People frequently ask Christi what she has been doing over the last few years. After all, she didn’t go back to work after the circumnavigation, and her last book was published in 2011. If she’s not boating or writing, what is she doing?

Since this Liveflux blog is focused on boating and travel, we haven’t spoken much about the other aspects of our lives. We have mentioned briefly that, in addition to raising our son Keith, Christi was also the primary care giver for our remaining parents. We also briefly mentioned that Christi was ill with a rare kidney disease. Christi’s primary focus the last few years has been health related issues — getting herself healthy while doing the best we could to keep our parents chugging along.

Another activity that has taken quite a bit of Christi’s time and energy has been fighting government corruption at the Franchise Tax Board, California’s income tax agency. Christi accidentally uncovered that the FTB has a series of policies/practices that are blatantly illegal, designed to extract more money from taxpayers than is actually owed. She has been pushing to get these unlawful practices stopped. Here is a 10-minute video of a speech that she made last December to the FTB’s Board of Directors, who at the time were State Controller Betty Yee, Board of Equalization Chairman George Runner and Director of Finance, Keely Bosler.

Christi is pleased to report that she has had a limited amount of success so far, and she plans to keep pushing until she sees major changes take place, not just at the FTB, but in the affiliated government agencies that protect these unlawful practices.

Christi is also very excited to announce that she has been invited by the California_Politics sub-reddit on the website Reddit to do an “Ask Me Anything” on the topic of Citizen Activism. She will be doing it on Wednesday, November 20 at 9:30 am. If you want to see what she has posted on Reddit so far, you can find it under her user name ChristineGrab. If you have any questions about what Christi has been doing, visit California_Politics on the 20th to ask on the AMA!

Since we want this Liveflux site to continue to be about boating and travel, Christi just launched a separate site that will be devoted to fighting government corruption. Right now it is in its infancy and very rough, and over the next few months, she’ll work on making it better.

And Christi will try to get the Tahiti trip posts finished soon, too, but she’s had to put them on the back burner since there are several looming deadlines in the FTB fight.

Day 7 — Saturday:

We were all exhausted from three busy days in a row. It took us until noon to get moving, and then we just went to Carrefour to get something to eat. After lunch, Keith and Eric went to the pool. At dinner time, none of us felt like cooking, so we went to a pizza restaurant inside the nearby Marina Tahina complex.

Before we ate, we strolled around the marina. At the far north end of the marina are two buildings that we are pretty sure are new. One looks like a laundry room on the ground floor with an apartment above it, and the other is a restaurant (maybe two restaurants sharing the building?) that has a new dinghy dock.

Other than that, the marina looks the same. Most of the boats are Mediterranean-moored, with passarelles to get on and off the dock. While we do remember the building that the pizza restaurant was in on the southern side of the marina, we don’t remember it being a restaurant. Here are a couple pictures:

Keith was the only one to order pizza, and he liked it. Christi got Continue reading →

Day 5 — Thursday:

We headed over to the swim spot over by the grotto first thing in the morning to go snorkeling. Unfortunately, Keith still refused to get in. This is the farthest he would go:

This spot was the outlet where Continue reading →