Thursday, December 31, 2009

New Cruising Blogs Search

Introducing a search engine dedicated specifically to cruising blogs.

If you've ever tried searching for sailing/cruising blogs you know that it is difficult to find the detailed information you are searching for. There are 1000's of personal sailing blogs/websites that contain great details and information so we designed a search engine and position reporting format for Personal Cruising Blogs.

We hope this targeted search will bring cruisers together, sharing first hand up-to-date information through the blogs they already write. Adding consistent Lat,Lng data to the blog text will allow us to search and map blog posts adding valuable resources for both the reader and the blog authors.

Try it out


Learn More

Submit your blog

Tell your friends

Help spread the word.. The benefits and features will continue to grow as more blogs are added.

We also have a community blog and facebook fan page if you are interested.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Site Updates - New Features

While we were at sea it was almost impossible to interact with our readers. Since our return we've been playing around with various social features for CCC. We want to take full advantage of the latest technology to improve our communication, content and integration.

New toolbars:

At the top of most Creative Cruising web site pages you'll see two new toolbars.


  • The Share Toolbar (top most)
    Allows you to share and bookmark pages easily
  • Social Sidebar Popout
    Get updates from our other sites, search them and check out our facebook fans.
If you move you mouse over the button(s) to the side, a sidebar will popout .



mouse over the hide button (at the top) to hide the sidebar
Page Comments

Now you can ask questions and comment directly on each page. For overall site comments, questions and ideas please use our site comments page.


Maps

Although our online interactive maps have been finished for a while (they were automatic), we were a little behind on our Google Earth maps. We've gotten lots of great feedback on the value of our data and wanted to finish it for our friends (and friends of friends) heading up the Red Sea this up coming season.

We would also like to get other cruisers/adventurers to add positions to their blogs so we can build an online blog reference map. Check out the details on our community blog submission page.


We used Google Earth offline to find better anchorages when the charts were off (Kiribati, Fiji, Indonesia and the Red sea). We've finally finished the details on our Google Earth maps and made them viewable online and down loadable for offline use.

We've finally finished the details on our Google Earth maps.

27,500 nM of GPS tracks
981 Placemarks (anchorages, day/night positions while on passage, blogs, photos, journals, videos).

We also added an online kml viewer to view the content while online.

New Community Blog

In case you missed the news we created a community blog, we hope you will share your favorite content and join our facebook fan page.

Cleaned up our Astore links

Turns out we created a huge headache for ourselves by adding links of the various products we were describing on our What Works pages to our Amazon astore. Amazon changes product id's and links frequently so the links change and their reporting mechanism only references internal astore items for the last month.

We've relinked 100's of items (shown here).

We didn't create the store to make money but the little bit we do make (we get 4% at no cost to you), helps contribute to the cost of running the site. To date it has NOT even covered our hosting fees.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Black Friday Deals

Now that we are back in the "land of stuff", we're cautiously adding new gadgets/gear. We haven't seen black friday deals before, so we are excited about saving some $$.


Amazon's Black Friday Deals


Even West Marine is getting into it
15% Off Sitewide Sale - use code BIG15 (valid 11/26 only)


10% Off Sitewide Sale - use code BIG10 (valid 11/27 to 11/30)


Garmin Nuvi 255W GPS. Lowest price on the web! New




New Gear for the Holidays!

Planning a Holiday vacation- get your FREE travel cards



Click here to order.


75% Off All Photo Holiday Cards!  WOW!


FREE Holiday Product Samples – 12 FREE Offers!



If we find any more deals we'll keep you posted.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Our New Community Blog


We've completed our trip so now it's time to live vicariously through everyone that's out there doing or dreaming about their adventure.

Check out our community blog where you can submit your favorite content..



and become a fan on our facebook page



For geeks .. I also run a couple of technology blogs


It's New to Me
: A Technology Castaway Returns to "the Real World"

Chris’ Scratchpad: My collection of content, thoughts and ramblings that may end up in my other blogs.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Custom Clothing on Zazzle


SailBillabong on Zazzle

buy unique gifts at Zazzle

Got any ideas for t-shirts.. design your own

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Travel Gear for the Adventure


When you go off the beaten track, you really need good gear. When something breaks the chance of you finding a good replacement is VERY slim. You also want to enjoy the creature comforts of life, a nice DVD now and again, some music, good books etc. We have 5 years of experience with what works and what doesn't our there.. both sailing (30,000 miles) and driving around both New Zealand and Australia (15,000 miles).

We've reviewed lots of products for our What Works and Computers at Sea sections and have created a couple of stores to help you find/review products. Most have been "travel tested" during our sailing trip.

Gadgets That Make a Difference

Camera gear, galley storage, computer backup/accessories, clothing, watch timers, headlamps, books .. and more... they all make a difference... We started by documenting what works and added the store after we got lots of requests "where do I get ..."


Learn more - Cruising Clothing

We have many other sections with direct links on our What Works page or check out the Gadgets that make a Difference highlights.

Free Travel Cards

What do you need business cards for if your traveling or cruising? How about for all those new friends you'll make along the way ...

What better way to keep in touch then to hand out a card with your phone, email, and/or BLOG site? You can also use Vista Print to create your stamps, stationary, and more. See our Boat Card and Boat Stamp.

Custom Clothing


We even have our own custom shirt/bags etc at Zazzle. Fun designs by cruisers, for cruisers, day-sailors, and even land explorers. And because cruiser's tend to "be green" by necessity we've included some "go green" designs.

You can even design your own creations or shop for other unique one-of-a-kind designs. Check our Zazzle to get started.


Other eStores

Lonely Planet ShopClick here for your favorite eBay itemsWestMarine.comBrand Banner

Buy.comTigerDirectSkype - call the world at rock bottom prices
There's More

We also have a page with all our affiliates. Remember buying through our affiliates doesn't cost you anything extra and it helps us keep all the free information coming.

See a note about our eStore.

Tip Jar

Personally I would buy something from the stores above but some of our "Followers" have asked for a tip jar... Here ya go!!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Latest News


Ok we've had it for a while but never really used it as planned!!

Blogs are so much easier to update, and now that we have finished our season from Thailand through the Red Sea to Turkey, we may have some more time.

What's been keeping us busy?

BlurbBits is the biggest thing. Developing, testing .. bla bla bla. It's been a fun and someone painful process making the switch to windows programing (can't we all get along)!!

We also been using them is our Blogs

From The Galley (what is it .. best way is to show you)
Basically KT cooks some great meals, takes photos, and I get FAT!!

SV Billabong (our latest Blog w/Position)





We've updated the Broken links on some the CCC webpages, and added some new direct photo links to our Gadgets that make a Difference Amazon Store. Please realize we aren't like a lot of sites that throw up links based on what the end vendor decides. We have painfully reviewed all the products you'll see in the store and even tried to add our own comments where appropriate. I hope you'll check them out!!

Added a FAQ page on SailBillabong.com including cruising costs

Please let us know if you think something is missing or you'd like added or discussed.