Gregory's Server
Air is smoky, but it's still pretty outside.
Anchored in Ballet Bay on Nelson Island for the night. We may stick around tomorrow too, because it looks like another windless day.
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A long, long day on the water. Wind was not as present as I thought it'd be. The sky was eerily white, couldn't see very far... ( see Dev's photos: https://merveilles.town/@neauoire/110947387038058463) On the upside, we saw 3 whales today (2 separate encounters). Possibly mink whales, and another larger one that I'm not certain about.  When you can see someone, and they can see you too, but can’t talk aloud. Gesture reference: I’m gonna try and keep these drawings in a thread. Ive been playing with new characters for the past 2 summers now, trying to work them into a story. It’s going well~ but it’s changed a lot from last year. Filling black hair by pencil looks so nice, better than a flat black mass like a used to do with ink. My darkest pencil is a 2B, would like to get my hands on darker ones this fall~ although it’ll likely make my sketchbook even messier ^^; (see the smears on Dae’s shoulder). Drawing little gestures like this always me laugh. Feeling so so right now so it helps (note: not something I want to talk about). Current weather: smoke. Glad we got to go for a walk this morning before the wind turned and the whole anchorage got smoky... Learned a LOT about snails today. Fact #1: snails can't absorb color pigments. If they eat colored paper their feces would also be similarly colored. Fact #2: some snails have something called a 'love dart', a thing they store in their bodies (in what is referred to as their 'dart sac') that prior to mating they try and shoot into other snails. The other snail doesn't have a thing to receive this dart(it's analogous to being shot by an arrow), nor is it an organ for sperm transfer. Nuts. Snails don't have really good vision, either, so they miss their target half the time. Then it's not like they can shoot another, because it can take a week to make a new one lol...  @rek I was on a vacation once, went to the sea and was living in the rented house. Every night I'd sit out in the yard until late. And every night I heard crunching behind me, really loud, every time I tried to find where this sound is coming from, but there was nothing visible there, it was driving me mad. And guess what, in the end it turned out to be a little little snail that was eating leaves with a really loud crunch every night.  There are a few places in BC called Hole in the Wall. We've been to two (apparently there's also a park on the mainland bearing this name). One is a man-made rock formation which used to house a pipeline to bring water from Rogers Creek to Port Alberni (now it's a tourist destination), and another is a set of rapids between Sonora and Maurelle Islands. The Octopus Islands are very pretty, but we were there during a very gusty time... to be fair, it's always windy near Johnstone Strait. The wind travels over Quadra Island into all nearby anchorages. We hardly slept last night because of 35-40 knots winds :/. At low tide, as the water recedes, submerged rocks come out and create little lagoons, or bridges between islands. 13.6 nautical mile run to Octopus Islands today. We sailed under a very small jib at 2-2.5 kts, drifting toward the rapids, moving slowly to arrive for slack (we had to leave Heriot Bay dock at 11, slack was at 14h40, we had time to waste). Beazley Passage(the rapids) was chill, just incredibly busy (we had to wait for 7-8 boats to come through before we could go). It’s interesting how here, the water floods south and ebbs north :)... Rainy now, and we’re tired, will post pics tomorrow :>. 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. |
@rek looks lovely, crossing my fingers that you are out of the smoke soon!
@rek Whole of Canada could do with Corsi-Rosenthal boxes outside.