Author Archives: Melissa

Are We In Canada Yet? How ‘Bout Mexico?

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Did you read the sad news about the guy in Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island, who was shooting at people from his boat? The story ends tragically as he was killed by police when he fired his weapon at them. I wish we knew more about the man. I hope we can eventually know why this person was shooting at people from his boat.  He was sailing Flying Gull, the 1940 Sparkman and Stevens sailboat we fell in love with and almost bought 4 years ago. Although we know we made the right choice in walking away from that boat, I find myself feeling very sad, indeed, that this beautiful boat would be the stage for such violence. Aside from the obvious human tragedy involved, this boat deserves better than that. I guess I hoped that when we walked away someone else had bought it and loved it like we would have. We have several posts about Flying Gull on the blog. If you are interested in reading them, just search ‘Flying Gull’ in the search box up top.

Our blog has seen lots of action on the Flying Gull page since this unfolded. I know this is because of the shooting, but I hope someone will read the review and decide that if Flying Gull ever goes up for auction, they will buy it and bring it back to its former glory.  This is a truly beautiful boat. 

Meanwhile in lighter news:

We’ve now been cruisers for over a month.  You’d think that by this time we’d be in Canada watching whales, or in Mexico eating all the fish tacos. But alas, instead we spent three weeks in Gig Harbor. By the time we got out of there we had become part of the local scenery. Now we’re anchored in Olympia in great anticipation of the coming week and hopefully, finally, getting this repair to the aft deck finished. Let’s all spit a few times and do some twirling together to let the gods of boat repair know that we’re seriously ready to get out of here. Okay? There are whales to watch out there and we need to commence watching them!

Since we aren’t in Mexico yet, we can at least eat well here. In preparation for all the long passages we have yet to make, I purchased the cruiser version of a slow cooker. Called a ‘thermal cooker’,  it works on the principle that says if you just get something hot enough and keep it hot long enough, it will turn out to be cooked by the end of the day. On paper, it sounds dead easy. In the galley, I’m not so sure.

Mt. Rainier lording it over Penrose St. Park.

I ordered a thermal cooker from Amazon and when it came, it was very small. I thought, ‘this is too small’, so I sent it back. I should probably have kept that one. Instead, I ordered one of these huge units from Saratoga Jacks. It comes with an insert that allows you to cook two foods at once.  Why cook only one thing when you can cook two? My friend Donna from SV Denali Rose has one and she likes it and uses it. So when these went on sale last year, I got one. I like to be part of the popular crowd. But I think Donna must be a better cook than I am.

Here’s my take on this unit: I’m lukewarm about it. I literally go ‘meh…’ and shrug my shoulders when asked if I like it. This thing is supposed to save propane on board, and we all want to save propane, don’t we? It’s supposed to allow you to fix dinner and heat up the galley in the morning when it’s less hot than the Mexican afternoons. So let me give you the low down on how I used it today to make tonight’s dinner:

Melissa’s Fabulous Mango Beef Soft Tacos

1.5 lbs beef stew meat (works well with chicken or pork, too)
1 quart size mason jar of Melissa’s home made mango salsa, canned in 2011
(What? You don’t have any of Melissa’s special mango salsa, you say? Just use any old salsa you have laying around. A pint, a quart, green salsa, red salsa, literally whatever you have. We don’t stand on ceremony or persnickety measuring in our galley.)

Taco fixings: Steamed corn or flour tortillas, shredded cabbage, avocado, chopped cilantro, lime wedges, and crema sauce. Make that with Mexican crema or sour cream. Stir in a little lime juice, some cumin, some chili powder, and a couple of drops of honey. Just go ahead and play with the amounts. You can’t really mess this up. Heck, add THREE drops of honey! Treat yourself!

Looks pretty good at the end of a long day. All the space above the meat needs to be filled with thermal mass.

Now you want to brown the meat in the thermal cooker pot. When it’s brown, add all the salsa. You will cook this for a few minutes until you know the meat is heated all the way through (I.E. already cooked) and everything is boiling hot. Meanwhile, you want to preheat the thermal unit. This is necessary or it will steal heat from your ingredients and they won’t stay at cooking temperature. So boil some water on the stove while you are cooking, I mean browning, the meat.

When the water boils, pour it into the thermal cooker and close the lid. Your meat will be brown by now but don’t let it cool. Just keep cooking it on the stove. Do you see what I’m getting at here?

Thermal mass is everything when using a thermal cooker, so I decided to make up some rice at the same time. I retained some of the boiling water for this. 1.5 cups of rice, three cups of water. That makes a LOT of rice. But you want the huge pot filled up with thermal mass. Air in the pot is the enemy of thermal cooking.

Rice pudding, anyone?

Pour your hot water from the unit into the sink to do dishes later. Then put the pan of meat and salsa into the unit, the rice and boiling water on top. Put on the lid and close the unit and walk away. Open the hatches to let out all the steam and heat collected from boiling two things on the stove at once. Whew! I saved a ton of propane.

I put my pot to rest at 11:00am when we upped anchor in Penrose St. Park. I opened the unit at 6:00 at anchor in Olympia. The rice was done to perfection but cool to the touch. The meat was done, but frankly it was done when I put it in the cooker. It was, however, probably more tender than it would have been. I honestly do not know how long this meal stayed at cooking temp because the whole thing was less than lukewarm by the time we ate, 7 hours later. I needed to heat it up again to serve it. Still, I didn’t have to cook dinner. It was already done. So that’s a plus.

It’s hard to go wrong with a taco and Mexican beer.

I’m not ready to commit to this unit yet. Aside from the doubts I have that it’s actually going to save me much propane, I’m not sure it’s going to suit the way we generally eat. This thing holds a LOT of food and there are only two of us. I was hoping that this would take the place of my small crockpot, which I used several times a week when we were at the marina. Try this recipe in your own slow cooker. You won’t be disappointed, even without the mangos.

Do you have experience with thermal cooking? Any ideas on how to do this better?

 

 

 

 

 

Afternoon Ramblings: On Storage and Space

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Lots of my random thoughts lately have been about storage space and tidiness. When you’re on the move on a sailboat, things get put away regularly because otherwise they’ll fall on the floor and break. Also, when we were living at the dock, I saw clients regularly, so the boat had to be fairly tidy below. All of that has changed. And now, things are starting to bug me.

I’m having trouble keeping the boat tidy enough to suit us. Well, to suit me, actually. This is partly due to the number of projects going on all at once. So I think to myself, ‘well, this is short-lived’. But is it? Is it really? I don’t actually think so. We live with projects. Always have, always will. Life is meaningless to us without our projects; at least the evidence supports that statement. So why can’t I figure out how to do these projects and keep things down to a mild roar in the tidiness department concurrently? There is a solution. I just know it.

The meaning of this will become clear.

Today we sealed that forward hatch. I hope we got it right this time. I have two more to go so why put the cleaner and supplies away? I’d just have to get them out again. So they sit out on the counter in the shop area, along with thousands of other small things. It breaks my brain to think on keeping the shop neat. But thank goodness for that shop area! Without it this boat would be a mess all the time.

The bulkhead in the aft cabin is repaired and Mike has the fiberglass supplies out to do the new fiberglass tabbing at the top. I bought paint supplies for this project and those have no place to ‘live’ until I use them on the bulkhead. There’s a quart of paint and another one of primer, along with some rollers and tape just sitting in the cockpit. They look at me expectantly as I scoot by, but I just ignore them. It’s not their time yet.

All flat surfaces in the boat attract ‘stuff’. This is no different than in a house, but somehow it’s more irritating. I took 30 minutes yesterday clearing the navigation desk off. It looked great. Now it’s already collecting stuff again. I. Will. Win. This one.

I”m just going to take care of this now before it takes on a life of its own.

Mike took the microwave off the top of the cabinet where it has lived since 1992, the vintage posted on the sticker inside the door. It’s a Kenmore. Those used to be built to last and this microwave still works. Now what do we do with it? It’s on the floor until we figure it out. I am using it as a step stool to get onto the v-berth. I bet the 2017 microwaves would crumple if used as such. I feel a bit sorry for this vintage machine, demoted without ceremony from a place of glory in the galley to the floor of what is, in fact, the rumpus room. What a blow. I should put it with the electric tea kettle we can’t use anymore now that we live at anchor. It’s a bit forlorn. They would be companions in their misery. If we were in the marina, we’d put these things on the free pile and they’d be adopted into new forever homes in 20 minutes. In Gig Harbor? Not so much.

We also have a large plastic spool left from the Samson rigging line Mike ordered. It’s a cool spool. I’m sure it’s dead useful for something but we have no place to store it. It would be a dandy aft anchor rode storage thingy. We could store 600 feet of anchor rode on that thing and then set it up to reel the line right out. But the gosh darn storage issue! So what do we do with it? Right now it’s on the aft deck taking up space and bothering me with its presence. I hear it sighing loudly back there, unhappy that it’s not being used for something. This is a spool with high self worth. It knows its own usefulness and resents being made to wait for something worthy to do. I cannot bring myself to throw it in the trash. It feels wrong.

This would be a useful item if only I could find a place for it.

Mike is not satisfied with the many kinds of electronics charging goo gahs that create visual clutter at the navigation area. He wants to take over the spice rack that lives by the companionway and turn that into a charging station. I’m ok with that. He can have it. My spices could never fit in that space anyway and I forget it’s even there.

I had a great storage solution for my sandals. Note that past tense verb: had. I used the spaces created by this ladder that hung on the wall in the aft cabin. This made a great place to store all my sandals. (I am not getting rid of any of them, in case you’re wondering. That’s a firm ‘no’.) Now that we’ve repaired the bulkhead and adjacent wall in that cabin, Mike doesn’t want to hang the ladder back up. He wants to get rid of it. I agree the ladder is completely useless except for the storage potential it offers. Trying to use this to get out of that hatch is an exersize in comedy, if not error. Ask me how I know. If we don’t put this so-called ‘ladder’ back, however, then where will I put my sandals? Come to that, how will we get rid of the ladder?

I have mixed feelings about getting rid of this ladder.

We own a lot of hats. I get tired of a) looking for the right one and b) seeing them laying around everywhere like children suffering from failure to launch. I’ve collected them all and put them in one of those nice plastic beach carriers I got at Shin Shin. I should have bought twice as many of those. Very useful items. All hats now live in the Shin Shin green plastic beach carry-all. Come to think of it, if I did have a few more of these nifty carriers, I’d be able to use one or two to organize the supplies from all the projects while we are in-progress with those. Bingo! A solution! Maybe a trip to Shin Shin will happen. I sure miss my car sometimes.

I wonder what space I would be willing to give up for an on-board washer/dryer? I think about this alot.

These heavy PVC totes are really great. I want to get more of these.

We have too many books and notebooks aboard the boat. We both have Kindles with hundreds of books on them, but still I cannot bring myself to give away more physical books. Also I like the way they look. Having a bookshelf makes the boat feel like a home. A couple of Kindles just doesn’t cut that mustard. I think these books are going to stay, but perhaps I can let go of some of the notebooks. Most of them are blank, in case I get a wild urge to write by hand. I actually do that, so, yeah, I probably will keep them all.

Your thoughts on these storage issues are, as usual, welcome. Also let us know if you need a vintage 1992 microwave. Works great.

 

Next, Leave Puget Sound

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To put our cunning cruising plan into action, first, we had to leave the dock. Check that off the list.  We left the dock and our heavy marina fees far behind three weeks ago. Other cruisers told us that leaving the dock was the hardest part of cruising. Once you had dropped the docklines, you were supposed to be golden. You had done it! You were now cruising! Are we cruisers yet?

A day in Tacoma to see some tall ships. We’re not all work around here!

In our case leaving the marina was the easy part. Turns out the hard part is going to be leaving this geographic area. We have to actually find a convenient time to travel north, pass Seattle to starboard, and continue on to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca and right up into Canada, as was our plan. So far, we are still here.

We are currently comfortably anchored in Gig Harbor working on the fix to our aft cabin. Let me share with you how this repair is going. Our approach is one of sloth.

World’s largest rubber duck photo bombing the Foss Waterway.

When we were working fools all boat work projects had to be squeezed into weekends and evenings, so basically we made hay while the sun shone and hoped we could get a bunch done all at once. Suddenly, with the quitting of our day jobs, now all we have is time. With our new schedule, we’ve decided that accomplishing one small thing per day is fine. This new approach comes smack up against our well-ingrained work ethic. It’s like we’ve very suddenly forgotten that we are hard workers. And yet…well, here’s how our progress has looked:

Monday: Made cardboard pattern for replacing part of bulkhead. Called it a day. Went for walk in Gig Harbor. Ate food. Regretted it.

Tuesday: Napped and read books. Piddled around in the harbor doing nothing in particular. Went on walk. Spyed on neighboring boats with small binoculars. Serious cockpit lounging.

Wednesday: A banner day! My sister picked us up and took us to Mitchell’s Lumber in Belfair. Bought marine plywood for repair. Brought wood back to her place and used brother-in-law Darin’s tools to cut wood to fit space. Exhausted from this effort, called it a day. Hung around with her family. Played badminton; badly.

Thursday: Mixed thickened epoxy and used a large syringe to fill gap between bulkhead and coach roof. Made it smooth. Called it a day. Ordered replacement winch parts and a few other things on Amazon. Went kayaking.

Friday: Mixed more epoxy and filled gaps. Coated replacement piece of plywood with epoxy. Made thicker epoxy with adhesive filler and set that piece in place. Braced it with boat hooks which, wedged between bulkhead and cabinet, provided just the right amount of pressure. Swooning from effort, wiped our brows, called it a day. Went to have dinner with our kids. Mike’s birthday. Celebrated with cake.

Yes, it’s in Gig Harbor. Why bother going all the way to Italy.?

Today we might have the wherewithall to replace the piece of plywood we removed from the adjacent wall. We’ll mix more epoxy to coat the edges. The day after that we might be able to do the final piece which will finish the structural repair inside, except for the finish work such as trim and paint.

I’m pretty certain that at this breakneck pace we’ll have this repair completed by our July 10 date with Mr. Fiberglass Guy down in Olympia. We figured we would be able to cut loose from south Puget Sound right after the fiberglass repair was done and the mizzen mast replaced.

But, alas, we may not reach escape velocity even then. There is a garden party at our house for all the people who couldn’t go to Scotland for Claire and Dan’s wedding. It’s scheduled for July 22 and I don’t really want to miss it. Since we’ll likely be in Olympia through July 15 or so, it’s not asking too much to stay a little longer for the party.  After that, we should be good. Maybe that will be our fond farewell to friends and family?  No plans are ever firm anymore.

Sailboats race around the anchorage on Thursday nights.

Meanwhile, we live in Gig Harbor for awhile, seeing this town in a whole new way.  In terms of anchorages, it’s really great. The dinghy dock is safe, there is a regular Trolley that goes to the shopping district, and the harbor is filled with all varieties of interesting boats from big powerboats to lovely sailboats, even a real gondola from Italy. There are good restaurants and coffee shops nearby and lots of streets to explore to get our walks in. We’ve discovered a few small things that need fixing, now that we are using all the boat systems away from the dock,  and it’s a convenient place from which to order parts while we can still have them delivered to us at the house. In all, we can stay here happily for awhile.

Eventually we will make our way north with the continued plan to head south about the time the Coho ho ho goes south, which is the end of August-early September.  We won’t be joining the Ho Ho, but we will leave around the same time, depending on weather, of course.