Friday, May 06, 2005

Journal Entry – May 6, 2005 – Pacific Puddle Jump - Day Two

Author: Pam

It is 0400 and I am on my second watch of the night. Right now we are keeping a 3 hour and two 2 hour watch schedule. We are hoping to move into a six hours on, six hours off each during the night, with a nap during the day in a few days. Six hours is of course easy for the person sleeping, it is a long time to keep busy and awake for the person on watch. However, we are very excited about our recent purchase of the Rio Karma MP3 player. It allows two people to listen to two different audio books and to bookmark your place. We have quite a few books in MP3 format, but until now we had no way of listening to them, unless you wanted to start from the beginning each time. We don’t have room for cassette tapes, which of course is the other option. I began this watch determined to figure out how to stop the two net bags of fruit and onions from banging on the side of the boat and turning into juice and spraying all over the cabin, that would be gross. This is the first time we have brought enough fresh fruit and veggies that needed managing, not an easy task on a small boat. We bought two net bags when we went up the river in Tenacatita and have them hanging from the handrails. All is good, except for the rhythmic swinging and bumping they insist on doing. I just ran a strap through the handle of each bag and pulled it slightly away from the wall by bringing the strap around the compression post. It seems like this may minimize the potential for casualties. There seem to be a number of ideas and tried and true methods for managing fresh food on board a boat, especially in a hot climate. As mentioned we have hung the fruit, onions and a cabbage in net bags. A jicama and a few potatoes are residing in brown paper bags. Limes and lemons are bagged in the special green bags made by Evert-Fresh and not refrigerated. Lettuce and avocados are in the same bags, but in the refrigerator. We bought unrefrigerated eggs (more common than refrigerated in Mexico). They are suppose to keep for many weeks if you are diligent about turning them every other day so the yolk stays suspended. I am on an odd day schedule with the eggs. It is nice having the fresh food, at least for the first week perhaps. We motored a lot yesterday to get off the coast because there is a serious general lack of wind in Mexico. We have been sailing along at 5 knots for the past couple of hours, it’s perfect.

Scott here, I just wanted to mention that we had our first visitor offshore today. Guess what it was? If you have been diligently following our journal then you will know about Pam’s love for birds, well maybe love is not quite correct and we should call it disdain. Well, our first visitor was a big black spooky bird that circled the boat repeatedly and drove Pam below to the safety of the cabin; he even took a swoop down at me. We did manage to capture a few seconds on video, but imagine what a challenge it is to capture a bird in flight when you are visually impaired. When the bird came in for a landing Pam screamed and the bird turned tail and headed for the sky. Our bird friend never quite managed a landing and mysteriously disappeared just as it had materialized out of nowhere, maybe he had a heart attack. Pam one, birds zero.

Pam back now, Chicken breast in four minutes. Who would believe it is possible, not Scott. We decided to cook our one package of fresh chicken breast in the pressure cooker. I chose a Mustard Chicken with Veggies recipe, excited by the one pot meal idea. We had only used our pressure cooker one time and it has been quite a while. The recipe called for any type of veggies, we added carrots and potatoes. Before beginning to cook Scott scoured the Pressure Cooker cookbook and looked up other chicken recipes to compare cooking times, he was a bit uncomfortable with chicken only cooked for four minutes, especially after the shortest time he found was ten minutes. I believe in following the recipe (at least the first time) so everything was thrown into the steamer basket and four minutes after coming to pressure we released the jiggler valve to check it out. The chicken was cooked perfectly, the veggies should have been cut up slightly smaller. I can’t wait until the next opportunity to use the pressure cooker, it could be how we cook our first fish. What you eat each day becomes a big part of the day. As long as the conditions are conducive for cooking it is fun to create something yummy. Washing the dishes and conserving water is an entirely different ball game. We are still working on the best technique. We are attempting to rinse/wash in salt water and rinse using a spray bottle with fresh water and a touch of bleach. I find it challenging to deal with the stickiness of the salt water, but fortunately we have a foot pump in the galley sink that taps both salt and the fresh water. This makes the process easier and the access to the salt water is immensely helpful, it sure beats dragging a bucket over the side… However, dish conservation is a big part of each meal too, don’t dirty it if you don’t have to.

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