I Want To Be 5 Again

My editor (the cap’n) says I’m way past my deadline. I keep reminding him I don’t get paid for writing this blog and he’s not my editor.

I’ve had the privilege of spending the last week with my 5 year old grandson, Landon. Poor Landon, he doesn’t have one of those grandmas that packs him up to Disney World. Nope, she drags him to Great Bend, Kansas to keep her company while the cap’n works. Not exactly the inspiration for a kid’s dream vacation.

But you know what? He doesn’t seem to mind. Life is fun for him wherever he is. I’m envious. I want to be 5 again.

I want to:

Turn on cartoons when I wake-up and laugh first thing in the morning.

Have my biggest decision of the day be whether I have Captain Crunch or Frosted Flakes for breakfast.

Think that Kraft Mac-and-Cheese is way better than any gourmet meal without worrying about what it’s doing to my arteries or waistline.

Spend hours performing magnificently goofy jumps into a swimming pool without worrying about what anyone watching might think.

Spend hours running back and forth kicking a soccer ball without getting winded or having my knees hurt.

Run away shrieking and screaming when the lion roars at the zoo.

Make a flag out of a stick and be my own parade marching down the street.

Love rain because that’s where mud comes from.

Consider everyone I meet a potential friend.

Read “Curious George” at bedtime and laugh last thing at night.

Dream dreams that make me smile while I’m sleeping.

I want to be 5 again!

My editor said this wasn’t funny, so I stuck my tongue out at him!

New Casa in Chelem, Yucatan, Mexico

Hola!
I thought I'd share some photos of our new adventure. It will be up for rent or we'll swap time in other beautiful places (I guess we better wait until we close next month though). The Yucatan is one of the safest states in Mexico and there are tons of expats down there. Within the two blocks of our house there are 8 American owners, 4 of them are Texans. I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Just kidding. One couple is from the capn's hometown of Sherman, TX. We used to say we did boat work in exotic locations, now I guess I'll do housework instead. By the way, rentals down there are very reasonable as is the cost of living. Come visit us!

To All My Listeners In Radioland: VHF Etiquette

Foreword: I know a few of you know that the cap’n and I have made a difficult decision and have decided to put Agur’s Wish up for sale. It’s time for a new adventure. Thanks to those of you that wrote and ask that I continue the blog since I was wondering if I would be a pertinent voice for fellow First Mates if I no longer had a boat. But I decided I have 12 years of boat experiences I still want to write, bitch, laugh and cry about, and as long as the cap’n will have me, I’ll always be his First Mate on whatever voyage we choose. Now back to the business at hand. Oh, I have to mention that the cap’n is already trying to talk all of our new neighbors down Mexico into buying radios and starting a net.

Rule#1 Don’t Read the Mail!

If you’re new to the cruising life, you’re probably asking,

“How the hell do I even get my mail?”

I’m not referring to the traditional form of mail. What I’m referring to is the practice of listening to a boat hail another boat on a hailing channel and then you, with your twitchy little fingers, turn the dial or mash the little button to follow their traffic just so you know “what’s going on”. Okay, I admit I’m guilty of this on occasion. Hell, if I’m really bored, I’ll eavesdrop on people I don’t even know or care about. (I do it in restaurants all the time). I guess what I’m trying to tell you is, everybody does it, go ahead and do it but you need to get really good at acting like you don’t.

Some people are brazen, there was one boater I knew who would break into discussions about plans in which the boater wasn’t included and would ask if there was room for one more. I would say he had balls, but he was a she. Be warned! This is a big no-no and just about sounds the death knoll for any future cruising social life. Some groups of boats establish secret channels and when they want to have “private” conversations they just request that the other boat go to the secret channel.

This is a real VHF conversation:

“Agurmeister’s Wish, Agurmeister’s Wish, this is vessel Who Cares.”

“Who Cares, Agur’s Wish here. Channel 74, Steve?”

“Everybody hear that, we’re going up to Channel 74. Channel 74, everybody got that?”



Up on Channel 74...

“Who Cares this is Agur’s Wish”

“Who Cares here. Is everybody else here?”

Multiple clicks of the mikes lets us know our audience is listening.

“Hey, Who Cares how that medicine I gave you working?”

“Huh?” Who Cares replied, a little slow on the uptake.

“Is that drip starting to clear up?”

“Yeah, but it still burns like hell,” Who Cares replies, in the game now.

That’s when the cap’n made me get off the radio.

A few words of warning…Don’t say anything that you don’t want anyone overhearing. The VHF radio is a lot like a party line and people are listening.

If you decide to read the mail, prepare to get your feelings hurt--you might hear something you don’t want to hear, like your best friends are having sundowners on their boat and you’re not invited. When you run into them later you’ll have to wipe that hangdog look off of your face and act like you don’t know that they’ve ostracized you even though they know you know. Confused yet?

Rule #2 Don’t Become the Radio Police

You don’t need to attend an academy and no uniform or badge is required. All you need is a “need” to control traffic on the radio..

Everyone recognizes VHF channel 16 as the official hailing channel and for the most part it is respected. Every once in awhile an over excited fisherman or an over-served tourist will forget and has to be gently reminded to move their traffic to another channel. This is really no big problem and rarely happens on channel 16.

It’s when other channels are designated as spare calling channels that the problems start to occur. Don’t get me wrong, the practice of establishing spare calling channels is a great idea. It takes the load of social calling off of 16 and frees it up for businesses and emergencies. I’ve been in areas where there was no spare calling channel set up and channel 16 was a nightmare to try to get a call through on.

So what’s the problem?

These unofficial calling channels sometimes become a little bit like small unincorporated rural towns. They don’t have a mayor, a city council, or law enforcement so a self-chosen few appoint themselves to be all three.

Here is a common scenario on VHF channel 68, which is the spare calling channel in the Abacos…

The radio has been dead silent all day when all of a sudden…

“Desperately Clewless, Desperately Clewless calling vessel Severely Tackless”

“Severely Tackless back to Desperately Clewless”

“Severely Tackless, Admiral Clueless and I were wondering what you guys had planned for tonight?”

About this time you start hearing the desperate clicking of about a half-dozen distant mikes. Finally, one of them wins the contest and an authoritative voice booms across the radio waves.

“Gentlemen, please be advised that channel 68 is a hailing channel in the Abacos. Please move your traffic to another channel.”

The problem I have with this is, not only was Tackless not given the opportunity to tactfully remind his accomplice, Clewless, that they needed to switch channels but now I’ll have to get off my lazy derriere to read the mail. If they’d just been allowed to chat a little longer I could have decided whether it was worth it to get up and change the channel. So all you Barnie Fife’s out there, show some restraint and put the bullet back in the shirt pocket. Is there some sort of reward ceremony out there at the end of the year for the one that gets the most collars?

Rule #3 Don’t Dial Drunk

My Dad used to say his telephone bill always rose in accordance to his liquor bill.

If you feel a binge coming on, do everybody a favor and dismantle the radio in such a way that you will not be able to figure out how to put it back together again after you’ve had a couple.

If you choose to ignore this advice, you will be the only one within radio distance that doesn’t realize you are drunk, slurring, and completely unreadable, in other words, doing your best Foster Brooks imitation probably on one of the main hailing channels.

…And don’t be surprised when the whole anchorage shows up at your boat the next day for the cocktail part you forgot you invited them to.


Rule #4 Your Radio Has An Off Switch, Use It!

If you are not entertained or are totally disgusted by drunks who can’t find their boat or are just feeling lonely in the wee hours of the morning, turn your radio off before you go to bed. Unless you are an emergency responder or there is really horrible weather you really don’t need to leave it on. Unless, of course, you can’t sleep at night from worrying that somebody might be conversing on an unofficial hailing channel and you won’t be there to advise them to move their traffic.

Rule#5 The Easiest and Most Important Rule

I already said and I’ll say it again. Do not say anything on the radio that you don’t want everyone to know. No matter what channel you are on, even those sacred secret channels.

First Mate Mary is clear.

Eileen Quinn Music: Friends

Hi guys I have found a link to the song that always makes me cry "Friends". This site lets you listen to a lot of her music but you'll want to get the CD's so you can listen to her in those secluded anchorages. Ahh...I'm missing my friends.

http://www.stumbleaudio.com/#quinn4/12

Ooh, and look I found the "Anchoring Dance" too, which I think causes more aborted cruises than anything else. There's actually a real dance which Eileen's husband does with great rhythm.

http://www.stumbleaudio.com/#quinn/1

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes Master Recipe: Boule Recipe

I love to bake bread and most of all I love to eat fresh bread, but I have always struggled with getting it to rise on the boat and the mess it makes on the boat. Here is a simple, no-knead, almost no mess basic bread recipe from the book Artison Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I'm providing the basic and white bread recipe but I really encourage you to buy the book and yes, you can find it down there in the Amazon section of my page. Of course, I downloaded it to my Kindle, but I've found the Kindle is not ideal for this something about using my sticky fingers to turn the page doesn't seem like a good idea. You won't believe the number of recipes you can make from this simple process using different flours and slightly different techniques. The real challenge will be seeing if this works when I get home to 10,600 feet in CO. I'll keep you posted.

The 5 minutes a day title is kind of misleading because it does not include the "resting" and baking times.

I'm going to try to post a link to a video showing the authors of the book going through this process at the bottom of this blog. Keep your fingers crossed.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Basic Boule Dough Recipe

(Artisan Free-Form Bread)

Makes 4 1 lb loaves. The recipe is easily doubled or halved

You can store this dough up to 14 days in your refrigerator in a plastic lidded (non-airtight) container

3 cups of lukewarm water
1 ½ Tablespoons of granulated yeast (1 ½ packets)
1 ½ Tablespoons kosher or other course salt
6 ½ cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour, measured with the scoop-and-sweep method (scoop your measuring cup into flour and sweep off excess with a knife with out pressing or compressing the flour into the cup)

1. Warm the water slightly: about 100 F.

2. Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5 qt bowl or preferably in a resealable, lidded (not airtight plastic container. Don’t worry about getting it all to dissolve.

3. Mix in the flour all at once with a wooden spoon until the mixture is uniform. Don’t knead.

4. Cover with a well fitting, non-airtight lid (I place plastic wrap over the bowl without sealing it). Allow the mixture to rise at room temp until it begins to collapse, approximately 2 hrs. Longer rising times up to 5 hours will not harm the results.

5. You can use the dough at this point, but it is extremely wet and sticky. It is better to refrigerate if for 3 hours, or even better, overnight to make it easier to work with (it’s still very sticky compared to other bread dough)

On Baking Day…

5. The gluten cloak: Don’t knead, just “cloak” and shape a loaf in 30 to 60 seconds. Here’s how. First, prepare a pizza peel (I use any flat thing I have, right now I’m using a piece of tile, you could try a cookie sheet) by sprinkling it liberally with cornmeal ( I can’t find cornmeal right now so I’m using flour but the bread does not slide off easily on to the baking stone) to prevent your loaf from sticking to it when you slide it into the oven.

Sprinkle the surface of your refrigerated dough liberally with flour. Pull up and cut off a 1 lb (grapefruit size) piece of dough, using a serrated knife. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add more flour as needed so it won’t stick to your hands. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. Most of the dusting flour will fall off; it’s not intended to be incorporated into the dough. The bottom of the loaf may appear to be a collection of bunched ends but they will smooth out when baking. This entire process should take no more than 30-60 seconds. (I actually don’t get how to do this part, I just kind of roll it around in my hands adding a little more flour until it’s not as sticky and shapeable.)

At the bottom of the article there is a link to a video of this process.

6. Place the shaped ball on the cornmeal-covered pizza peel or other flat thing. Allow the loaf to rest on the peel for about 40 minutes (it doesn’t need to be covered). Depending on the age of the dough, you may not see much rise during this period; more rising will occur during baking.

7. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 F, with a baking stone placed on the lowest rack (I’m using a ceramic tile until I can get back to the land of available baking stones). Place an empty broiler tray, or any shallow pan that will hold a cup of water, on any other shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread.

8. Dust and slash: dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour which will allow the slashing knife to pass without sticking. Slash a ¼ inch-deep cross into the top using a serrated bread knife.

9. Baking with steam: After a 20-minute preheat, you’re ready to bake, even though your oven thermometer won’t yet be up to full temperature. With a quick forward jerking motion of the wrist, slide the loaf off the pizza peel onto the preheated baking stone. (Using flour, I have to more-like scrape the loaf off onto the stone/tile and then hurriedly reshape it on the hot baking stone/tile) Quickly but carefully pour about 1 cup of hot tap water into the broiler tray and close the oven door to trap the steam. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch.

10. Allow to cool completely, preferable on a wire cooling rack, for the best flavor, texture and slicing.



Crusty White Sandwich Loaf

Makes one loaf

1 ½ pounds (cantaloupe-size portion) Boule dough
Neutral-tasting oil for greasing loaf pan
* You must use a nonstick pan; they work well but still require a light greasing. Wet dough, the kind in this recipe, sticks horribly to traditional pans.1. Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1 ½ lb portion. Dust with more flour and quickly shape into a ball as described above.

2. Lightly grease a 9x4x3 inch non-stick loaf pan with a neutral-flavored oil.

3. Elongate the ball into an oval and drop it into the prepared pan. You want to fill the pan slightly more than half full.

4. Allow the dough to rest for 1 hour and 40 minutes (or just 40 minutes if you’re using fresh, unrefrigerated dough). Dust with flour and slash the top crust lengthwise.

5. Twenty minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 F with an empty broiler pan on any shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread. A baking stone is not essential when using a loaf pan; if you omit the baking pan you can shorten the preheat to 5 minutes.

6. Place the loaf on a rack near the center of the oven. Pour 1 cup of hot tap water into the broiler tray and quickly close the oven door. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until brown and firm.

7. Remove the loaf from the pan and allow to cool completely on a rack before slicing.

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce3k5uRkEPI>Artisan Bread Making

Boat Etiquette 101: Clothing Optional Anchorages

Imagine your cap’n and you are anchored in a secluded bay, there’s no one around for miles and you’re doing the Brooke Shields and Chris What-ever-his-name-was Blue Lagoon thing. You haven’t put a stitch on for days and you’re starting to get a little sore on your tender parts. (From sunburn, you perverts). You just came up the companionway with two more cold ones when you spy something on the horizon.

“What the hell is that?”

“It kinda looks like a boat,” the cap’n replies.

Dismay starts creeping in…

“Surely they aren’t coming in here.”

“There’s plenty of room. We’ll probably never even see them.” the cap’n offers magnanimously.

An hour later the crew of the other boat wave and holler out greetings as you scramble to put on clothes. They pass by so close you’re afraid they are going to ask if you happen to have some “Grey Poupon”.

Your horror grows as you watch the first mate move to the bow and commence doing the “Anchoring Dance”*. You don’t even have to get out the binoculars to watch them.

There goes the neighborhood!

I have been asked to share some rules of cruising etiquette with you newbies and you not so newbies who should know better. Just consider me the Miss Manners of the cruising world. The scenario above is the subject that comes up most often on the irksome scale. It seems that most capn’s didn’t really want to go explore the world when they convinced you to move aboard a boat, they just wanted to get you naked.

Rule # 1:

If you sail in to a secluded anchorage and there is another boat there, give them their space. Believe me, they are not going to be enthusiastic about an impromptu raft-up. By all means go and meet them but have the decency to respect their indecency by giving them a shout out on the radio or waiting until they go into the beach, if they have clothes on. If you fail to heed this advice, we….uh, I mean they can’t be held responsible for what you’ll encounter. And believe me again, it ain’t always pretty.

And for God’s sake stow the binoculars, or at least use some stealth when using them. There is nothing more embarrassing than to be caught spying through your binoculars to find a pair (binoculars, you pervs) staring back at you.

Rule #2:

On the flip side. Know when to keep your clothes on. You’re members of a community now and not some charterer who’s jumping naked off the Willy T with a cap’n you’ve never seen before in front of people you’ll never seen again. (Those were the days!). The locals of most islands are very religious and conservative, and besides that there are cameras everywhere and do you really want little Johnny Googling his grandmother and seeing that?

If you’re in a harbour and within viewing distance of restaurants or boats keep your clothes on. And please don’t engage in questionable calisthenics on your catamaran’s trampoline. The men are gonna love you and the women gonna hate you. It causes unnecessary tension and eyestrain.

A bathing suit is fine on the boat and beach but cover up when going to town. If you don’t look good in a bathing suit it’s bad enough and if you look good, again…the men are gonna love you and the women gonna hate you.

That being said, if I had the goods I’d be strutting them to heaven and back.


P.S. When I started this article I was gonna write one article about all of the etiquette issues cruisers encounter but I found there was just too much to say. Ya’ll know how wordy I get. It must be the southern in me, his name is Jack Daniels. Just joshin’ ya! Wink wink nod nod. Anywho, this has become a series of smack downs, the next one being about the radio.

* I want to give credit to Eileen Quinn for the term the Anchoring Dance which I stole from one of her CD’s that I own. She has provided us with a lot of laughs and a few tears through the years with her music. I have links to two of her CD’s that have this song on them way down yonder in the Amazon area of this site. And yes I do get a little money if you buy through me, but not enough to buy you a beer in the Bahamas. If you’ve never heard her song “Friends” your missing the anthem about what cruising is all about.

Leaving On A Jet Plane: Medical Emergency

Hi all!
I’m sorry that I’ve been delinquent in posting but I have a really good excuse. About a month ago, I jetted the Cap’n out of here on a turbo-prop to West Palm Beach.

It started out as a normal day with the cap’n not feeling too good which we just attributed to the fun the night before. Throughout the day he felt worse and worse, I didn’t learn until later when he confessed it to the doctors that he’d been having tightness in his chest for 10 days. I finally convince him that we call BASRA (Bahamas Sea and Rescue Association) http://www.basra.org/. This is a totally volunteer organization that receives no funding from the government that needs and deserves your support. You never know if your going to be next one calling them so here is their website, if you’d like to assure that they are there for you. I am not implying that they won’t help you if you don’t donate, they help everyone in need, but like everybody in these trying financial times they need your support. This story is easier told by saying things we were fortunate in doing or having and things we wish would have had in place or done differently.

We were lucky that we were in a familiar harbour with established friends and contacts available. We were able to hand Stanley, the killer bichon, off immediately to trusted friends, Phyllis and Neil on Chapter X . I had never even considered what I would have done with a pet in the case of an emergency like this. I had barely hung up the mike from calling BASRA before a dock friend, Mads was there with assistance and an offer of a defibrillator from his boat (thank God we didn’t need it) and within minutes a member of BASRA, Chris Prewitt, whose sailboat was moored right behind us was knocking on the hull to transport us to the main dock where the boat that would transfer us to Marsh Harbour was waiting. We were fortunate they were already responding to another emergency and were at the ready. I thank God that we were not at some uninhabited cay with no one around.

It was unfortunate that we did not have an emergency bag ready just in case this should happen. Even so, I thought I did pretty well, throwing in passports, all the cash we had, (including the money our friends on Exit Strategy had given us to relay to their mooring ball owner since they were leaving for a few days), our wallets, checkbook, cell phones (but no chargers) and 3 pairs of underwear apiece. The cap’n managed to throw in a couple of packs of cigarettes. Unfortunately, I forgot extra clothes (that was solved by a scarey, creepy public bus ride to a Dollar store 5 days later. Who but sailor trash goes to a Dollar Store to shop in West Palm Beach?), cruising permit, which caused us to have to buy round-trip airline tickets when we were lucky enough to fly back to the boat. And scariest of all I forgot my make-up and toiletries. After we got back, our friends Amy and Pete, from Double Vision told us they always keep a ditch bag ready, even though they no longer live on a boat, great idea for everyone.

We were fortunate that we had established friends in Marsh Harbour who met us at the clinic and helped hold me up. Chris and Tara from OII (Out Island Internet) stood by and made Cola runs for me and used their own personal cell phones to call our family to let them know what was going on because my fingers wouldn’t work to dial and they also started to arrange a charter for us out. In the end this was unnecessary because the doctor said the cap’n would require a Medevac. Brenda from Tupps Wine and Liquors, who was worried about losing her most loyal customer (just kidding, Brenda). She gave us immeasurable support and even told me I looked great even though I knew different. And to our magical friend Patti Toler who did things that I’m sure we’re not even aware, plus she loaned me a hairbrush and some lipstick.

We were fortunate that Dr. Schwerna and his staff were on duty that night. Under their hands the cap’n became stable and I became less afraid. The emergency staff at West Palm Beach were very impressed with his treatment. We are thankful to Dr. Boyce for loaning a necessary medication from his private clinic and for his staff for bringing it over on what was now becoming a late evening.

We were unfortunate, that we did not have Medevac insurance. In fact, I have actively pooh-poohed it on several message boards, saying , “Who would want to wait 8 hrs. for a Medjet to arrive when you could charter a plane in minutes. . There was no way I would have been comfortable flying alone with the cap’n on a charter that night. He required medications and constant attention, and while a charter might be okay for a fracture, it was not appropriate for this situation.

We were fortunate that we had enough credit on our credit card to pay for the evacuation ($8,400.00 plus change) because it is required upfront. I don’t know what they do if you don’t have the money to pay. I strongly suggest you sign up with http://www.medjetassist.com/ or http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/ or another like service. The plane was Beech B-1900 with two pilots, a doctor and two EMT/nurses. They also arranged transport by ambulance to the hospital. The eerie thing is I had just asked the cap’n during our last flight over that I wonder what they do in reference to customs and immigration when you are flown in on a medical emergency. Now I know. In our case, we first had to land in Fort Lauderdale to clear in because West Palm’s customs had shut down. I was right about waiting for a jet for 8 hours, it was now the wee hours of the morning and the ordeal had started about 3:00 pm. All of us except the patient and one nurse disembarked from the plane and walked across the tarmac to the immigration office. As always there was no hurry and another Medevac plane was clearing in at the same time. There was some problem with the manifest and no one seemed to be concerned that my cap’n was having chest pains out on the tarmac. We finally cleared and then the nurse that had remained with the cap’n had to go in and clear. I was able to present the capn’s documentation for him. Finally, we were back in the air on the way to WPB.

We were fortunate that we had changed our international medical insurance (which required us to be out of the US for 6 months of the year) before we got back on the boat this year. When I couldn’t find other things to keep me up nights worrying, I worried about this requirement since we hadn’t been able to fulfill it last year due to my dad’s illness. Turns out I was right to worry.

We were fortunate for the good care at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Palm Beach. We were fortunate that the cap’n did not have an MI (heart attack) but an arrythmia that was able to be treated with meds and a change in lifestyle. We were fortunate that the docs insisted on a heart cath because we were coming back over here and they didn’t want a repeat perfomance. We were fortunate that the heart cath showed no damage and that it, according to the doctor, “looked a hell of a lot better than it deserved to” given the capn’s lifestyle. After the capn had been off cigs and rum for a week., we were fortunate that there were still a few nurses willing to take care of him.

We were fortunate to have the support of our friends who called or sent flowers when we were in the hospital and when we returned to Hope Town , several of whom were on the dock to greet us with applause and hugs.

Yesterday, we were fortunate to volunteer at the Hope Town Fire and Rescue Fair, http://www.hopetownfirerescue.com/ who shares its funds and people with BASRA.

We are very thankful to The Great Navigator upstairs for a wake-up kick in the head. I can’t brag that our new leaf has remained completely turned over. I myself, as some of you know, have never been a poster child for moderation and the cap’n is my worthy counterpart, but be reassured we are trying and will keep on trying. Believe me, it's harder than it looks.

Sorry, The Great Navigator does not have a website...

So go on up to high power now, if you feel like it, and keep us in your prayers