Guess what day it is??? Nope not hump day, but photo frrrrriiiiiiiddddaaaaaayyyyy!!! It’s becoming one of my very favorite days of the week. As if Friday wasn’t already the obvious winner.
As I was poking around the lovely world wide web thinking about ideas for this week’s post, I noticed there are tons, and I mean TONS, of photography related “cheat sheets” floating around the web. So many so that you can easily get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. Instead of linking a hundred million different photo cheat sheets here on the blog, I decided to create two of my own (using inspiration from others I found on the web and tweaking them to my liking). I think for starters, these two are simple to understand and (hopefully) very useful for beginners!
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Links to the full size versions of each of ^^these^^ are below.
Beginners Guide to ISO
Camera ISO is one of the three pillars of photography (the other two being aperture and shutter speed) and every photographer should try and understand ISO to get the most out of their camera. ISO is the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to the light, while a higher ISO number increases the sensitivity of your camera. >>The Beginners Guide to ISO Cheat Sheet<< is a quick reference sheet that gives you a guideline of which ISO level to use depending on the light you are working with. A common rule of thumb to remember is the more light you have, the lower your ISO value. Lower ISO means less noise (noise = gross grainy images) so select the lowest possible ISO level where you can retain the most detail in order to have the highest quality image. Only increase the ISO when there is not sufficient light for your camera to be able to quickly capture an image.
Wow, ^^that^^ felt like a mouthful, but hopefully you get the picture. Pun intended. ;))
Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts
If you’re using Photoshop, then you probably know all too well how time consuming post-processing images can really be. They can literally suck the life right out of you. But guess what?! There are a few tricks you can implement to help speed up that workflow and make your post processing much more efficient. One of the easiest ways to do so is by using keyboard shortcuts! >>The Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet<< outlines all of the main keystrokes and menu shortcuts, from selecting the clone tool to making a brush smaller or larger. These really can be a huge timesaver if you familiarize yourself with them. My personal favs are zoom in+out, transform, and brush sizing shortcuts!
Hope these cheat sheets come in handy!
*I’ve started a regular “PHOTO FRIDAY” series on the blog. You can find all of my photography series posts >> here.
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Photography, Sailing BlogTags: Beginners Guide to ISO, Caribbean, Cheat Sheets, Cruising, LahoWind, Photo Friday, Photography, Photography Tips, Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts, Sailing Blog
(Puerto Real, Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico)
Since leaving Florida on this sailing journey, our grocery-store experiences have run the gamut.
From the teeny-tiny local and oftentimes poorly stocked island stores in the Bahamas to the super expensive mega grocer in the Turks + Caicos, we have seen it all. Believe me. Shopping for food has typically been very expensive and rather limited on this sailing journey of ours. Shoot, a bag of doritos in the Exumas sold for $9 and a case of Budlight for $52…just to give you an idea. I’m still so thrilled we packed our boat to the gills before setting sail. …Even if we did blow through our stash of 312 cans of beer in no time at all. ;))
For a total wannabe foodie like myself, grocery shopping has become somewhat of a chore on this trip due to the lack of quality products. And I hate that it feels that way. :((( I literally have dreams of shopping at my favorites back home…Publix and Trader Joe’s, with their well-stocked aisles, great cheese selections, and all around awesome products.
And let me tell ya, finding quality fresh food (veggies, fruit, meat, and bread even) has really been the hardest part. It’s one thing to pack a boat full of non-perishables, but our tiny dorm style fridge can only hold so much frozen meat and we all know how long most produce lasts.
Now that we’ve been enjoying life in Puerto Rico for Hurricane Season, I was positive the grocery situation would improve dramatically from our experiences in many of the remote islands we had visited before arriving here. And it has…for the most part. The main grocery stores here (Mr. Special, 100% Fritorifico, Walmart, etc.) are fine, I suppose. Although we were still having difficulty finding a widespread selection of quality fresh foods. That is, until we were given the tip of a lifetime from our new friends and owners of Rincon Sailing, who we recently met while checking out the regatta here at Marina Pescaderia.
 ^^We finally managed to stock up on a TON of fresh goodies at our new fav spot in PR.^^ We are SO lucky they introduced us to a great source of quality fresh products from El Viandon, a major food purveyor for high end restaurants in Puerto Rico. El Viandon is located here on the west coast of Puerto Rico at the northern end of Mayaguez (the big city over here). If you are planning to sail to Puerto Rico (particularly the west coast) go ahead and bookmark El Viandon’s website right now. ;))
Luckily, El Viandon is not exclusive to its restaurant/chef clientele and is open to us regular folks too! They are located in a warehouse area of Mayaguez with two large refrigerated rooms with loads upon loads of fresh products. They also have a nice cheese, spice, and condiment selection, along with a small freezer room full of different meats and a selection of various organic dairy products (think almond milk etc.). Everything here is sold by weight. Which is great for us. We don’t really need or have the room for a whole bag of carrots let’s say, but we’d love to pick up one or two when we need them.
We hit up El Viandon the other afternoon and were greeted by friendly faces very willing to show us all of their products and help us find what we were looking for. I was so impressed with their focus on quality. One of the stockers in the first produce room literally grabbed a baby eggplant out of my hand as I picked it up and told me to pick from a different box that was fresher. He could’ve easily let me buy the less fresh one since I clearly didn’t know the difference, but he didn’t! Way to go El Viandon! Way to go.
We packed out our grocery basket with tons of fresh produce — 3 different varieties of tomatoes, 2 different kinds of lettuce, eggplant, peppers, plantains, squash, zucchini, broccoli, avocados, lemons, limes, cilantro, scallions, and probably a few things I’m forgetting. We obviously have lots of healthy dinners in our very near future! ;)) We also hit up their cheese selection and grabbed a huge hunk of gorgonzola, along with a bottle of sweet chili sauce that I can hardly wait to start using!
^^they weighed everything in the back room and this is how we checked out.^^
^^new favorite condiment = this bottle of sweet chili sauce we picked up.^^
^^who doesn’t love a good cheese selection?^^
We walked out of El Viandon with three huge paper bags of fresh goodies from our new favorite spot, and all for around $30. Not too bad if I do say so myself!
:)))))))))
PS – We’ve already made wheat flatbreads with garlic + lemon roasted broccoli, sun-dried tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, and pine nuts one night, and then chicken/pepper/onion/zucchini shish kabobs and parmesan couscous another night. Pretty decent meals on board, eh?
PSS – Our other fav spot to shop is the small Selectos grocery store literally across the street from the beach in Joyuda Beach…a quick 5 minute car ride from the marina in Puerto Real.
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Boat Life, Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog, TravelTags: Bahamas, Boat Life, Caribbean, Cooking, Cruising, El Viandon, Fresh Food, Good Produce, Grocery Shopping, LahoWind, Puerto Rico, Quality Products, Restaurant Purveyor, Sailing Blog
From fish in the toilet to fish on the grill (not in that chronological order of course), it’s been a ton of boaty boat life lately around these parts. ;)) And in case anyone is wondering what’s going down in that one photo of me + Oliver, I’m trimming his nails…while wearing a head lamp. Lol. Whatever gets the job done.
All photos courtesy of Jereme’s iPhone. :)))
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
I think we’re good for about a week, wouldn’t you agree? ;))
Don’t worry, there are a few jugs of waters mixed in ^^there^^ too. And yes, we have a tiny diet coke addiction on this boat. We are now presently stocked with 224 cans. And a few two-liters. Phew! I can rest easy.
And speaking of packing out cars with diet coke, I’m pretty sure we’ve now driven just about every model of ultra tiny rental hatchback available from the Enterprise in Mayaguez. Aka the cheapest available option. ;))
We drove our Nissan Versa rental two and a half hours across the island (and back) the other day to pick up our much-needed dinghy hypalon patch + glue in San Juan. After searching high and low, I was pretty surprised that we actually found the dinghy fix ins at not one, but TWO spots in San Juan.
We first hit up PR Caribe, a dinghy repair shop, because we suspected they had the goods we needed all along, but they just weren’t willing to ship them over to us. And low and behold, they ended up having a little hypalon repair kit that included a hypalon patch and the 1-part glue (as opposed to the two-part glue product Jer was after). We went ahead and bought that kit for $25 and then drove over to West Marine to check out what they had in stock. Turns out, West Marine had the same repair kit, but for three and a half times the price as PR Caribe (total ripoff!). They also had the two-part glue we wanted! So we ended up just buying more glue. Whatevs.
And somehow during all of ^^that^^ crazy fun, the West Marine we ended up at in San Juan was (no joke) literally ATTACHED to a Starbucks!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry if this is old news to anyone who follows us on Instagram (since you probably already saw my photo), but I can’t help but mention how insanely happy I was to enjoy a delicious pumpkin spice latte!!! It was about freaking time.
We also totally stocked our pantry and fridge this weekend. Thanks to our trusty rental car! Yesterday, we made fresh burgers on the grill with gorgonzola/avocado/+onion-garlic-jam toppings. Let me tell ya, that was a winner winner burger dinner!!! So after those killer burgers and the coconut crusted mahi recipe last week, I’m pretty amped to try more fun recipes. Maybe these spicy potato wedges with lime dipping sauce (but with sweet potatoes) or perhaps this creamy sriracha-lime-and-cashew fettuccine. We shall see.
Okay this is random, but did you know that restaurants in Puerto Rico do NOT put salt and pepper on the table! What is up with that? We’ve been to at least 10 different restaurants and they share the same philosophy. Even the total American restaurants like P.F. Chang’s where I asked the waitress for salt and pepper and got a tiny ramekin of mixed salt and pepper. Um?????? Like our waitress had to go back into the kitchen and pour it out of the big bulk containers for me. Crazy, no?
Anyhoo, we are back to being car-less today with a few more boat projects (and hopefully a few fun outings) up our sleeve later this week!
Happy Tuesday!
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. The age old, and very wise I might add, advice when it comes to navigation on a boat. From paper charts, to chart plotters, to mobile tablets, and a handheld GPS — we use it all aboard s/v LAHO to get from point A to point B on our passages. And although our boat came equipped with an oldie goldie chart plotter, we knew early on we would need to amp up our navigational aids before setting sail, so we did just that.
Here’s what we use on the regular to safely cruise our way through the Bahamas and Caribbean…
Garmin 2006C GPS Chart Plotter (binnacle-mounted in the cockpit) – This is the one that came with the boat at purchase, along with one single data card covering the coastal U.S. This chart plotter has since become our back-up GPS, if you will.
Finding additional data cards for this old, outdated chart plotter was like finding a needle in a haystack. :(( It took hours upon hours of internet searching to locate these antiquated data cards. They are no longer manufactured (obviously) and very rare to find online. We finally found the two we needed — a Bahamas one from an eBay seller and another Eastern Caribbean one from a random marine store in Connecticut.
iPad with cellular GPS capability – This is clearly one of the best and most useful purchases we made in preparation for our sailing journey. We use our iPad almost exclusively for GPS and route-planning. >>Ours<< is the kind of iPad with an active GPS chip. Without this, the iPad just uses wifi, and once you’re out of wifi range, it’s totally worthless (for GPS). So make sure you purchase one with the ability for a cellular (data plan) connection (3G or 4G), but don’t actually purchase a data plan through any provider. Does that make sense? Yes, no, maybe so?
Jereme handles the route-planning component of our passages and finds using the iPad to be super simple with its touch-screen interface. The regular old chart plotter is a pain in the you-know-what. We use Garmin’s BlueChart App (more on that below) as our primary navigation system.
After purchasing a SIM card from Batelco and having it cut to fit the iPad, we were also able to use our iPad for internet in the Bahamas. This worked out really well for us and gave us the internet connectivity we craved throughout the islands.
iPad Lifeproof Case – A waterproof case is a necessity when on a boat with…um…tons of water surrounding your every move. Not to mention the occasional squall that pops up while en route to your next destination. What’s interesting to me is that the >>Lifeproof Case<< doesn’t actually enclose or cover the iPad screen (instead it creates a watertight seal around the edge of the screen so you can still use the touch-screen-interface with out any case-interference). What stinks about this is when you are getting bombarded by raindrops while simultaneously trying to use the iPad for navigation, the system goes a little haywire with all those extra raindrop “touches” on the screen. Your best bet is to try and keep the screen covered with a towel or something else when it’s raining like crazy. Regardless, this is the best product on the market to get the waterproofing job done!
Garmin BlueChart Mobile App – Our “go-to” navigation system on our iPad. This particular mobile app is embedded with Active Captain (but if you hate the Garmin app, there are plenty of other app options out there also with Active Captain embedded). We picked >>BlueChart<< because the maker of it, Garmin, uses the Explorer Charts as their base maps which was perfect for us since we cruised through the Bahamas first! We also love that it stores all of our old routes/tracks. We do kinda wish it had slightly more robust analytics (like our trip ETA based on our speed), but what it does have is really really great.
Active Captain – We love. Period. This is another program altogether, but it’s actually embedded in the ^^BlueChart^^ app. It’s basically an interactive cruising guidebook that shows you other boaters’ reviews of marinas, moorings, anchorages, etc. with info on pricing, services, amenities, etc. etc. etc. We have made lots of decisions on where to sail to and/or anchor based on other cruisers’ reviews. Plus, the regular Active Captain system is totally FREE. We had this long before we had either the iPad or the BlueChart app. Anyone can use the online system by simply creating a username/password. Pretty nifty!
Skipper App – This is the app we used back in Naples for our regular day sails. It’s FREE (yay!) and works awesome in Florida since it uses NOAA maps (I believe), but is totally worthless once you get to the Bahamas/Caribbean because it does not really have any detail or data for that area of the world. In other words the maps within >>Skipper<< are not geographically correct whatsoever outside of the U.S.
^^We always think the handheld GPS screen should be on the top (not the bottom) of the device…so much so that we photographed it upside down. Whoopsie. ;))^^
Garmin Handheld GPS – This is our backup-backup GPS device. But really, more so our anchor alarm. For about the first month of our life as cruisers I slept with our handheld GPS at my fingertips. Yes, slept with it since it serves dual purpose as a chartplotter GPS AND our anchor alarm! For newbie sailors, anchoring can be a little daunting and disconcerting to say the least. During our very first week of anchoring, I thought for sure we were dragging about every single time I looked outside. Lol. We weren’t of course, but the >>handheld GPS/anchor alarm<< provided some level comfort for me knowing that I could literally watch as the boat moved around the anchor (on screen) and not beyond the specific red zone we indicated.
^^Just a little Oliver photo bomb. He loves being part of the action.^^
This particular handheld GPS works with batteries OR a USB connection (which we always use on DC power). Our handheld GPS has also been terrific for taking along with us in the dinghy when we try to find a special snorkel spot using waypoints from charts or other cruisers.
Paper Charts – We swear by the Explorer Charts for cruising the Bahamas. They are “the charts” for Bahamas cruising. There are three different Explorer chartbooks you will need if you are cruising the Bahamas — Near Bahamas, Exumas + Ragged Islands, and Far Bahamas with Turks + Caicos. BUY THEM if you plan on cruising there! You will thank me later.
We were also given a full set of CYC Charts for the Caribbean from a soon-to-be-retiring-from-the-cruising-lifestyle senior cruiser we met in the Berries. So SO nice of him! We haven’t had a need to use these just yet, but I’m sure we will after hurricane season wraps up and we start making the trek down the Eastern Caribbean to Grenada.
Speaking of paper products, we also finally began using Bruce Van Sant’s book “Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South: The Thornless Path to Windward” once we started getting to some of the more remote Bahamian islands, and have been using it religiously ever since. Bruce provides an excellent roadmap for navigating the thorny path through the Caribbean.
Oh and we don’t have radar. I know, GASP!!! The horror. But we don’t. Sorry. At least we have an autopilot. :))
And finally, I’m sure someone is wondering what we do for weather in terms of navigating our passages. In other words, do we have/use an SSB radio? Surprisingly, we do own an SSB receiver, but never actually use it. Instead, we rely on passageweather.com, NOAA’s offshore weather report, and a few other websites for key weather-related info. We have not experienced any issues accessing the pertinent weather data at any of the spots we’ve cruised to thus far.
That’s our navigational toolbox for ya! Pretty fancy, eh? Not really, but we’ve had great success with ^^the gear^^ we use and don’t have any plans to change a thing. At least not with our current budget. ;)) If we were to upgrade anything, it would definitely be our old chartplotter. >>This GPSMAP 740 Marine GPS Navigator<<would be our first choice for the price point.
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Boat Life, Sailing Blog, Sailing LoveTags: Bahamas, Caribbean, Chartbooks, Chartplotter, Cruising, Explorer Charts, Gear, GPS, iPad, LahoWind, Lifeproof Case, Navigation, Navigational Aids, Sailboat, Sailing Blog, Tools
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Liebster award — somewhat like a bloggy chain letter recognizing good blogs that could stand a wider audience. I got one, now passing the good vibe on to you. Details here: http://lifeafloatarchives.blogspot.com/2014/09/liebster_27.html