Looking for Crusing families with kids

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by PDA1

Best wishes to you and your crew in your adventures around the world.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by PDA1

... Do you use OpenCPN or rely more upon Raymarine integration?

Our Raymarine instruments talk to each other (& sometimes to the computer, when the SeaTalk to NMEA module is working) but we use OpenCPN for our navigation. It's awesome & the guys who develop it are wonderful! Most of the downloadable tracks that we publish are available in both MaxSea (PTF) & OpenCPN (GPX) formats, & we're asking cruisers to send us more track files.

[PDA1]

Jon...another question for you;

- driver's licenses. What do you do if you need to drive a car in another country and only have a US license? Or, is there an "international" license you can get?

Do you still have a house in the US?

Do your kids miss sailing?

[Jon Hacking]

The vast majority of the time your home (US) drivers license is sufficient, but some places (Bali comes to mind) the cops will stop tourists & demand an International Drivers License & then shake you down for a couple of bucks if you don't have one. They're usually free from your Automobile Association (AAA in the US) but not generally needed. They basically say the same things as your normal drivers license, but in lots of different languages.

Yes, we have a house near Seattle which is usually rented out (& provides much of our cruising income). The problem with this, of course, is that we can't stay in it when we come back to the US, forcing us to "couch surf" with friends. Or, as one friend put it "Skipping from Bed to Bed with all the frequency of a cheap Ham radio!"

Yes, our kids miss the cruising life almost as much as we miss them.