had in LA.
 

$16 value for $9
Fat Burger Green Valley
Henderson, 2300 Paseo Verde Parkway, 89052

$20 value for $10

Café Mayakovsky

1775 East Tropicana Ave, Suite 30, 89119

We were surprised the Russian food here was authentic (authenticated by Alex of course) and we really enjoyed it! We ordered (from top left clockwise) Red Caviar served with butter & crepes (10.95), Herring garnished with dill and served with boiled potatoes (6.95), Blinchiki - Crepes stuffed with ground beef (6.95) and Pelmeni - Homemade meat ravioli served with sour cream (7.95). Wouldn't mind coming back if we're in Vegas again.

$48 value for two for $ 30

Gene Woods Racing (Go Kart)
121 E Sunset Rd, 8911

Yes! We bought a deal for Go-Karting! It was fun, the go-karts are well maintained and fast! We had 2 races of 15 laps on the circuit. As usual, Alex was the speedster and I was trailing at the back of the pack. 

We also purchased another deal at Café 6 at Palms Place a $20 value for $13 but we were unable to redeem it due to the time constraints of our visit. So we contacted Groupon to explain our situation and requested for a refund. We are glad to report that Groupon was very understanding and refunded us the $13 in groupon bucks. We hope we'll be back to use it.

Chicago

Pinkys unfortunately was a letdown even though they had decent reviews. Just glad it was a $5 deal.

$10 value for $5
Pinkys

100 W. Randolph Ave. Suite C03
Chicago, IL 60601

$30 value for two people for $15 
Polk Street Pub
548 W Polk St.
Chicago, IL 60607

Polk Street Pub is located at the city fringe, felt like it was in the middle of nowhere in a really quiet neighborhood. We were pleasantly surprised that it served really good burger, spinach salad and Philly cheese steak sandwich! Even the mashed potatoes were on point. I wish we had discovered it sooner so that we could've gone back again.

New York 

Beast of Bourbon was a little out of the way. We had to take a couple of buses to get here. It was a nice sports bar/restaurant but the food was nothing to shout about.

$40 value for $20
Beast of Bourbon
Bedford-Stuyvesant, 710 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn 11205

All you can eat sushi lunch for two at $25
Mika Japanese Cuisine & Bar
150 Centre Street, NY 10013

We read some mixed reviews about Mika especially about its service. But $25 all you can eat sushi for two? Who could resist!? We couldn't!

One of the many plates we ordered

We also bought a deal to replace our iPhone 5 battery.  

$39 discounted $31.20
KB Network (iPhone Battery Replacement)
38 West 32nd St, Ste 1605, between Broadway & 5th Ave, 10001

Well, that's all the deals we got for this trip. Can't say that we will do this for all our travels, but if we could, we definitely would because it saved us some and we found some nice places to eat because of it. :)

If you liked this post, do check out Groupon and purchase through the links on our site so that we can earn a little something to keep us going. Most importantly, it doesn't cost you anything extra. We thank you for your support.

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