Category Archives: Preparing to cruise

Pass the Potato Casserole, Please

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Lately on this blog it looks like life is all about the yard and getting it whipped into a shape that can be maintained by someone else, in particular my nephew, Reid, of the Zaal NoFlex Digestor trials. He’s at the age where he’s just young enough that he can’t get gainful employment, but just old enough to know the value of a dollar, plus he’s a hard worker and really smart. So he just found himself a job as our new “Gardener”. I figure I have maybe two good years of letting him be the yard guy before he can get a job closer to home. I look forward to training him on the finer points of weeding.

Reid fishing in the Sea of Cortez. We had a dandy time with him and my sister when they came to visit.

What has been less apparent from this blog is all the weeding that has been going on inside the home. Of course we did most of this kind of stuff; the going through closets and boxes and the like and getting rid of meaningless crap; before we left the house the first time, waaay back in 2016. While all the work I did is sure making my life easier now, what remains is the stuff that I chose to keep way back in that other life when I could actually afford to live in this house because we both had jobs. Now I am forced to choose what I absolutely want to keep from things I actually like and care about, or at  least are useful and I’d have to replace once this wild hair about cruising is over. I’m talking about  things like this cement maple leaf that I made during the years when I spent hours playing with different formulas of cement in order to get a product that would hold up without being too heavy. It took me a year of tinkering to get to this formula, which is now lost to the ghosts of posterity. I love this thing and will keep it until the day I die. I will leave my kids to fight over it when I’m gone. I consider this an heirloom.

The mold for this was made from one of the leaves of our big maple tree out back, the one that was recently given a haircut. It’s about 17″ across.

Lots of families have heirlooms they pass down from one generation to the next and while that has kind of gone out of style lately, what with the younger folks not wanting to be weighed down with ‘stuff’ and all that, we still have a certain amount of bequeathing going on around here. (Hello, Maple Leaf.)  But aside from physical things that represent important parts of our family history together, what I really don’t want to lose is the food. Maybe it’s because I’ve been on a rigid routine of balancing the scales of justice, if not the actual scale in my bedroom, since my months of over indulgence on fine Mexican tacos and alcohol in the Sea of Cortez. Maybe I’m just hungry. But regardless of my dreams of literally eating cake, food is an important part of our family culture and I bet that’s true of your family’s, too.

Yeah, I cannot find it in myself to get rid of this Better Homes and Gardens cookbook I bought before we got married. Some things are just sacred.

If this makes it sound like I still have remnants of that potato casserole my mother made in 1974 hanging around in a box somewhere, well, I’m not actually THAT bad (although Mike’s opinion might differ). But I do have her recipe. It’s written in a tiny book that she gave me years ago where she wrote all of her favorite recipes that were somehow important in our family culture. I call it the “Little Hippopotamus Book ” and not for the reason you think. Sure, there are hippos on the cover, and yes, if I always ate like the recipes in the book I’d be about the size of a baby hippo. But also hippos are symbolic of motherhood and these recipes are from my mother. So now you’ve learned something useful here. I live to serve.

The Little Hippopotamus Book. Well loved and used.

I have her recipe for Beef Bourguignon, Candy Cake, Frozen Salad, and the delicious and terribly terrible-for-you Potato Casserole. Absolutely none of these recipes is in any way healthy. They are all loaded with delicious fat and sugar and carbohydrates and that’s what makes them so good. It’s also why I haven’t made them in years. That Frozen Salad though!  When I came across that one I began to wonder how I could make that on the boat. Memories of that creamy coolness sliding across the palate… they came rushing back in a most visceral way. I cannot lose these recipes! But the little book is falling apart. What to do?

The little book. Falling apart with age and use now.

Enter the new world of computer Apps.  For several years I have been using an App named Mealboard, which is about the dumbest name I can think of for an application that is this clever and useful. In a nutshell, Mealboard allows me to add new recipes, sometimes directly from websites, categorize them, and plan meals and create shopping lists from those plans. It’s simple to use and since I’ve been using it for probably 4 years or more, I can attest to it being bulletproof. I can log in on line, where the typing is easier on my computer, input recipes to their simple and intuitive platform, then sync the application with the one on my phone. This gives me easy access to all my recipes even when I’m offline in the Sea of Cortez. If you are gearing up to go cruising, take a look at Mealboard if you are looking for a way to organize your recipes.

To add a new recipe, just click on “new recipe”. To import from one of the websites they have connected with, click on “import recipe”.

One of the best things about this application is that you can enter a recipe via regular text typing, then hit ‘done’ and it will show up in the dedicated columns on the recipe page. If I want to copy a recipe on line, I just copy the ingredients into this page and it populates the correct boxes with that information. Then I simply copy and paste the directions into the appropriate box. There is a place for you to reference the website so you’ll always know where you got the recipe. You can also add a photo if you like. There is a place for notes as well, so you can put in variations or additional information.

Easily type all the ingredients in the text box. Then hit done and the ingredients show up like this:’

Notice that the cheese didn’t get put in the correct grocery category. That’s because I used the words ‘sharp cheddar’, rather than ‘cheddar, sharp’. I can easily correct that on this screen by using the dropdown menu if it’s important to me.

So yesterday I began adding all the recipes from that little book Mom gave me years ago; the one that’s falling apart now and the pages yellowing with age. I’ll be able to get rid of the book, knowing I won’t lose the vision into 1970’s eating and church potlucks that it represents for me. The tastes, smells, feelings of repletion are saved for posterity, I hope. I do admit to being a little hesitant to ever throw away a hard copy of anything. What if the internet goes away? How will I get my recipes? That’s a rabbit hole I’m not prepared to engage with.

Now what to do with the same kind of book I created for my own kids? It has my famous ‘never the same twice’ Chicken Soup, my spicy and thick  Beef Chili, Mom’s Famous and Delicious Chicken Salad (that would be me, not my own mom), and the family favorite ‘Goria’s Taco Soup’, so loaded with carbs you’re sure to be bloated after eating a bowl. For the cookie monsters among us there is the Christmas favorite ‘Molasses Platter Cookies’, the recipe for which exists on an old Tacoma newspaper clipping from 1986.  And speaking of Christmas, I would never want to lose the recipe for the incredibly important French Breakfast Donuts that we have only on Christmas morning with our mimosas. Do my kids want to carry around a book of my old recipes from their childhoods? Probably not. Maybe I’ll just give them my Log in information for MealBoard before I die.

The book I created for my own kids is a little fancier with some useful general information included.

Here are a couple of those fabulous 70’s recipes Mom passed down to me. You might enjoy them, too. And if you have a favorite recipe I can add to my Mealboard App, post it in the comments!

Frozen Salad

Bananas
Crushed, drained pineapple
Strawberries
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup sour cream
chopped pecans
1 large carton CoolWhip

You be the judge of how much fruit you want, but I think the pineapple is just one can. Cut up the fruit and mix it together with the lemon juice and sour cream. Fold this mixture into the CoolWhip and then freeze in a pan. Cut into pieces to enjoy.

Potato Casserole

2 pounds hashbrowns
1/2 cup melted butter
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 pint sour cream
1/2 tsp pepper, or to your taste
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
2 cups grated cheese

Optional topping: 1/4 cup melted butter mixed with 2 cups crushed cornflakes. I highly recommend this addition.

Combine hashbrowns with all the rest of the ingredients except topping. Put in 3 quart casserole, greased. Sprinkle topping over the whole thing. You might need two batches of topping if you want it to really be good. Bake at 350F for 45 minutes of until crispy and brown.

Easy to freeze recipe so maybe for your next blue water passage?

French Breakfast Donuts

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar (half cup for donuts, 1/2 for rolling)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup milk
1 beaten egg
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon

Sift flour with 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Combine milk, egg, butter, vanilla.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir just until moistened. Do not over stir or they will be tough. Bake in muffin tins at 400F for 20 minutes until golden. Remove from pan while still warm and roll in the remaining sugar mixed with the cinnamon. I brush the tops with more melted butter before rolling. Because why not?

What are your favorite family recipes? I’m ready to add to my repertoire.

 

Notes from the Sailor’s Log: July 27, 2015

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We are back at Friday Harbor  after spending two days with my sister, Amy, and her family at Stuart Island. It was a wonderful interlude having the opportunity to meet them up here on their boat and have nephew Reid, of the holding tank finale fame, be the first to stay in the V berth/guest room. It was a last hurrah with some family before we actually do this thing and take off.

We hiked to the light house for some beautiful views.

Now we are seriously gearing up for our first multi-night passage. Today we pulled up to the fuel dock to fuel/water/propane up. Tomorrow we’ll do some provisioning of fresh foods and produce for the passage. It’s looking like we’ll leave Friday Harbor and turn right into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on Wednesday or Thursday. Our tentative plan, once we sail out of the strait, is to get offshore about 100 miles, or wherever the good wind is. We’d like to be well off the coast, with its weather systems. We’ll be using Predict Wind to do our weather routing. Our first planned stop on this leg will be the San Fransisco area.

If you want to track our progress, look for the link at the end of the post to our page on Farkwar.Com. That is a location page updated by satellite about once a day, or however often we turn on the Iridium Go.  My personal FB page will also stay updated with with posts from our Iridium Go. Unfortunately I cannot post to the Little Cunning Plan page, only to my personal FB page.

Stuart Island

Mike is furiously finalizing the tweaks to the Hydrovane installation, which is made more difficult on Galapagos due to the compound curve on our stern. He’s using the Portland Pudgy as a work platform to give him access to the underneath part of the swim step. We continue to be impressed by what that little boat can do. Meanwhile I am getting the boat interior ready to go offshore and preparing meals in advance so I don’t have to think about food much while we are underway.

Having a dinghy to work in makes this job less fraught with the peril of dropping stuff in the water.

As I was clearing out and securing the books, which would certainly go flying across the salon if left as they were, I came across my personal logbook from our Vancouver Island trip in 2015 and found the pages I wrote after my first night watch on that trip. I thought it was worth putting this on the blog because we learned so much on that overnight sail. It wasn’t our first overnight, but it was the one I remember best. I’m just publishing this verbatim. It was written at 7:00 am at the beginning of my morning watch. I remember being so glad the sun was up and wanting to get my impressions of the watch down on paper as fast as possible. Although we had a 3/4 moon, it was very dark out there. We were sailing from Vancouver Island into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Don’t analyze the directions of wind and waves too much. I have no idea if my sleeping brain was accurate with those.

“Just on watch from passing out for 4 hours. Stood watch last night from 10-2AM, but couldn’t bring myself to wake Mike, so stayed until 3:00am. Was falling asleep in the cockpit in spite of the lumpy conditions by 3:00. Wind from one quarter, steep seas with short interval from another. Originally had jib and jigger arrangement, then during his watch  before me Mike turned motor on to try to smooth the ride. That was slightly helpful. On my watch as we passed the corner of Vanouver Island, I brought in the jib, which was not helping much no matter which direction I wanted to go. We had already gone south as far as we dared, but even that wouldn’t have helped. At least it was a lovely night with a 3/4 moon. I could occasionally see the water.

I could see a cruise ship in the distance lit up like Broadway. I wondered if he saw us as his AIS was turned off, on ‘sleep’ mode. Then I noticed I could not tell if our running lights were on. Mike had said they were when we changed shifts, but I couldn’t tell and got anxious about it. I crawled forward to check. Nope, not on. Great. Crawled back, flipped some of the poorly labeled switches in the cockpit, crawled forward again, all the while thinking how my kayak was in the way and how my knees couldn’t do this for long. But standing up was not an option because the conditions were lumpy and Mike is never going to come on watch and find me gone from being stupid. Still no lights. Think. Think. Some angel of deliverance whispered ‘check breaker panel below’ and voila! Let there be running lights, praise Jesus and all his friends.

Stuart Island

The ship passed without incident and I basked in the Christmas tree glow of having solved that problem with only disembodied help. This also allowed me to fine tune the radar since I could now identify the cruise ship on radar and see how it would show up. Our radar is old and there is a lot of background ‘noise’ on it. But it works. I could barely keep my eyes off it. Scan radar, scan GPS, scan water (ha!), scan horizon (double HAHA!) keep scanning over and over and over. Darkness is profound.

The mizzen sail needed to be dropped but I wasn’t going to attempt this with the boat wallowing like a pig in slop. I tightened the lines to keep it from flapping, crawling on hands and knees, again.

I needed to furl the headsail a bit. Getting it furled was interesting. I did not want to go on deck because I would need to stand up on the side deck to haul it in, and would need both hands, leaving no hands for holding onto the boat. The line barely made it to the big winch forward of the main winches. I was able to pull enough line to get 1 wrap on the winch, but these are old style winches with no self-tailers. I still needed three hands to turn the winch, tail the line, and slowly release tension on the sail. It’s not as if there was no wind, and this is the pity. There was plenty of wind coming from the NE. We needed to go east into the strait and the swells were coming from the south east. Ugly. I turned us up a bit and let off enough tension on the sail to put a few turns on the winch. Then let off a little more, and a few more turns. It’s a big sail. I was able to do this while straddling the cockpit combing, which kept me stable. If we had a self-tailer on that winch, or a longer line, it would be pretty easy to pull in the genoa from the cockpit.

So we motored into the current as the tide had turned against us and I adapted course so at least most of the swells rumbled underneath us. Funny how even I, with my poorly working ears, can tell when the rumbling changes, even when it’s dark. Soon I was able to work out that when a low growly rumble passed under the boat, shiver me timbers, we would shortly be knocked the hell about until that one passed. About every 7-8 swells was a growler. No way to avoid them.

So I set course for Port San Juan and I let Mike sleep through his 2:00am time. By 3:00am I was passing out in the cockpit so very glad to be relieved and lesson learned. I immediately fell into a deep sleep to the drone of the engine and the slap of waves against the hull and awoke exactly at 7:00am, when I was due on deck. Somehow. Now, after writing this, I feel a bit alive, a big cup of stout coffee under my belt. You know what they say. The best part of waking up is Folger’s in your cup. So true.

Mike got us through the worst of the current against us on his watch and now we are picking up speed again, but wind has not filled in. I can see Port San Juan, but I think we’ll just keep going. ”     End. 

The new sail is a joy.

Lots of things are different for this coming passage including:
1. Jacklines and tethers with offshore PFDs. While on night watches we will be tethered in the cockpit, and on deck with tethers that are short enough to keep us on board. Our firm rule is no one goes forward on deck while on watch alone. We have to wake the other person.
2. A new and longer line for furling the headsail, making furling easy using a good winch from the cockpit.
3. New labels on the cockpit switches
4. Mike and I agree we will just do that hard thing and wake the other person at their assigned watch time, no matter how much that hurts.
5. We’ll be sailing at night with reefed (sails made smaller) sails, no matter if we think we’ll need them or not. It’s better to go more slowly and not have anyone go out on deck to reduce sail in the dark.
6. Our new headsail is a 125% instead of a 135% (so that much smaller). We’re going to like that better and it is much easier to handle.

As always, it’s a learning in progress. We will be very conservative, given that it’s our first multi-night passage. As always, your thoughts, ideas, and sharing what has worked on your passages is welcome.

S/V Galapagos, out.

We found this wee beastie on Stuart Island close to the light house. Just a bitty baby garter snake, but so fierce!

Top Ten Game Changers

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While we were anchored in Port Ludlow nursing our wounds after the headsail fail we met a fella that owns a new-to-him big old boat and is dreaming of his own cruising future. He was interested in our story, we were interested in his, and we ended up visiting for a long time and getting a tour of his extremely cool circa 1970’s Monk 50 foot sailboat. It’s going to be just stunning when he’s finished with all the projects. We sure remember those days of unlimited projects, since they’ve actually never ended.

Mike looking at the damage to our headsail in Port Ludlow.  Another project.

One of the things we talked about was what things made cruising/living on a boat better for us, especially since he wants his wife to be happy cruising and she’s not the experienced sailor he is. In other words, what things have we added or bought that have really turned out to be totally worth the effort or cost in terms of making living aboard and cruising more comfortable and satisfying. I’ve been giving this some thought and here’s my current list of the top ten things we love. I’m not going to include safety items on this list; only things that improve the liveabilty of a boat, reduce tension in otherwise anxiety-provoking situations,  or make things easier on us as human beings in the autumn of our lives. After all, living on a boat is not always an easy thing. All things take more effort and small comforts make a huge difference to both of us.

  1. Sena bluetooth headsets. We have the SPH10 model.  In terms of game changers, these are high on the list. We use them all the time and even with my hearing disability we can communicate clearly with each other from anywhere on the boat, or even when one of us is on the boat and the other on shore. Recently we avoided a grounding when pulling up to the crane to have our mizzen mast installed because I was on the dock and could relay information from shore to Mike at the helm. That day they might have paid for themselves. We bought ours used from other cruisers, but if we’d known how much we would love them we would have bought them years ago new. We wear them 100% of the time when anchoring or docking and it has made a huge difference. Sure, we can use hand signals, but sometimes it is hard to see the other person and these units make having a calm conversation a reality even in tense situations. Frankly, I just cannot say enough good things about them.

    Although they fit fairly securely, I’ve put lanyards on them to avoid losing them should they blow off in high wind.

  2. Our aft cabin mattresses. Long time readers will remember that we perseverated over those mattresses for months. It was such a hard decision. In the end, we have hands down the most comfortable bed we’ve ever had. The biggest payoff was that 3″ latex top layer. Our berth is three layers starting with dense foam, then medium foam, then the latex. The mattress is 8″ high, which is high by boat standards. We chose natural latex from Sleep On Latex for the top layer. They have an excellent product at a very reasonable price. We will never go back to memory foam.

    That top layer is luxurious natural latex.

  3. The Food Saver heat sealer. We bought ours at Costco as they have the best price and frequently put them on sale. We use it not only to vacuum pack meat and fruit for the freezer, but also to store entire cases of things like toilet paper and paper towels in a fraction of the space usually required. Mike bought a case of oil absorbent pads that took up almost two square feet of space. The heat sealer stored packs of ten of these almost flat, meaning they can be stored under the sole and out of the way. In addition, I can use this with our small inverter at anchor. The sealing bags are re-useable, cutting down on trash.

    This is an entire case of toilet paper, two to each package, stored way in the back of the cabinet under the sink.

  4. The latex seat cushions in the cockpit. Damn I hope these hold up to the heat in the tropics. I made these from the scraps of latex left over from the aft cabin mattresses. We have Bottom Sider type cushions in the cockpit, but I actually hate them. They are hard, hot, and do not add much to the comfort of the cockpit when we are at anchor or on an easy sail or motor trip. The latex cushions add a layer of luxury and keep my hind end from hurting at the end of the day. Of course, they must be stored below when we are sailing hard on the wind, but it’s a small price to pay for the comfort they provide the 90% of the time we can use them. Should they fail me in the tropics, because they are pieces of latex glued together, then I will be ordering a twin size topper and making new ones.

    Cheerful and comfortable for sitting and sleeping.

  5. The cockpit mat I made from an outdoor rug from World Market. One edge of this hasn’t held up that well over time, but if you have a walking foot machine you would be able to do a better job than I did. We still love it and it’s still making that cockpit cheerful and easy on the feet. We’ll take it up for ocean passages, but for coastal cruising, it’s great.

    Stays in place even when on a heel.

  6. The fold down countertop extension in the galley. This small project has paid huge dividends. We use this many times in a day. People who live on boats understand that to find what you’re looking for in the fridge, the rule is that you have to unload the entire thing because what you want will be on the bottom. This project offers us a place to unload the fridge without putting things on the stove or across the galley. Love at first use.

    In the ‘deployed’ position.

    In the locked down position. And it doesn’t budge under sail.

  7. Hot water at anchor. Need I say more? Having a hot shower at the end of a long day of travel, on your own boat, is one of life’s greatest pleasures.
  8. The Engle freezer. We have ice at anchor. Do you? Because if you don’t, you don’t know what you are missing. It’s quiet, efficient, and I can pack a ton of frozen food in that thing by repackaging with my Food Saver food sealer. But really, the ice is the main thing.
  9. Our Magna Cart. We use this thing all the time. It made getting that heavy sail down to the dinghy from the sail loft dead easy. It makes grocery shopping a breeze.

    The Magna Cart on duty carrying a full propane tank.

  10. Our Nikon Prostaff 550 Range Finder. If I want to know, and I most assuredly DO want to know, how far our boat is from the next boat or from those crunchy rocks, I want an actual data point, not something like ‘far enough’. This little unit tells me exactly how many yards we are from the nearest boat eating object. We both love this. Our unit is no longer available, but there are others in the same line. If you live on a boat and travel, what things have you added that improve your comfort and ease of living? There’s a guy in Port Ludlow with a 50 foot Monk sailboat who wants to know!