More Nautical Stuff and Another Spice Blend

I am sure you will not be surprised to hear that we were on the boat again. Our to-do list currently has 78 items on it. Thankfully many of the items are small and 17 have already been accomplished. Still… there is a lot left to do. It is funny somehow when you enjoy sail you only remember the part you love and not the work. However I will say that the good definitely outweighs the bad when it comes to sailing.

Monday night after work Dan replaced the pump on the toilet. I went to the boat with him for moral support. Talk about a dirty smelly job. No wonder he had no desire to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a plumber. :-P Can’t I say I blame him one bit after being onboard while he was doing this plumbing job. Here is the new pump in place.  Next up... breaking out the steam cleaner.

After he had his job taken care of it was my responsibility to clean the head (nautical speak for boat bathroom) and the bilge. We get all the fun don’t we? ;-) We could have paid someone to do this stuff but really that just seems incredibly wasteful and lazy to both of us so we did it ourselves. Sometimes I think neither one of us has good sense. LOL

Sorry I haven’t been posting much but the wifi speed at the marina is not the best. I have been calling the wifi provider and hopefully they will do something about it soon so that I can get back on a regular schedule. I tried uploading a few photos to Facebook on Tuesday and they timed out. *argh* The slow connection is extremely frustrating. I am trying to just go with the flow but I can honestly say I feel a little odd being so out of the loop electronically. On the bright side our friends Christine and Tim also had wifi problems and those have now been resolved so I am hoping that ours will also be resolved quickly.

The food recently has been nothing much to speak of. We have been eating leftovers and quick meals, nothing really worth sharing. I do need to get back into the kitchen soon and make something interesting if for no other reason so I don’t get bored. Dan will eat anything as long as it tastes good and doesn’t mind repeats one bit. I am the one who needs to change things up in the food department.

What do we eat when I am not in the mood for cooking? Since there is definitely a pattern to what I do I thought I should share it with you. We almost always have a salad with both lunch and dinner. These can be anything but I typically combine: raw greens, veggies, fruit and nuts or seeds and sometimes quinoa.

I also gravitate to soup a lot since that is easy and reheats extremely well. Beans make a very filling and nutritious addition to soups and stews. If you want to make it more hearty you can serve the soup/stew over quinoa and not only it is more filling but you have then covered your bases in terms of essential amino acids. I just love quinoa which you probably guessed based on how often you see us eat it.

Dinner on the boat was a simple meal that I could make easily given the limitations of using a propane stove. I brought cooked quinoa, a sweet potato and kidney beans from home. I made the Mexican spiced tomato and bean sauce on the boat. Cooked a small spaghetti squash in the oven. Our dinner was spaghetti squash and quinoa topped with the Mexican tomato and beans to which I added diced sweet potato. This was easy to make because I now also keep a Mexican blend of spices on board that includes: dried minced onion, powdered garlic, no-salt seasoning, cumin seeds, paprika, oregano, cinnamon and cocoa powder. With the spice blend and little hot sauce dinner came together quite quickly.

Next I am going to make an Indian spice blend to keep on board and I should be able to make a decent variety of meals from standard pantry items. At least that is my plan we will see how well it works on in practice. However so far the Southern Italian and Mexican spice blends have been very handy as well as not taking up much room which is very important on a boat.

After dinner we lounged around the boat for a little while and then cleaned up and headed for home. We have been spending almost every night on the boat. It is fabulous being about to sit in the cockpit every night and enjoy the lights twinkly on the water. Now I can’t imagine why we ever had a boat that was over an hour away from home. What the heck were we thinking? ;-)

Happy Thoughts:

• The boat smells much better since the toilet has been fixed. Dan got major points from me for resolving that problem so quickly.   Having scented candles on board also seems to help.

• We are making good progress on our boat to-do list. While we would rather be sailing than doing work be both also want to get everything taken care of sooner rather than later. Not to mention it is incredibly relaxing being at the marina. We both love sitting in the cockpit, sipping tea and looking at the water. Additionally we have nice boat neighbors and that helps make the work part a lot more palatable.

• The fur children are starting to get used to mommy being gone more during the day and are much less panicked when I get home. This makes me feel less guilty about leaving them home. Realistically I know that they spend most of their time sleeping during the day but I see feel bad leaving them by themselves.

• The weather on Tuesday was absolutely magnificent. We had temperatures in the upper 70’s with a gentle breeze. It was one of those days where you just couldn’t get enough time outside.

Signing out:

Now I need to get productive. I have lots to do at home before I head back to the marina to meet Dan for dinner. Oh yeah, I also have more work to do on the boat but that doesn’t even bother me since I will be on the water. Talk with you again soon.