 Been a while since Pino flew a gennaker, difficult in these waters. Pulled onto the Heriot Bay docks on Quadra Island today to refill our water tanks and to buy some fresh stuff :>! Eating fresh carrots and cucumber is so nice ^_____^... been a while since we’ve had non-pickled foods. Tomorrow, we pass a set of rapids with plans to anchor in the Octopus Islands. Don’t know if we’ll find internet there... we shall see! We saw a whale on our transit today, possibly a humpback 🐋 This year the trend for big motor boats is to tow another motor boat as a dinghy, while the console dinghy($$$, also big) rots on deck with its cover on. In the summer, I used to only ever bake when it was overcast (LPG oven), cause temp is generally cooler and I didn't want to steam up the boat, but now I bake when there is sun because of the solar cooker. Interesting shift. Cooked some kidney beans in it yesterday, it was rainy in the morning, but it cleared up around 15h. I could have used the pressure cooker, but honestly, now I just prefer to save on fuel and to wait for the sun (esp for food that takes a while to cook).  @rek Collecting water on a rainy day. If I don’t tie off the end of our cockpit tent, it creates a deep V which redirects the water into containers :). Collected a few bowlfuls already. Will be using this water to refill our pressure sprayer(we use this water to wash dishes).  @rek I love how under engineered this is Sure tank and plumbing is nice but have you tried Bowls At this point I use the solar cooker so often(almost every day) that I’m noticing a slight distortion in the metal reflectors. Not a big deal, they just don’t fold in as tightly as they used to. May have to re-bend them as some point. We’ve been swinging at anchor these days(as opposed to being anchored+stern tied), so the sun’s position isn’t always optimal, but the cooker doesn’t seem to mind. If the wind is blowing the boat moves somewhat predictably, the worst is when there’s no wind (I have to readjust the cooker constantly). Out of fresh cabbage for okonomiyaki? Not a problem! We made it with a mixture of home fermented kimchi and sauerkraut instead. AND we used some chickpea flour we milled on-board a few days ago. Think we’re going to do this again. It was excellent ^______^.
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  @rek generally, the more we improvise with food, the more obvious food groups become and that like, gluten is gluten, wherever it comes from, so is protein and starch, and if you're not nitpicky about macros, things are just.. interchangeable! Like Lego but as food. it's fun to discover new proteins and sources of nutrients, especially when they come in compact long lasting form haha  @rek ooo, tasty! I'd like to try that chickpea flour point you made elsewhere on this thread :> also using kimchi reminds me of a late-night cooking video j kenji lopez alt made a while ago, about making a korean kimchi pancake called kimchijeon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku5hgZgGDj4) Me: "It's hard to want to share WIP art because there are too many imperfect bits." Also me: "It's hard to want to share finished art because there are too many imperfect bits." Everytime I'm about to share a drawing, my eye catches on something that keeps me from sharing it. Every time. Might be because I go outside of myself for a moment when I'm about to share something, pretending I'm someone seeing it for the first time, and seeing it with those eyes makes me find all kinds of faults.
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@rek I’m quite certain that your outside eyes are much more critical than our actual outside eyes would be. I was on deck this morning, hanging clothes to dry from yesterday's big rain. Suddenly I heard a loud flapping of wings, belonging to large bird. I saw a bald eagle swooping right by Pino, at my eye level. I saw its features so, so well. It then flew across the bay and settled at the top of a tree. On the boat we see (and hear) them often, but they never come close. I always need to look through binoculars to make out details. Today is the closest I've been to one :).
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 @rek What a treat. I never appreciated how huge they were until I saw one up close. It was while kayak crabbing off Lummi Island, in the Rosario Strait. I was alone, floating just outside a cove where we were camped, late in the evening and it was still. Dead still. I had been watching this one baldy circling and the fish he spotted was just 10-15 ft off the bow. The whole thing was over in 2 seconds but that bird made eye contact and stopped time. Devine's always telling me I draw angry people a lot. I do. I really, really do. This is an 'im gonna hurt you real bad, you don't even know' sort of angry. I’ll survive the summer, but I’m gonna have to get me some new pencils this fall, me thinks.
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 @rek I assume you are aware of pencil extensions? Those make working with short stubs more comfortable. Us: "Ok, so we'll only spend 2 days in Von Donop on Cortes Island instead of 27 days like last year :moomin_hmm: ." Us 4 days later: "Waah it's so nice here, let's never leave :moomin_yay: ." If someone starts off by saying, “I have a special ability that permits me to discern lies from truth on the news...” you know its gonna be bad.
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I'm always wary of people who have absolute confidence in what they know, that think they understand how everything works, and how others thinks...  @rek no i want people to tell me about the evil socialists so that i know who they are and i can go hang out with them Been solar cooking beans for the last few days, with all the sunny days we’ve had they cook in under 2 hours. To be fair, I pick ones that cook fairly fast like black beans and kidney beans. We’ve been adding them to all our meals. Lentils are crazy fast too (a legume tho). Only failure was soybeans. I tried solar cooking them twice. It’s too messy(deck was sticky with soybean juices) and takes too damn long, even if they’ve been cracked and soaked. @rek the solar oven experiment info is great :D Have you seen “Will it tofu?” Series of videos? https://youtube.com/@marystestkitchen Earlier this year we fermented some purple top turnips with some red beets in brine. It is very, very delicious.  @rek Is that the same pickle that is often used in falafal wrap and middle eastern salads? It looks very similar. Just finished reading Lord of the Flies. What a devastating read. It is rare that when reading a book that I have to stop mid-sentence, cause I'm choking up, cause what is happening is so terrible. That last chapter was especially stressful. Kept me awake for a long time (we read at night, i read aloud for both of us).
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Christ. Had a boat try and stern-tie next to us, but the wind kept pushing them on the beam, then as they tightened the stern-line it caught into their dinghy, then the dinghy fell in the water, then a line of the dinghy got caught in the prop. We yelled at them to stop going forward. Guy pulled boat with dinghy. Wife didnt know how to lower/lift anchor or what the markers on the chain meant, can't pull stern-line in by hand (lacking strength). Holy HELLL XD... They had help, but g'damn...! They were dragging towards us, then towards shore.... Not knowing how to handle your boat is so, so dangerous, especially with a boat that large. Not being able to deal with it physically is also a big problem :/. Walked on another trail on the south shore of Roscoe Bay (Ridge trail). Lots of uphill, scrambling over fallen trees. Aaaaaand Devine got stung by a bee again It's a bit of a funny situation when to get internet to pay my bills, the phone needs to be hoisted up the mast to get a connection, but to pay my bills, I need a verification code sent to that same phone. I know the code was sent cause I can feel the vibration in the mast *buzz buzz*. Kay, time to pull it back down, then back up again (hopefully, w/o losing connection). The other day someone called us, and there was lovely music playing aloft for a short few seconds.  Note: I'm not complaining, I just think it's funny. Not looking for ways to fix this. :moomin_flower2: |
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@rek Headsails always make for such pretty photos!