Dental Work...Ugh!

 

I saw a tooth hanging out on a street corner the other day, waving at passersby. That's right … a tooth ... advertising a new dental office, I imagine. I rolled down the window and shouted howdy and asked it to smile, but if you're just one tooth, without a mouth, tongue or voice, smiling or responding is difficult. I took it in stride.

Anyhow, it reminded me that it was time for our regular dental check-ups and since we don't have a regular dentist … how could we when we're never in a place longer than a few months? … I had the distinct pleasure of finding a dentist that was willing to take on new patients. The “tooth” place was too far away. It wasn't hard to find a suitable dentist. They advertise quite regularly and I found an office close-by that would provide x-rays, cleaning and an exam for $59/each … new patient special. Yowza!

We've had dental check-ups and work done in many countries of the world … Venezuela, Uruguay, Australia and South Africa come to mind. Usually, the offices are in metro areas, pretty upscale and the techniques and equipment are modern. We had a couple of less than adequate visits, like in Ecuador for instance, where the office was in a lady dentist's converted garage and high tech cleaning happened to be Q-tips dipped in some hydrogen peroxide. For the most part, however, dental care worldwide seems to be accessible. As far as costs go, you can't beat South America. The US and Australia are the most expensive.

For our $59 new patient special, we had enough x-rays to last a lifetime. Thank goodness for lead vests or we would have been glowing in the dark for weeks. They always find something more to do for one of us and we always hope it will be on the “something cheap” side, but of course, it never is. This time it was my turn for a subsequent deep cleaning and some gum surgery. Yuck and ouch … to both my gums and our budget. Next time I see a tooth loitering on a street corner, I'm going to ignore it.

Reading the Travel Section

 

We read the Boston Globe everyday since we've been back in the States. I especially like the Sunday paper. It's chock full of ideas for blog posts. I always migrate to the Travel Section first since we're not traveling at the moment and I'm missing it. I have to admit, however, though the exotic places sound wonderful, the description of the offered tours make me cringe.

“Six nights, seven days … See Peru!” Really? It's a whole country, for heaven's sake, with such diversity you'd be hard pressed to see it over a period of months. “Tahiti in 5 days!” Never! And therein lies the rub. We're spoiled. We visit a country and plan on staying awhile, maybe even a year or more. When you travel with a tour or a package deal, it's a quick look-see with lots of other people and then you're off to another destination or heading home. “If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium.” It's all a blur.

When you travel on a boat, you arrive and you settle in for awhile. You get to know the locals. You know where the best veggies are and where the diesel fuel is the cheapest. You don't stay at resorts; you bring your home with you or you travel on the cheap to make your dollars go as far as they possibly can … and you don't mind at all. You know the shortcuts into town. You know where to catch the bus and when. You start tasting the flavor of the place. Not the commercial, spoon-fed, tourist-packaged flavor, but the real thing.

We've often thought that the next best thing to traveling to a new country in a boat would be to rent an apartment there for a few months or maybe even a year. When we were in Panama and wandering around in Panama City, we discovered some lovely sections of the city that had reasonably priced apartments. A day visit on a cruise ship wouldn't have gotten us past the Canal and souvenir vendors. What a great adventure it would have been to live there for an extended period of time and use it as a base of operations for exploring the region. What a great way to learn the culture and meet the people. Maybe when we are too old to be hoisting sails and braving gales, we will take up this lifestyle.

All that said, if you can't travel on your own boat and if you can't manage an extended stay in a new and exotic country, tour travel beats no travel at all.

8 Reasons to Join a Cruising Club...like SSCA

We're not usually “club” people. We're not exactly anti-social. We like to join in once in awhile, but we're not inveterate “joiners”, if you know what I mean. That said, when we first started living aboard, we joined SSCA … Seven Seas Cruising Association. Quite honestly, we didn't know such organizations existed until we started chatting with other liveaboards and cruisers and they suggested we check it out. We did, we joined and 12 years later, we're still active members. Why join a cruising club? Here are the reasons we joined. 1.  Learn from people with more and/or different experience.

Just starting out, there was so much to learn and we were keen to learn everything we could about sailing and “the life”. But we've found that no matter how experienced you are, there's always someone with either more or different experiences. Sometimes gleaning just one little tidbit of useful information is priceless.

2. Share lifestyle notes with folks currently doing what we are doing.

Not everyone embraces this type of alternative lifestyle. It's interesting to meet other like-minded folks and trade information … and tall tales. “How do you manage your night watches?” “How big was that wave?”

3. Receive ongoing boating/sailing educational opportunities.

A good cruising association will provide opportunities to learn new skills, as well as enhance and hone your current skills whether it be docking, sail trim or engine maintenance. With advances in the internet, many of these learning opportunities are no farther away than your computer. Check out Seven Seas U.

4. Promotes camaraderie.

Again, we're not party people, but seeing a familiar burgee flying in the anchorage when you first arrive is always a welcome sight. We usually raise our SSCA burgee as soon as we're settled. Invariably, if there are members around, they'll stop by to say hi and offer local information. We, of course, reciprocate when we can.

5. Facilitates contacts in new ports.

It's great to be able to contact people in foreign ports in advance of arrival to find out what services and amenities might be available. If your cruising club is large enough, they'll have several contacts worldwide that can help you out when you arrive. SSCA has about 150+ Cruising Station Hosts in the USA and abroad and we've been in contact with a good many of them.

6. Offers discounts for services, equipment, marinas, etc.

We try to take advantage of every discount opportunity we possibly can. Each shekel saved is a penny for the cruising kitty. Most large organizations can negotiate discounts for their members. We especially like marina discounts, stuff like Sailblogs discounts (25%) and free magazine downloads.

7. Receive unbiased feedback on gear and equipment from other cruisers.

Whenever we're making a major buying decision for new equipment or gear, David does an inordinate amount of research first. One place he checks is SSCA's Equipment Survey to see what other cruisers think about we're thinking of buying. Nothing like getting the skinny from another sailor who's actually using the stuff.

8. Access to port and destination information.

Commercial cruising guides are great and we use them all the time, but again, there's nothing like having access to a fellow cruiser who's been to a port to which you're heading, especially if he's documented all the services and amenities he used while there. Using SSCA's searchable index by geographic location allows us to see what's been written about a topic or location for the past decade. Quite honestly, it's a key ingredient to researching where we might go next.

Keep in mind, you tend to get out of something, what you put into it. We've remained active with SSCA because we enjoy sharing information as well as getting information. We joined a second, somewhat more exclusive cruising club along the way, but the membership dues were way out of line with our budget. We found that though their quarterly magazines were in beautiful color and on glossy stock, we rarely got to see them because they weren't digital and we certainly had no intention of paying extra postage to have them mailed to us wherever we were. Before you join, figure out why you're joining and what you're hoping to get out of your membership and make sure the cruising organization you choose meets all of your criteria. Also consider what you might contribute to others who follow in your wake.