Mac Attack

I am going off-topic for a post.  I can't seem to manage to write more than once a week anymore anyway.  Maybe Kyle will make an appearance with some of the details of his new job.

Kyle's father has a most singular cat, Mac-Mac.  As all cats do, this one sleeps most of the day.  Unlike most cats, this one seems to be the most comfortable all twisted up.

 Yes, I am writing a blog post about a cat, and no, I am not ashamed.  I spend a good portion of my day bothering this cat, because he's is fun (and dangerous) to play with.  You see, Mac-Mac likes to bite.  Even if you're playing nice and just petting him, you still have to look out for the pointy bits because they attack without notice.  This sorry sucker here found out the hard way:

Actually this 'sorry sucker' is just Kyle.

I am also pretty sure this cat is the reason my eyes are red and itchy and I have sneezing attacks three times a day.  It's either him, or the other cat, or one of the three dogs....  Let's face it, folks, with everyone away at work all day I probably talk to animals more than people these days.  At least they don't talk back :)

Also, I would like to note that I am under the influence of Peter Gethers' The Cat Who Went to Paris, which is a pretty funny book.  Gethers writes stories about his cat, Norton, and all his antics.  I highly recommend it, though I am sad to say I do not recommend the subsequent A Cat Abroad (it isn't funny or even really about Norton).  And I have not read the third book in the series.  I should also probably tell you that our entire trip, I have been yearning for a boat cat.  I need someone to talk to who isn't Kyle.  I am very jealous of our fellow boaters who have pets aboard.  I never pictured myself for a pet person, but I think I am going to need a cat.

Nothing says comfort like curling up with some table legs.

 Kyle and I have already staked our claim in Mac-Mac in the event that his parents get divorced (they've already divided up the dogs).  Oh, and lest I forget, Mac-Mac has a strange affinity for boxes.  He just can't resist them.  So in closing, I'll share this video of the boxed cat, complete with dangerous pointy bits in action.  This is mostly just practice for uploading video, I have some funny ones from the trip that I need to put together.

Too funny...and too dangerous.  I found out the hard way that he doesn't discriminate against faces either - he find them equally as bite-able as hands.  Anyway, I hope you'll all forgive me for this useless post about a cat :P

Dinghy Build (Part three)

Back in January, Kyle and I told you all about how we built a dinghy out of plywood, epoxy and bright paint.  Here's how it worked out:
After putting a couple thousand miles under the keel, our homemade dinghy has definitely seen some sights.  And better days, I might add.  I would like to point out that just Sunday afternoon some grown women were screaming in admiration of my paint job, and they didn't even see it in its full magenta glory.

Home again - 7.20.2010

Maiden voyage - 1.20.2010

 Despite the strength of the epoxy, in rougher waves the docks still took quite a toll on "Dinghalicious" (I swear, Kyle came up with that.  To this day, we still refer to her affectionately as 'Liscious).  One thing that we considered when building the dinghy is adding a second sheet of plywood to the bow.  As you can see, it would have been extremely beneficial.  While we were in Oriental, the dinghy could just slip under the dock, then a few waves sent the brunt of the force to the middle of the bow.

We had even put some pool noodles on 'Liscious to combat the brutal dinghy dock in Oriental, but by the time we left, you can see the bow was still looking a little sad.  Right now all we have left is the stern noodle, and it disintegrates on whoever leans against it (usually me.  It took me quite a while to figure out why I had blue stuff all over my back and shorts whenever we were walking around town).

These are all pretty cosmetic, nothing substantially structure-related.  Our worst problem, by far and above, was oar locks.  If you are going with a rowboat, shell out the extra cash and get some good oarlocks.  If you have to row a half mile, crossing a busy channel at night, you don't want to risk shearing off an oarlock and having to row canoe-style the rest of the way to the boat.  We started out with clamp-on oarlocks.  Those twisted, which made rowing nearly impossible.  Next we tried U-style oarlocks, and those both sheared off right below the U (and this always happens where you're about halfway between the dock and the boat). 

The original oarlock sockets were on the brink of failure by the end of the trip, but they were still holding.  On one oar, we have half of each original clamp-on oarlock (almost too twisted to row with), and on the other we have a combination of hose clamps through which we put a ratchet extension.  We've been through a couple hose clamps on that too.

Oh, and also, we managed to accrue a few barnacles whilst sitting in Titusville for a couple weeks.

The dinghy is alive!

Finally, we've made some serious decisions about "next time."  Next time, we are building a sailing dinghy - too much fun, and only a little more work.  We actually saw the sailing version of our dinghy while we were in Titusville, FL.  It would be a lot of work to modify our current dinghy, plus she's a little beat up already so we would just build a new one.  And next time, we're bringing an outboard.  Maybe it will just be a little electric trolling motor, but dangit, we're going to have one.  Some of those anchorages are just too far from the dock to row.

And to top all this off, Kyle went to a job interview today, and he starts work at 8am tomorrow!  That is extremely good news, plus he'll be working at a marine electronics company so he still gets to work on boats every day.  I've had one interview already that I'm waiting to hear back on, and I am keeping on top of the job listings.  If anyone needs a mechanical engineer, I need a job - maybe we can work something out :P

Photos!

If a photo is worth a thousand words, than this post will sum up our trip in about 270,000 words.  I made two facebook photo albums that can be view here and here.

OR just click the photos below to get to the albums

ALBUM ONE




ALBUM TWO

Boat Garden

Now that we're back to a secure location, we can tell you more about the lessons we learned while living on a boat instead of bogging you down with all the adventures we had (right now the adventure is finding a job.  Weeeeeee this is a fun ride!  Not.).

For those of you who joined us post-January, one of the things I need need NEED on the boat is plants.  They make me happy.  Apparently, I do not make them happy.  In January I told you about the herb garden surprise as well as my awesome greenhouse build.  Well, needless to say, after we got back from First Trip the herbs all died.  I replanted them.  Then I realized I'd been feeding them brackish (salty) water.  Well that explains why Second Planting never sprouted.  So I planted them again.  I think one or two sprouts sprouted up and then died.  After that I gave up on herbs.  Somewhere around this time the mint also died and so I bought some mint that was absolutely glowing with chemical health.

Well, what are herbs but a supplemental flavor to a meal?  My real passion was for the vegetables.  As previously stated, watering them with salty water does not work.  That was the first planting of vegetables (particularly, ones we eat a lot of - lettuces, tomatoes, peppers, and peas).  I tried planting them in an egg carton to start - saving on space is always a big deal.  Nothing sprouted.  Yay.  So then I moved up, sprouting them in one of those little plastic six-packs.  I got three out of six to sprout (out of three peppers and three tomatoes, I had two peppers and one tomato sprout).  They were doing marvelously, until I transplanted the tomato to a more spacious environment (Solo cup).  The next day, the first pepper fell over and shriveled up.  Later that afternoon, the second pepper did the same.  The tomato still thrived, and the chemical health of the mint (pictured, left) was waning but still present.  I cried.  Okay, so I was down to a tomato plant, after failing miserably at everything.  I get too emotional about plants, I do.  I placed all my hopes and dreams in this little guy, the one plant child I had left.

But then tragedy struck.  I had to leave Titusville and attend a couple weddings in Michigan.  I warned Kyle before I left that he needed to treat this tomato plant with all the love and respect he treated me with.  Sufficiently threatened, he promised to "do his best."  Hardly good enough, but what choice did I have?  Upon arriving home, I was dead tired but I noticed Kyle was acting a little...guilty.  I couldn't imagine the cause, but when I got back to the boat, I knew.  My little tomato guy wasn't looking so hot.  Kyle promised he'd watered and loved it and took care of it, but it was still shriveling.

So what went wrong?  When I made the greenhouse, it was January and I aimed to trap as much heat as possible.  Maybe the Floridan temperatures were too much for my veggies.  Peppers are sensitive fellows, maybe the trauma of removing their tomato friend pushed them over the edge.  In Titusville we were attacked by a massive swarm of lovebugs, maybe the little mater was overwhelmed.  Or maybe it's just my black thumb.  I've never been the main gardener, only caretaker (okay, Mom, you're right - I was weeder and potato-bug-picker.  And eater).

Boat people, talk to me.  How do you sustain your boat gardens?  Now that I'm home, even though summer is half over, I have still planted everything that I would love to have a fresh supply of.  The herbs are still being stubborn about sprouting, but I still have high hopes.

Becoming Foodies

Alright, it's been awhile since I've posted.  We're home and getting back into the swing of things.  Mostly this means applying for jobs and avoiding the boat.  Neither of us were ready to take the boat out last weekend - she is a good boat and we love her, but we needed a break.  So we went out on Dwayne's boat, where we lazed it up as passengers.  For the Fourth, however, Southern Cross will be representing sailboats everywhere amidst all the powerboats that gather in Tull Bay.  Of course, they all anchor in about three foot of water so we'll also be representing dinghies everywhere just so we can join the party...

I've been more or less addicted to Food Network since I have access to a TV again.  As such, I've also been making some meals that are actually gourmet (as opposed to the chili mentioned here).  To start, I took advantage of the oven and made some baguettes.  Apparently the reason baguettes are so different from bread is that they are baked at a much higher temperature, and they are baked with a pan of water present.  Mine didn't taste nearly as good as I remember actual French baguettes tasting, but I think those bakers tend to have a little more experience than I do.

 A couple days later, I worked on some fresh salsa (my own recipe).  This is something we made pretty frequently on the boat, but we never had limes or cilantro to put in it.  Also this one has green onions because their flavor is a little milder and I'm not a big fan of onions.  Between Kyle and me, a bowl of this lasts around ten minutes.  The base, of course, is tomato and green pepper.  I also added a shot of hot sauce, fresh garlic, some lemon pepper, and some chile powder.

While I was making salsa, Kyle got in on the action by making a recipe I'd watched Bobby Flay make on TV.  He had to modify it a little; he used regular milk instead of coconut milk and we didn't have any swordfish so we substituted baked white fish.  Therefore we had white fish with a coconut, lime and green chile sauce.  This recipe is really unique - it combines some very distinct flavors.  Surprisingly, the cilantro was very mellow and the ginger wasn't a prevalent flavor either.  It was a fairly sweet sauce but after dinner we decided it went well with chips too.  In fact, it melded well with the salsa.

And then today I tried a salad I'd been wanting for some time - Corn and Black Bean Salad with Basil Lime Vinaigrette.  I didn't have any basil on hand so the recipe was lacking that, and I substituted green peppers for red.   The vinaigrette was very limey but once it was on the salad it wasn't overpowering.  I really enjoy the addition of mango to the salad, but wish the corn was a little louder in this salad - I used fresh grilled corn on the cob.  Either way it's a delicious salad.  I really like mixing fruit and vegetables to give dishes an extra zing, and limes are definitely one of my favorite additions to a meal.

So maybe by the end of summer we'll both be gourmands.  That is going to make boat food quite a bit more expensive, however.  We'll see.  Actually everything that we made here was pretty cheap, it's the dishes that use expensive meat that I've been avoiding :)

If anyone tries these recipes, let me know what you think!

Docked at home... well, almost.

Okay, so technically we're still about three feet from our home dock (a small shoal has built in our absence), but we were able to step onto land without more than a small hop. We were planned to arrive Monday evening, but being so close to air conditioning, refrigeration, and a real bed spurred us to convert three days of travel into two.

Sunday was a HUGE day which saw us traveling 87 miles over 14 hours (compared to our normal 40-50 miles). It started before six, with a gorgeous sunrise.

Not long after that, some fog rolled in.

We managed to thread our way between and around several ominous looking clouds near the end, only enduring a few minutes of light rain.

The wind however, we could not escape. All the way across the sound, we motored through light or non-existant winds, trying to get the jib to fill out enough not to luff. Once we entered the Northwest River though, that all changed. Between those storms, the winds started gusting, which made for some fast exciting sailing! Just before entering the canal south of Coinjock, I went up on the foredeck to shorten sail and managed to get my sunglasses knocked off (somehow, my ONLY pair of sunglasses managed to stay on the deck) and a nice welt from a whipping jib sheet across the abdomen. Oh, how we envy those with roller furling sometimes.

The sun was just starting to set upon entering the canals, where we met Dwayne and Janet on Fourplay 2, and were treated to what can only be described as the longest boat horn welcome I've ever heard. Seriously Dwayne, I thought it had shorted out!

We weren't destined for conciousness much long after arrival home. The next day however was full of those things we've been missing. We slept in until 7ish. Darcy made Manicotti for lunch. In the OVEN. We ate ice cream. We drank a cold beer with dinner. It was amazing, to say the least.

Anyway, we're here for now. We've spent the last few days job hunting and throwing new parts at the truck.

Backfire

Oriental is now one of our favorite places to go, since we know so many people (not to mention the people there are the cream of the crop anyway).  We were really hoping to make it for a Music Night at M&Ms restaurant, but we docked on Thursday night and left Saturday morning.  Fortunately there was an opening at the town dock so we had two free nights of stepping off the boat onto land.

So Dick and Jackie, the same ones that bought us dinner in Wrightsville Beach, returned to Oriental the same day we did.  We were really hoping to return the favor by treating them to a homemade boat dinner, since we were able to find a place at the town dock.  Not only is our dinghy built for two people, but Jackie broke a bone in her foot and we didn't want her to end up in the water.  However, it was not to be.

At the very least, Jackie did get a chance to come see our boat (we love to show her off :) ), and she had to decline dinner because she was making dinner for another couple that night.  Of course, soon she had at least asked us to come over after dinner, and by the time she left, we were invited to dinner itself.  So there our good intentions backfired and we actually imposed on them again.  Friday night consisted of cold drinks, delicious steak, and friends both new and old.  Actually, the couple that were the original dinner guests were a lot of fun, plus they were extremely generous.

So, Dick and Jackie, thanks for the wonderful evening :)