Product Recommendations

Mary and I have added a site with the products that we use and recommend.  Follow this link to get there.

We will only be posting those items here that 1) we recommend and 2) we can refer get you a discount on through Amazon.com.

Where Have We Been? Check us out on Facebook!

OK, so Mary and I aren't posting that frequently on our website anymore. It's because most of our activity these days is on Facebook! We will still post new interesting items here too, particularly the longer posts. But for more frequent updates - check us out on Facebook! See the links below.

Just make sure that you also send us an email or include information on who you are in the Facebook request as well, particularly if we're not really close friends, so we are reminded who you are and how we know you!

Find Bill on Facebook.

Find Mary on Facebook.

Happy Thanksgiving from Sunny Mexico

So why aren't you all down here visiting?
Warmest wishes for a Happy Holiday Season from Mary Mack & Bill Finkelstein on Raptor Dance.

Picture taken in Tenacatita Bay, by our very good friends Karen & Bill on the Moody 44, Miela

Bill’s Tasty Multigrain Bread

We love multigrain bread.  Unfortunately, our favorite bread from our local artisan bakery at Whole Foods Market, Thot Brot, has over 6,000 mg of Sodium per loaf! 

So we started to play around with a substitute recipe using the ingredients on the label and came up with this great tasting, low salt, no fat bread.   It tastes great and is good for you too!

We make it in our Zojirushi BCC X20 bread machine on it's basic Wheat Bread setting.   This is a 2 pound machine and this loaf weighs just over 2 pounds.  

You could also make this machine by hand, but our bread machine does such a great job we let it do it's thing.

You really need to use a scale to measure most of the dry ingredients as volumetric measurement of flour is too imprecise.

If you don't create a perfect loaf, refer to the troubleshooting guide in your bread machine manual.  Since we don't use salt, the ratio of wet ingredients, dry ingredients and yeast needs to be pretty precise.

To start, add to your bread machine:

6 T Unsweetened Apple Sauce (this substitutes for fat)

3 T Malt Extract (mainly for flavor)

1 ½ Cup Water

 

Next add the dry ingredients:

400 Grams Whole Wheat Flour

40 Grams Dark Rye Flour

40 Grams Millet Flour

40 Grams Flax Meal or Flax Flour

60 Grams Vital Wheat Gluten

1 T Lecithin

1/4 tsp Ascorbic Acid (the Gluten, Lecithin and Ascorbic Acid reinforce the structure of the bread)

½ tsp Salt (optional – controls yeast raise)

 

Then sprinkle over the top:

2 tsp Active Dry Yeast

 

Start up the machine and when the bread machine indicates it's time for add ins, add:

2 heaping T Caraway Seeds - lightly toasted

3 heaping T Flax Seeds - lightly toasted

3 heaping T Millet Seeds - lightly toasted

3 heaping T Sunflower Seeds - lightly toasted

We lightly toast the add in seeds in a dry skillet.

 

We like this bread in sandwiches or just toasted.  Enjoy!

Barra de Navidad

Hi everyone!

 

We arrived in Barra de Navidad New Years Eve and had a great celebration.

 

After checking in at the Marina and Hotel, we spent a little time at the pool and then went out with our friends Ed and Cornelia Gould from SV Acapella.  Our first stop was the roof top bar at the Alondra hotel for a great view of the sunset.  Then off to restaurant, Mexico Lindo.  They have great Mexican food at very reasonable prices.  Later we went to the hotel Disco but turned in early.  The midnight fireworks woke us up - so we wished each other a Happy New Year and then promptly went back to sleep.

 

Our favorite Barra de Navidad restaurant was closed for New Years, but we did get there on Friday night.  Profumo di Sole is run by a great young Italian couple and they make great food.

 

We'll work on taking more pictures and getting them up on the website soon!

 

We're back on our regular emails, but Internet is expensive here, so we're only on about 1 hour per day.

 

We want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year!

 

Warmest Regards,

Bill & Mary

Tenacatita

Hi Folks!

We want to wish you all a very Happy New Year Tomorrow!

We had an uneventful passage around Cabo Corrientes on Saturday, had dinner and spent the night in Ipala.

Ipala is one of our favorite anchorages. Not because it's such a beautiful anchorage - which is is. And not because it's a great anchorage - it's pretty marginal. But because they have 3 beach Palapas and serve the best Lobsters in Mexico (at least that we've run across so far).

We each had a plate of Langostas con Mojo de Ajo (grilled lobster with Garlic). We each got 3 large lobsters halves - we think over a kilo total. Absolutely, fantastic! And only 240 pesos per plate (about $19 US).

OK, lobster is not on our diet. But remember - it's a lifestyle diet we're on, not a religion! We do stick to the diet most days - but when the opportunity presents itself for a truly wonderful meal - we have no qualms whatsoever and go for it!

Saturday night wasn't a great sleep night as our anchor chain was grinding away on some rocks on the bottom of Ipala bay. All the noise of the chain grinding on the bottom is transmitted up to our cabin in the forward section of the boat. Also, as the chain caught on the rocks it was pretty jerky. Oh bother.

The next morning (Sunday), we were up at first light (7 am) and continued on to Chamela.

Chamela was crowded with many Mexican Families in for the holiday weekend. We were thrilled as a few of the Palapas again had live music. It was much more lively than last year.

On Monday, we walked the beach and had lunch at Manualita's Restaurant. We stopped at the tortilla factory in town and bought a kilo of fresh corn tortillas for 10 pesos ($0.80 US).

Monday afternoon it blew about 25 knots in the anchorage from the South. So it was pretty lumpy until late in the afternoon when the wind died and was dead flat calm all night.

This morning, Tuesday, we were off again for Tenacatita. We motored in continued calm seas with only a few knots of land breeze and arrived at 1130AM.

Only about a dozen boats in here so far, down from the thirty or so here last year.

Tomorrow we head into Barra de Navidad for New Years.

That's the latest from Raptor Dance.

Warmest Regards,
Bill & Mary

We're on the go!

Hi Everyone!

We are enroute to one of our favorite anchorages, Ipala. We left Paradise Village at 7AM (Central) this morning to a beautiful sunrise.

As we are going to be on the go and anchoring out until New Years Eve - please use our Winlink address (the one this message is coming from) to reach us.

Remember if you use it:

1) Put the characters: //WK2K in the message subject. Winlink has a new Spam filter and you need to put that in the subject for your message to get through

2) Only send us messages you type - it's a very low speed radio link - no attachments, pictures, jokes, etc.

3) DO NOT REPLY to this message. Send us a new one. If you reply, you will likely send a copy of our message back to us. Bad news bears!
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We got our engine heat exchanger on Tuesday, the 23rd. "Teapot Tony" the Mechanic, put it in the morning of the 24th. We did a test run and the engine was working great again.

Later in the day we went to a lovely Christmas Eve dinner at the Vallarta Yacht Club and had a very relaxing 25th.

Sunday, we did all the important provisioning. First the Chocolate ladies at Xocodiva in downtown PV. We picked up 2 kilos of 70% dark (should last us a few weeks). Then for groceries, we went to Mega Commercial and Costco. Getting back to the boat, we stowed everything, got the boat ready to depart, made dinner, watched a few DVDs and turned in. This morning, off we went!

We left a bit later than we originally planned due to the engine problems, but we still intend to stop at Ipala and Chamela before arriving in Barra de Navidad on New Years Eve. We'll continue on to many of our other favorite places: Santiago Bay and Tenacatita at the end of January.

Happy Holidays to you all!
Bill & Mary
SV Raptor Dance
20 34 N
105 28 W