More exploring in Mazatlan

Our last couple of days have been spent exploring more of the town and marina area.  We went to the Mazatlan aquarium the other day.  It's supposed to be the biggest aquarium in Mexico.  I think after having a pass at Sea World, visiting the GA Aquarium, and spending the summer in the Sea of Cortez, we might have been a little desensitized.  It was impressive for down here though. They had sting rays, sharks, turtles and crocodiles.  There were tons of kids there on field trips from various different schools and I thought it a little sad that most of them are so close to seeing these things in the wild right in their backyard and yet they never get the opportunity.  They have to squint their eyes through a dirty old tank to see a shadow of a sting ray while we have to poke sticks in the water to shoo them away before going to the beach.

Andy and Jake posing with King Neptune in front of the Aquarium

There have been a few cruiser parties that we've attended.  They had the potential to be fun but once again, Andy and I are not the most outgoing folks and we didn't really make any connections with anyone so we drank our free beer and headed back to the boat.  Don't get me wrong, there are very nice people out here but we just have trouble with crowds.  Not that we can't mingle and make small talk, we do that very well... we just don't enjoy it.  I would rather sit down one on one with someone and get to know them than work a room and just gather a bunch of names.

So...when we're not out socializing, we take dinghy rides.  There are tons of little canals here to explore with beautiful houses, mangroves and quite a few iquanas.  It's one of our favorite things to do here that doesn't cost us any money!

View from the canal of one of many beautiful homes dotting the golf course

Speaking of money, we're spending a fortune on marina fees so we're heading out today.  The weather doesn't seem to want to allow us to make the 90 mile trek to Isla Isabel yet (it's supposed to be blowing 25-35 knots by mid week - would make for a very uncomfortable anchorage) so we're going to go anchor out near old town in a place called Stone Island and will probably be there through Thanksgiving.  I doubt there will be any wifi signal there so this may be my last post for a while.

We stocked up on groceries yesterday in the Mega (HUGE grocery store that would rival any Albertson's) and even found some turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner.  Not just turkey slices :).  We found a turkey breast for me and wings and legs for Andy and Jake so it looks like we'll be able to have somewhat of a traditional meal after all (I was all prepared to have our first fish thanksgiving...the pilgrims ate fish too you know).  I even found pecans for pecan pie.

While we miss our families and friends terribly, we're very thankful that we've been able to spend all of this time together.  It's definitely brought us closer (literally, I can't even begin to describe the close proximity of two people in our bathroom together).  We would like to wish everyone back home a Happy Thanksgiving!  We miss you and will be thinking of you!

By the way, I got a good response from my lime tip I posted a few days ago....Here's another one: Wrap your cabbage heads in paper (butcher paper, newspaper, whatever)...they last longer out of the fridge that way.

Helpful (I hope) tips onshore and offshore

Through reading a number of books on cruising and provisioning as well as talking with other cruisers, I’ve learned a number of tips over the last few months that I thought might be helpful to others getting ready to sail, already sailing or anyone who wants to make their food last longer.  I’ll try to post them as they come up, but here are a few…

Did you ever want to buy that huge 5 lb block of cheese at Costco but just not know how to keep it from going bad without stuffing your family of four full with cheese at every meal?  First off, if you don’t open it, it’ll last as long as you need it to.  But after you open it, wrap it in a cheese cloth (a paper towel works fine too) soaked in vinegar and put it in a plastic container.  It also helps if you wipe down the inside of the container with vinegar.  My cheeses are lasting at least three times longer now and I don’t have to cut any mold off or give them the sniff test.  The vinegar doesn’t seem to affect the taste at all either. 

Down here in Mexico, limes are super cheap and they have all kinds of uses.  However, we never manage to use all of ours before they turn brown and/or get hard as a rock.  Wrap them in tin foil.  Yup.  Tin foil.  I did this on half my limes.  The half I did not wrap went bad in a week.  The half I wrapped are still in my galley (2 weeks later) bright green and juicy.  If you put them in the fridge, they’ll last even longer.  I just don’t have room in my itty bitty fridge for that.  I’m not sure if this trick works on other citrus fruits as well.  Stay tuned because I intend to try it.

This tip may not be so useful for those at home unless you have access to a local farm, but did you know that if you get eggs straight from the chicken, never refrigerated, you don’t have to refrigerate them either (maybe I’m the only one who didn’t know this, but remember I’m from Atlanta and we didn’t raise chickens)?  The first time I saw poop on an egg down here I was a little grossed out.  Now, I look for the poop and if it has a few feathers on it, even better… I know it’s fresh.  If you’re not sure if one is rotten, put it in a glass of water and see if it floats.  If it floats, it’s rotten.

The last one probably isn’t new to anyone, but I swear it’s the first time I’ve tried it.  Good, fresh garlic is hard to come by down here (old, black, yucky garlic is not hard to come by), so when I find it, I buy it.  I put this last batch in a clean jar and covered it with olive oil.  Now my garlic not only lasts longer, I have garlic flavored oil for cooking.

I’m trying a recipe now for preserving lemons but the jury is still out… stay tuned.

11/9/2010 - Mazatlan, here we come

Mazatlan, it’s a 2 ½ day, 240 mile trip for us.  It’s been at least a month since we did an overnighter and not since the beginning of our trip have we had to do 2 nights, so we’re long overdue.  I’m considering this my training and part of work ups to our soon to be much longer passages across the Pacific.

Using that line of thinking, I decided to prepare a little better this time.

I took my seasick pills a full 24 hours ahead of time.  They tend to take a long time to get into my system and don’t always work the first day if I wait to late.  I’ve tried all types of things from Dramamine to wristbands.  The only sure thing I’ve found so far is Scopamine. You can get it in Mexico really cheap.  I think I 50 pills cost me $5 in LaPaz.

Another thing I did this time that I should have done before was to make some meals ahead of time.  Again, being prone to sickness, spending time in the galley doesn’t usually work for me.  But, I also hate to eat leftover’s and make ahead dinners always seem like leftovers for me (I know, it’s not the same thing).  This time, I made Tamales so all I would have to do is steam them.  I made enough for one lunch and one dinner.  Then I saved the leftover filling for us to put on Tostadas for lunch the other day.  I’m not very creative when it comes to lunches so I was pretty proud that I won’t be serving any sandwiches on this trip.

For Jake, I had grand plans of making sure we continued on with his schooling during this passage.  But plans are meant to be changed (or so my husband keeps telling me).  I’ve learned not to get too stressed if he ends up watching a few movies or having to play by himself more than usual.  It’s temporary.  I’m not a bad mommy.  We tried to get him involved today (i.e. get outside and away from the Star Wars) Tonight, I let Jake look at the radar and tell me if any ships were coming.  He asked me “Do we have our port and starboard lights on mommy?”

“Yes, sweetie. We do.”

“That’s good.  It’s important to have our nabigation lights on, right?”

“Yes, very important.”

“I wonder if Darth Vader’s Death Star has nabigation lights?”

And so it goes…

As I’m about to end my watch, I’m starting to think about Thanksgiving (it’s sneaking up on us) and where we’re going to be, what we’re going to do, eat, etc.  And I realize that this year we have more to be thankful for than ever before.  Not only are we all healthy and happy, but we’re living our dream and experiencing things I never in my life imagined I would experience.  And we’ve just gotten started.  We’ve passed our six month mark, the time where we were going to assess and determine if we should continue.  I think the consensus with the crew is, yes.

4/26/10 - Destination: Isla Guadalupe

Winds picked up to 15 knots last night and we made really good time.  We saw the light for Isla Guadalupe around 5:45 a.m.  We pulled into our anchorage a little beforenoon.  The winds shifted, coming out of the south making it not he most ideal situation.  We´ve decided to wait it out and see what happens.  We all took much needed showers and I put hot dogs on the grill.  As I was cooking, a panga (small fishing boat) pulled up and wanted to trade with us.  We had heard about these and were really excited when we saw themcoming.  We traded them three beers, a bottle of wine, and a small bag of oreos for a lobster tail and ten abalone.  Abalone are extremely expensive and considered a delecacy.  I can´t imagine how much this would cost us at a restaurant.  I felt a little bad as the beer and wine together only cost us $5 at Trader Joes.  I guess it´s all relative.  They probably think they got a deal too.  Supplies are brought in by the Mexican Navy and occasionally dropped on a small runway, so this is the only way they have to supplement their goods. 
Immediately following that, Andy and Jake caught tons of fish.   They threwmost back but one was too good to let go.  Tonight shall be a seafood smorgasbord!  It looks like we won´t be dipping into that Costco steak stash I have in the freezer for quite some time.

In case anyone finds themselves with too much abalone, here are a few recipes that turned out to be delicious!

White Fish & Abalone Ceviche
Cut up abalone and fish into bite size pieces.  Add chopped red onion, tomatoes, avacado.  Mix together lime juice, worchestire sauce, rice vinegar and ketchup.  Pour over the fish.  Add salt and pepper as you wish.  I also added garlic powder (but fresh would probably be better).  Mix together and refrigerate for a few hours giving the lime enough time to cook the fish.  Serve with chips.

Abalone & Lobster with butter
Heat up a little olive oil and lots of butter.  Slice up some mushrooms and saute until tender.  Add rosemary.  I couldn´t find my garlic but it would be good here too. Add more butter and lobster.  Cook until lobster is almost done) just a minute or two.  Add more butter and abalone.  Cook another 30 seconds until abalone is heated up.  Don´t overcook or it will be very chewy. 

This anchorage is really beautiful.  We haven´t seen any sharks, but there are dolphins all around us.  Big ones.  As you can read, lots of fish as well.  As soon as the pole hits the bottom, we get a bite.  My only complaint right now is the temperature.  It´s about the same as San Diego, which has always been too cold for my southern blood.  I guess we´ll just have to snuggle up!

Happy Thanksgiving

Our first Thanksgiving on the boat was great.  While we missed our families in various other states, we enjoyed spending a quiet, relaxed day with just the three of us.  Our day began with cartoons, pancakes and bacon.  For "dinner" Andy rigged up the grill to cook our Turkey breast (wrapped in bacon...because anything wrapped in bacon is good) and I cooked the side dishes one by one in our tiny little oven...turning every 10-15 minutes to cook evenly (it heats from the back).  At the end of the day, the turkey and pecan pie was great, oyster stuffing pretty good, and broccoli/gruyere casserole tasty.

While we were making dinner, Jake occupied his time by drawing spaceships, volcanoes and fire.

Jake played on the front of the boat while we called family and began predicting Thanksgivings to come (my favorite comes with a lobster).  I ended the day with giving away the remainder of the pecan pie (Andy still hasn't forgiven me) to our neighbors getting ready for a weekend sail to Catalina.

I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving as we all continue to count our blessings and give thanks for those we love.