Tuesday, March 30, 2010

807 miles from La Cruz now, with lots and lots of water all around. Really, lots. Still fabulous weather, we feel amazingly blessed to have had such a perfect first week. Up ahead we're expecting squalls near and in the ITCZ, so we'll get a boat wash or two and will have to move meals inside, but for now we're enjoying al fresco meals with a superb view. The full moon doesn't hurt matters, either, and we're relishing the beauty of our night watches.

Today Greg sewed zippers and sewed more zippers and decided he was a "sewing machine." Zipping all those cargo shorts' pockets, by hand, very impressive. Tiffany polished off her stint in the kitchen with quesadillas for lunch made from home-made flour wraps she and I made, which were quick and easy, and a great alternative to bread, which we're running out of. For dinner, bacon bleu cheese burgers and salad, followed by oatmeal blueberry cookies. I have KP again tomorrow and she'll be a tough act to follow.

With the avocados gone, as well as the fresh greens, plums, tangerines, bell peppers and tomatoes, from now on it looks like an exercise in disguising cabbage. The cruising cookbooks on board all have extensive recipe collections using the durable veggie, from Russian soups to Chinese chicken salads to cabbage wraps.

Sunset tonight was enhanced by a huge school of dolphin that surrounded the boat and swam alongside for quite awhile. They were smaller than those we're familiar with in Southern California, with funny-looking tail fins and shorter dorsals. They're gone as soon as they come, like elves in the woods, though I've never met an elf. That I know of.

And so we begin Week Two at sea. We're really falling into our routines and into the rhythm of the boat. There's lots of time for group hangout time and personal time, we're all getting enough sleep, and as you can tell there's no lack of good food aboard Fly Aweigh.

As my sister-in-law Sophie says, Bon Ap!