Chicken, Chard, and Chocolate
Tonight's dinner was definitely one for the books. Amazingly moist chicken with colorful rainbow chard. For desert nearly-no-sugar oatmeal cookies. Chicken Oven to 450° Cut a pocket into the chicken breast and fill with olive tapenade and mozarella cheese. Lay chicken into a shallow olive-oiled baking dish and sprinkle with goddess dressing and parmesan. Bake for about half and hour. Chard Separate the leaves from the stems. Chop stems and cook in olive oil for about 5 [...]
Medical Kit
I've been very preoccupied with putting together First Aid Kits - for the boat, the house and the cars. The photo below is of the current contents of our boat kit. There are countless sources online that will help in putting together a great medical kit for every imaginable use - ranging from weekend to offshore use. We certainly don't plan on going offshore in our tiny vessel, but someday, when we have "The Big Boat", we will need [...]
The Greatest Cleaner
I scrubbed my little hands raw this weekend cleaning the boat after a long, wet Oregon winter. Webfoot was covered in green slime and I've been dreading cleaning day. After reading about Bar Keepers Friend on another website I got the inspiration I needed to get me going. First I tried it on our kitchen sink and shower in the house. After noticing that the stuff appeared to keep on working after I hosed it off I was [...]
Our Favorite Boat Snack
Meals on board are always a nice time to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the sail or scenery. One of our favorite boat snacks (it's a meal really) is crackers with cheese and salami. It's quick and easy, creates hardly any dishes, and the "consumer" can get creative in decorating their crackers. Add a variety of yummy mustards or dips to make each bite unique! TIPS: If your plates don't have rubber bottoms lay down a [...]
Garbage Can Potatoes
We love potatoes! Yes, yes, I know, waaaay too many carbs. I try to replace them with mashed parsnips or celery root but my captain won't hear of it. Must be his northern European roots. So this year we are trying to grow our own. In a holey garbage can! Basically you are supposed to fill the can about half way with some nice organic soil, add seed potatoes, some more soil and then keep it watered. [...]
The boat before The Big Boat
Our current boat is 26 feet long and sits on a trailer in our driveway. This is our (second) practice boat. The one we can afford to make more mistakes on. We bought it with the name of Webfoot which suits us just fine. It is a sail-/motor-boat, which means it doesn't do either one of those functions very well. It has a 50 horse power outboard which doesn't quite get it up on a plane and [...]
Hawaii…
We stayed on the island for ten glorious days, but my favorite day was spent renting a kayak and paddling across Kealakekua Bay to go snorkeling. It is said that below the Captain Cook Monument is the best snorkeling on the island. Here is our favorite photo taken with our underwater camera.
The search for the perfect cookie
Since we've sworn off nearly everything deemed unhealthy (sugar, flour, you name it), the other captain has really been missing his cookies. I've been doing a lot of experimentation and have finally found a recipe that seems to satisfy his cravings. These are also great dipped into some melted cocoa. I found this pure, organic, sugar-free cocoa powder. Coconut Macaroons 1-1/4 cups unsweetened shredded coconut Dash of teaspoon cinnamon 2 egg whites, beaten 1 teaspoon raw honey [...]
Happy New Year
We had a wonderful New Year's! We drove up to Seattle and stayed at our favorite hotel on Lake Union. We enjoyed our last dinner in 2009 at Branzinos and then watched the fireworks shooting out of the Space Needle! In all the years I have lived in the Pacific Northwest I had no idea how awesome those fireworks are. Definitely worth weathering the cold and rain.
Florida Charter – Day 16
We departed Sanibell Island with the rising sun and sailed to Cayo Costa State Park for our last night aboard. What a beautiful place. We finally got to see a manatee! We celebrated our last night with the best margaritas this side of the border! The recipe is below and can be found on GalleySwap - our recipe sharing community. The next morning we pulled anchor early to get back to the Burnt Store Marina and return [...]
Florida Charter – Day 15
We did the same drill as the morning before however this time we retraced our path to Big Marco Pass to get back to the Gulf. The wind was on the nose the whole day and we motored and then we motored some more and then motored some more after that. Thankfully the small diesel engine purrs softly and with the fifteen to twenty knot wind it is hard to tell that we are even moving. Is [...]
Florida Charter – Day 14
There was a light fog in the morning and we got up early. It was warm without the wind and I dove into the water and swam for the beach. The place was deserted and with the fog we could not see the hi rise condos on Big Marco. It was almost like being out there... somewhere without the experience we had yesterday with the marina. We wanted to get going early and after putting on some [...]
Florida Charter – Day 13
We woke up at the Marco River Marina a third time in expectations that there would be a mechanic at the boat when promised, at 09:00. He showed up after 10:00, after going through the list of problems his only comment was "that is weird". Another alternator was installed and we got a call while we were out scoping out an anchorage close by saying that the boat was ready. The third time was a charm and [...]
Florida Charter – Day 12
We had a great day of very leisurely sailing. The water was an incredible blue-green as we were close to shore all day. We contacted Yachting Vacations and they said they will have someone out tomorrow morning to replace the alternator. We arrived back at Marco River Marina near sunset. This gave me a chance to try out the Key Lime Pie recipe from our cruising guide. It tasted amazing! I have made it with regular limes [...]
Florida Charter – Day 11
We had a beautiful day of exploring, swimming, and fishing. The wind stopped dead at sunset and we got to experience some more of the wonders of the Everglades. The bugs! We had to lock ourselves inside of the boat and decided that we better leave in the morning. We had also been noticing that the batteries hadn't been charging when we ran the engine so we needed to have another repair done and decided to head [...]
Florida Charter – Day 10
Happy Halloween! We have found our small paradise and aren't leaving until the bugs come back. We explored various beaches around Panther Key, Hog Key, and Round Key. The wind really kicked up the afternoon so we went back to the boat to make sure we weren't dragging anchor.
Florida Charter – Day 9
We left Indian Key around 10:30am and sailed for a couple of hours to Panther Key. This area of the Everglades is called the "10,000 Islands" and there are literally 10,000 islands. Some as small as one single tree. A 'key' is a small, low-elevation, sandy island. In this area most of them are covered in mangroves and inaccessible, but towards the Gulf, sand is able to build up around the edges. We were lucky in that [...]
Florida Charter – Day 8
We left Marco River Marina at 10:00am and headed south in search of white sand beaches. We had read that a place called Indian Key in the Everglades had just that. We arrived there around sunset and found the suggested anchorage to be less than stellar with only a very small beach. We went farther up into the channel towards Everglades City and found a nice sheltered spot among the mangroves. This was our first time using [...]
Florida Charter – Day 7
We had been promised the arrival of Mike from Yachting Vacations at 9:00-9:30am. He arrived at 10:30am. He started on fixing the battery issue right away but it took him until nearly 6:00pm. We walked to the market to buy a few fresh items, have some lunch and then took the dinghy out to do some exploring. This area is covered in mangroves which drop their leaves into the water making the water anything but clear. But [...]
Florida Charter – Day 6
We left early and headed toward the Dry Tortugas. There was a lot of wind and the seas were building. We had also seen some lightning toward the south so we decided to put in at Marco Island Marina. After a few hours at sea I noticed and odd smell in the cabin. At first I thought it was the engine until I felt the settee above the batteries. It was super-hot! I got Mike (who was [...]