Resuscitating Shoe Leather (Pressure Cooking “Lessons”)

Good for hiking, but not for eating.  GWT eats humble pie.....

Cruising invites cooking techniques that use less power and unlock nutritious ingredients with low perish ability – like dried chick peas (garbanzos).  Plus, stove top versus oven cooking heats up the boat less – important in tropical climes, important given our bad BBQ karma (when we’ve had one, ours is usually not working).

Given that, even while we’re not cruising, as a relative pressure cooker newbie (click here for “Don’t Blow the Boat Up” for more pressure cooking insights), I’m still trying to sharpen my pressure cooking skills.  Besides, the heat index in Jacksonville FL in the summer often tops 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and our low budget temporary apartment air conditioner wasn’t working well and we didn’t have a BBQ.

Pressure Cooker aficionados treat them as the hammer to nail any food, so when I bought a nice thick London Broil (seemed too thick for stove top cooking), I found some online resources for using a pressure cooker to prepare it. 

Wayne as usual, was dubious, though given most of his culinary expertise tends towards Frito pies and reheating, his skepticism did not dissuade me.  This time, however, he was right.

The consistency was that of a very very well cooked brisket.... Wayne described it as shoe leather; I would amend that to wet, crumbly shoe leather.  Not what I had in mind for my Southwestern Steak Salad, which Wayne had been begging for, for a while. 

What to do?  I hate throwing food away if there’s another viable option. It made a great stew – a whole lotta really meaty stew.

Takeaway?  Pressure cooking is not the technique to use for medium rare meat. 

Wayne did eventually get the Southwestern Steak Salad; the meat was broiled on a night I was willing to use the oven.  And it was good.

What are your pressure cooking disasters or breakthroughs?  Please share!

Location, Location

We are currently working over hurricane season in Jacksonville FL; this time with our boat “on the hard” in Green Cove Springs, until just before we leave in November, bound for the South Pacific via the Panama Canal.  There’s still lots of retrospectives with great coming up, but as “the galley wench” I was overdue for a cruiser-worthy food blog.

Odd Juxtaposition

Goats; made in the shade of tHatchet Bay Eleuthera Bahama's BTC building.

"There's an experimental farm up there....  Organics.... Sounds interesting to me, but if you're no up for it, that's okay,"  temporized Andy. Little did he know, we're fans of that closed system farming style, expounded by investigative writer Michael Pollan, probably best known for his book "The Omnivore's Dilemma."

It was the start of our second Eleuthera daylong road trip.  Andy and Ann once again were our companionable partners in crime, if rental car abuse is a crime.

BTC tower o' goats.

"Sure. Why not?" Wayne replied.  If not for Andy. we would've bypassed Cape Eleuthera Institute (watch for more on that in a future post; meanwhile click here for their website) on our prior communal road trip.  That, coupled with checking out the institutes's recommended treat (watch for more on that in a future post, too) were the highlights of that day.

"Turn here!" Andy directed; Wayne cornered quickly.

Ann, spotter of goats.

Bumpity-bump down yet another dirt "road."  We are no strangers to those roads, and consider them  part of our adventure.  They're free roller-coasters without rails.  Less smooth, and their thrill is less about carefully crafted g-forces and more about their sheer unpredictability.  Nothing litigious fearing U.S. theme park would dare....

The farm  was a bust.  Twas long enough abandoned that even the scant remaining debris was uninteresting; though I'm one of those odd ducks who often finds decay more intriguing than modernity.  

Pretty sure that seated black billy ruled these roustabouts.

But wait!  The road less traveled paid off in an amusingly odd juxtaposition, we'd never otherwise seen.

Surrounding (and I do mean surrounding) the nearest Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) facility -- provider of our ocean-accessible $30/2.5 GB Internet connection/hotspot -- goats!  LOTS of goats.  Gaggles (doesn't that sound better than "herds"?) of goats -- billy goats, mama goats, baby goats, randy goats, sleepy goats, rambunctious goats.... sleeping in the shade of the BTC building's porch, tucking, catlike, underneath the BTC truck, clambering up the BTC phone tower.

Sorry, AT&T.  BTC's more my idea of mobilizing the world.  Goats.

Road between Eleuthera's Hatchet Bay Caves and local BTC office.

Location Location
BAHAMAS retrospective.  This blog post is a recent retrospective of our road trip out of Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera, BAHAMAS (N25.20.962 W76.47.384) April 28, 2014.  Now that my cruising season photos are finally re-accessible (yay!), watch for more BAHAMAS retrospectives; though my broken right wrist is slowing down my posting catch-up.  We are currently working over hurricane season in Jacksonville FL; this time with our boat “on the hard” in Green Cove Springs, until just before we leave in November, bound for the South Pacific via the Panama Canal.

Serendipity @ Conception: Unlikely Cruiser's Reunion

Small part of Kim's impromptu gathering on Conception Island.

BAHAMAS pristine, primitive, uninhabited Conception Island is 15 miles from Long Island’s Cape Santa Maria and 20 miles from our Rum Cay anchorage (click here for an earlier post overviewing Conception Island). 

Who would’ve figured it for an unexpected reunion with four other previously befriended cruiser crews?  And an impromptu beach party, instigated by one of them?

Early November 2012 we were finally joined in the rolly ghost town anchorage of French Territory Martinique’s capital city, Fort Du France.  Amazingly, the other boat bore a stars-and-stripes U.S.A. ensign flag.   Since September, we’d met only briefly two other cruising crews from the U.S.A.  We dinghied by and introduced ourselves to Kim and Scott of Bella Blue and left, hours later. 

Kim puzzles, justifiably, over how her husband Scott stuck her
with holding my kayak.  Oh, Kim, I am so sorry, and
embarrassed about it still!

We had the pleasure of getting re-acquainted with Scott and Kim off and on up until late January 2013 in St. Barts, when we sojourned slowly back to the States to work for hurricane season and Bella Blue sailed down to ride out the hurricane season in Grenada.

Kim, on Bella Blue instigated a spontaneous just-before-sunset “drinks and floaty toys” boats-in-the-marina party, which everyone from all 18 boats in the bay came to.  It evolved into a BBQ potluck, and for the most part lasted from sunset and a bit beyond.

Heading down the intracoastal waterway (ICW) we kept hearing about another sailing vessel also named Journey.  There was some predictable amusing confusion when we checked into the St. Augustine City FL city marina between their reservations and ours at the same marina within a day of each other.  We met, briefly, in Bimini’s marina, then went our separate ways.  We noticed they were among the 300+ boats when we were in Georgetown, but never connected up.  But, a day before we left Conception, Drena and JR of (the other) Journey (blogsite sailingjourney.net) hailed us on their way in.  Ironically, our prior boat was an O’Day, their boat, Journey, is an O’Day, though radically different makes and models (theirs is a 35’ 1986 ours was a 27’ 1977).

Scott and Kim and Hunter and Devi in the Conception mangroves.

Right before we left Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida Keys, we met Pers of Hug in the marina community center.  Though Norwegian, Per’s English is excellent and he was really fun to talk to.  We loaned him our Bruce Van Sant’s “Thornless Path to Windward” when we heard he was headed to Cuba to see his son act in a movie there.  We briefly bumped into Pers in Georgetown in March, after his trip to Cuba, then, again, in Conception.  In Conception. we also got to know his delightful wife Alva, who was’t sailing with Pers when he was in Boot Key.
 

We were about to leave Conception when we got a VHF call from Ron and Dee of Ursa Minor – from right behind us on Conception Island’s anchorage.  We became friends with Ron and Dee of Ursa Minor in Jacksonville, where we all rode out hurricane season together in the delightful social atmosphere of Ortega Landing Marina.  They left for Marathon FL Keys a bit before us, and left from there to the Bahamas a bit before us as well.  To our pleasure, we continued to catch up with each other.  We last saw Ron and Dee in Georgetown, Exumas, about a month prior and weren’t sure of we’d see them again.  We stayed an extra day to hang out with Ron and Dee.

Bronzed Wayne on Conception Island's beach, with Dee
scaling the slope and Ron in between the two.

Will we meet the friendly folks from Bella Blue, Ursa Minor, Hug or Journey again?

We have no idea;  if, when or where.  Nor do they.  We hope to.  Our lives are richer for the pleasure of each other’s company, sharing this unique and rarified life.  Besides, it’s nice to hang out with folks who don’t consider us crazy for doing what we do.

In the meantime we sincerely wish each other fair winds and following seas, both on the water and in life.

Location Location

BAHAMAS retrospective.  This blog post is a recent retrospective of our visit to Conception Island, BAHAMAS (N23.51.033 W75.07.298) April 13–16, 2014.  Now that my cruising season photos are finally re-accessible (yay!), watch for more BAHAMAS retrospectives; though my broken right wrist is slowing down my posting catch-up.  We are currently working over hurricane season in Jacksonville FL; this time with our boat “on the hard” in Green Cove Springs, until just before we leave in November, bound for the South Pacific via the Panama Canal.  We did meet with Ron and Dee of Ursa Minor this month, and also with our friends Allen and Michelle of Incommunicado.

The Road Less Traveled (Eleuthera!)

One of many get-out-and-walk-so-the–car-won’t-bottom-out

sections on Eleuthera’s back roads.  Remembering to drive

on the left side?  Child’s play, in comparison. 

Eleuthera?  It wasn’t even on our itinerary.  Yet it was one of my favorites stops of our Bahamas cruising season. 

We went there on just one cruiser’s recommendation, and simply because it was a logical stop on an alternate route back.

Sure, we love the Exumas, and agree if time is short, that’s the “don’t miss” destination of the Bahamas.  How can you bypass a place so exotic they’ve shot Bond movies there? 

And cruising the remote Raggeds and Jumentos are worthy of bragging rights, given how relatively few of us make there to enjoy its pristine splendor.  Yes, undeniably, they’re right up there in our Bahamas winter 2013 - spring 2014 cruising season hit parade.  We understand why fisherman flock to that area, cruisers bond with each other and those few hardy and hospitable locals lucky enough to call that area home.

Exploring Eleuthera's Queen's Baths before we took a dip.

But Eleuthera?  We didn’t know a darned thing about it, other than how to get there.  And so we did.  But then what?

Enter Trip Advisor (click here for their great list of Eleuthera “Things to Do”—well worth combing not only for ideas but also for explicit directions to otherwise almost-impossible-to-find-places), a keen sense of adventure and our equally adventurous buddy boaters Ann aka Krazy Lady and Andy of sv Amante, and two very full days with Wayne’s exceptional dirt road (really -- off road) rental car driving prowess.  Plus, thanks to Ann and Andy, we doubled our fun, and halved our rental car costs.  How can you not love that?

Ok, I’m giving Elethera short shift here – we really spent 2 ½ weeks there, from April 19 – May 6^th, and loved it wherever we explored (see these GWT Elethera blog posts Healing Hole of Rock Sound  Bygone Splendor – Elethera’s Royal Island  Hobnobbing in Harbour Island  Bahamas Green Hot Rods  -- not to mention kayaking sweet Spanish Wells and its Gonpoint Park – a future picture post if my photos are recoverable, ditto Governor Harbor’s Levi Preserve near the fabulous pink sand – aqua water beach of French Leave).   Our other forays there were mostly more leisurely explorations by foot and sea.  But it was the road trips where we most eagerly and exhuberantly embraced Eleuthera in broad, glorious gulps.

Duck!  Why well-charged flashlights are essential for exploring
Eleuthera's exquisite Hatchet Bay Caves.

We took one trip from hurricane hole Rock Sound, south… to batty and otherworldly Spider Caves, touring Cape Eleuthera Institute (a marine research school), where we were tipped off to a “cuppa” (watch for a future blog on that) and braved the long bumpy dirt road road to spend the afternoon at lovely Lighthouse Beach, where a large out-of-season lobster taunted us with his cha-cha dance.

We took another lengthy day road trip from little Hatchet Bay to the long and twisty Hatchet Bay Caves, down another car-sized potholed dirt road to Surfer's Beach, then to Queen's Baths during low tide to lounge in the baths, to beautiful Glass Window where the Atlantic Sea and Exuma Sound collide under a bridge, stopped at some other cool yet unnamed Heritage Spot near Rainbow with musical rocks along the trail there, culminating  where unreachable rocky caves precipitously perched, spectacularly overhanging a clashing Atlantic coastline. Our final stop of the day took us all the way back to Governor’s Harbour.  I insisted on finding the beach simply noted in our Explorer Charts as "Pink Sand Beach."  Wayne and the rest of our menagerie humored me beyond reason.  We wandered, well. lurched, aimlessly at least 15 minutes along rough, unmarked roads, doubling back and forth without a clue. 

Wayne and Dana sitting on the "throne" at Queens Bath, Eleuthera.

And then we found it.

Against a deep periwinkle-clouded sky was the pinkest sand beach I’ve ever seen.  Pinker than Valentines at Eleuthera’s exclusive Harbour Island.  Pinker than Barbuda (though Wayne disagrees with me on that).  Again, that brilliant aqua water, creating a purple swirl where the waves tumbled the powdery soft pink sand.  There was even a blowhole, geysering up with great mournful sighs.  Magical.

Amazingly, we had that long, lovely stretch of beach to ourselves. 

You’ll have to take my word for it; all three of our camera’s batteries burned out in a glory of day-long photo orgies, by the Rainbow Heritage site.  They were spent, even before we were, or at least before we were willing to call it a day.

Glass Window, Eleuthera, where the
Exuma Sound meets the Atlantic.

If you get the chance, go to Eleuthera and surrender yourself to its exotic beauty.  If you go only two places there, make the effort to take the roads less traveled to Queens Bath and to try to find Pink Sands, between Governor’s Harbour and French Leave Beach.

Finding Pink Sands and Queen’s Bath was my most perfect day in our whole season of cruising. 

What was your most magical travel “moment”?  Please share!

Dana mugs for the camera while Wayne
saunters down the trail to Eleuthera's
legendary Lighthouse Beach.

Location, Location

BAHAMAS retrospective.  This blog post is a recent retrospective of our visit to Eleuthera, BAHAMAS (N24.44.044 W76.14.45 - N25.30.807 W76.50.884) April 19^th - May 6^th, 2014. My hard drive is finally happy but most of my recent cruising season photos are still inaccessible.  Please wish me luck with that! We are currently working over hurricane season in Jacksonville FL; this time with our boat “on the hard” in Green Cove Springs, until just before we leave in November, bound for the South Pacific via the Panama Canal.

Safe Sanctuary... in Nassau?!?

The marina view from the back -- plenty of room!

Even tourist-loving Bahamanians admit Nassau,on the small island of New Providence, is rough. 

We’ve stopped at Nassau twice, out of necessity – to break up long passages and for some much needed boat maintenance and repair.  I never felt safe, especially after dark, until we lit out for other Bahamas territory.  Pretty much everywhere else we cruised inthe Bahamas, crime’s practically unheard of.

Yet we found a safe spot we’d recommend on New Providence without hestitation. Palm Cay Marina.  It’s gated at the marina entrance, and on the land. While it’s a bit tricky getting in – do follow their websire directions and call in ahead -- that location offers one of the best angles into the Exumas; we hopped easily the 33 nm to Northern Exumas’ Highborne Cay from there.

These were not miniature palms;
this was a big chess set at Palm Cay Marina!

Yes, I admit we were lured there with a coupon to stay free for a week* -- the regular price there is reasonable, $1-2 foot, depending on your timing. When we were there, the marina was nearly empty.  At the time, other cruisers were paying $1/foot and happy to do so.

Even though the bathrooms, showers and laundry weren’t completed, the folks at the marina graciously found ways to help us out with viable alternatives.  We were still able to use the marina’s gas station, head up to use the free WiFi from their then unfinished clubhouse, and they even offered to set us up with a car as they are a bit off the beaten track.  We didn’t get a chance to take them up on their offer.

Scalloped beaches at Palm Cay, viewed from their clubhouse.

We also enjoyed supporting the marina’s “turtle crossing” with our veggie discards, with the marina staff’s encouragement. It was a truly peaceful spot.  Quiet, awakened by sweet birdsong in the morning.

We regretted staying at Palm Cay only a few days of that week – we were eager to move onto the Exumas.  We’d much rather stayed the week at Palm Cay and skipped anchoring near Nassau, where another cruiser dragged anchor into us, and cruisers were robbed at the adjacent marinas.

*We got our coupon for a free stay from Jacksonville FL’s Ortega Landing Marina, where we stayed in 2013. I suspect some smart folks at Palm Cay chose Ortega for the same reason we did; their plentiful excellent Active Captain reviews  -- see “The Marina at Ortega Landing” on Active Captain’s Interactive Cruising Guidebook.

Journey, docked at Palm Cay Marina
near Nassau, Providence Island.

Location Location

BAHAMAS retrospective.  This blog post is a recent retrospective of our visit to New Providence Island, near Nassau, BAHAMAS (N25.01.129 W77.16.277) February 4-7, 2014.  My hard drive is finally happy but most of my recent cruising season photos are still inaccessible.  Please wish me luck with that!  We are currently working over hurricane season in Jacksonville FL; this time with our boat “on the hard” in Green Cove Springs, until just before we leave in November, bound for the South Pacific via the Panama Canal.

Bucket List? Crash! Ouch.

Scooter in same style as mine, pilfered from the TaoTao website.
My scooter’s blue and sports an additional storage compartment
added behind the seat.

“You know if you asked me what to do, you’d ignore me anyway.  I still love you.”

Don’t recall what prompted that classic line decades ago from Dad.  It’s still spot on.

Dad resisted bringing that one up when I deployed a bucket list wish (click here if you’re not sure what a bucket list is)* as a solution to my temporarily land bound commute conundrum  -- riding a scooter to my West Marine job.  The results were moderately disastrous.

Without going into the embarrassingly stupid how it happened** the end result is a very small paint scrape on the scooter, but a broken wrist for me.  I believe scooters don’t kill people, people kill people.  Know anyone who wants to buy a lightly used scooter?  By the time my cast is off, we’ll be cruising so soon after it doesn’t make sense to keep it.

Jacksonville Shands Hospital tag atop my wrapped splint.
They took good care of me.

Our friend Allen advice? “A 15 mile [well, it’s 13 ½, each way by backroads] commute in Jacksonville by scooter is too long.  I’m sorry about your wrist, but that may have saved your life!”  Admittedly, it was a long backroads ride.

Off the cuff, the orthopedist who reset my broken bone said it typically takes 12 weeks to heal a broken bone.  As we were one month away from employer-paid health insurance – uninsured -- I suspect the hospital’s financial damage will last far longer than the broken bone.

This is my first blog post since breaking my wrist.  Since my cruising season photos were FINALLY reinstated on my formerly ailing hard drive yesterday, watch for more upbeat retrospective posts complete with ohhhh – ahhhhh photos.

Journey getting moved to Green Cove Springs Marina’s
“Canada” lot for hurricane season.

It takes a while to do things with my left hand (and other appendages) only, as I broke my right wrist and am right handed.  However, I’m looking forward to getting back on track with GWT blog posts, and am grateful West Marine is happy to keep me on as a one-handed checker, and that my virtual work for Finex, Dorigan & Assoc., Vancouver Family Magazine and various freelance work (like Cruising World shorts) is still do-able.  Wayne too takes some gleeful pleasure in assisting me, particularly when it entails a derriere pointed up whilst my head’s draped over the tub when he wets my hair for shampooing with a European-style shower head.  Sorry, no photos of that one.

“Guess no endless showers,” he empathizes.  

Not counting two-ply toilet paper and fast internet, my two biggest landlubber indulgences are a queen-sized bed and irresponsibly long showers. 

One outta two aint bad, we conclude.  One more reminder of feeling safer cruising on the water than getting around on land in civilization.

*My bucket list is not driven by health issues but more by my philosophy that life is a terminal disease and to make the most of it while you can.

**Readers – please help me come up with an amusing how it happened story that is not based on committing violence.

Squirrel!  In the backyard of our temporary digs
for hurricane season.

Location Location

July 8, 2014, temporarily land bound in Jacksonville, FL, USA.  Journey’s on the hard in Green Cove Springs (N29.58.9 W81.38.8) until hurricane season ends in November.  Then we do some boat maintenance and improvement and set sail for the South Pacific, through the Panama Canal.