Kaimusailing

Pizza Night. Not to be. We were at the Red Shell Shanty on Friday for their seasonal opening. Saturday was supposed to be Quesadillas at CM’s mom’s house, but the chef was too tired and we went to Fisherman’s Grille, formerly Cap’n Tylers. The next night was the Quesadillas and tequila drinks. Then came the FEAST at Eve’s house. What a meal. Appetizer of soft shell crab sauteed in butter, an old family recipe. Eve grew up on the Chesapeake and knows crabs. The main course was crab imperial with veggies on the side. Better than any restaurant anywhere.
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So the pizza oven was quiet over the weekend. For some reason I kept thinking it was Memorial Day because Cornelia Marie had taken Monday off. She had some real estate transaction that left her with no mortgage, but depleted her accounts. We had had a great weekend with mostly good food and beautiful weather, riding around on the borrowed skiff, picnic on a remote beach on Jaynes Island State Park. The dock which could probably hold 100 boats had just us. The beach was empty until a catamaran landed about a half mile away.
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Crisfield was still an empty town just like last summer, but it’s early in the season and I expect after Memorial Day things will pick up. In the meantime I continued working on the genoa roller furler problem. The halyard was in really bad shape, so I had ordered a replacement, which came in very quickly from Defender Marine. The new halyard arrived without a thimble in the eye, so I ordered a thimble, two mast steps to install near the mast head, and a halyard restrainer, which will change the lead angle of the halyard to the upper swivel of the furler. The old halyard had to be removed forward with a tag line attached to the tail of the halyard, then the tail of the new halyard was attached to the tag line and pulled up and over. For the remainder of the work at the masthead I will be up there with the electric bos’un’s chair which I brought along with its battery.
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I somehow turned off the speaker output on my laptop, but the headphone jack still works. A pair of headphones came in, cheap, called TM-02, I think, rechargeable, bluetoothable to the cell phone, and will take a 3.5mm audio plug, so a male-male cable also came in. Surprisingly this cheap headphone also has a decent FM radio built in, and I was able to tune to WBYC, the local low power radio station with its eclectic playlist. “Crissfield, a great place to be”, is the mantra coming from WBYC at regular intervals. This external headphone also keeps my hat on my head when I’m riding the bike down to the City Dock.
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Cornelia Marie reported that she had a cold and a temperature while working in Baltimore. Would she come down from Baltimore, driving 3 hours while ill? She did so, but needed time to decompress from the drive. We went to the Red Shell Shanty for crab meat, crab dip, and Orange Crush, a drink that has a lot of vitamin C in it, so it is healthy. I couldn’t do anything the next day until around noon. She was feeling better and began doing some art. I did a load of laundry and then shopped for groceries. There was an art event downtown near the City Dock. The street was closed. Vendors set up booths with art and crafts. A couple of food booths. Eve, the artist, had a booth and sold enough to credit herself with $5/hour for the day. It was a nice day, but the bugs were out. It was promising to see Crisfield awaken a bit after hibernation from the pandemic and winter, off season.
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I was starving and ready to go inside somewhere to get away from the no-see-ums and biting flies and order a burger and a beer. The art event didn’t close up till 7, so I moseyed off to the Red Shell Shanty and had an Orange Crush. I nursed it. The ladies had to take care of their dogs, pack up unsold artwork, and finally showed up at the Shanty. CM’s mom arrived with wonder dog Nori. Eve and a shop owner and entrepreneur from the art event arrived. Orange Crush and Chardonnay. Crab Quesadillas, the night’s special. Here I was, captive by the females. Even Nori is female. We almost closed the place, by a half hour. Another one bites the dust.
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The laptop from the boatyard didn’t arrive on Friday, the predicted delivery date, and now Saturday was done and no laptop.
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Sunday was announced as Pizza Night day, so we had to work together to make the dough, then shop for supplies, and make pizza, and art, at Eve’s house. The yeast seemed very lively and the first mix of dough raised up good and high. When I mixed in the last cup of flour the dough seemed wet and sticky. I added another half cup of flour and kneeded the dough by hand. It was what I called strong dough that handled reasonably.
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CM’s mom and I made the first pie. She wanted a Margarita pie with just tomato, cheese, and fresh basil. I used some of Eve’s canned tomatoes, some tomato puree, very thin slices of mozzarella, dusted with “Italian Mix” spices and baked for about 10 minutes. The fresh basil, preshredded, went on after the pie came out of the oven. Simple and very delicate taste. The dough was crispy and crunchy.
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Next CM made a pie and that came out with lots of ingredients. She used everything, I think. It was great.
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There was a lull and I made another pie with a lot of pepperoni on it. It was good. Eve retaliated with a pie that had a ton of stuff on it, she emptied the toppings from the cutting board. It baked a full ten minutes and maybe just a bit more. It looked great. We ended up with lots of leftovers, but out of wine and margaritas. The next day I had to put away all the pizza stuff. It is a chore, but the social get together is worth it.
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The new laptop came in and the Navigatrix 64 bit operating system installed smoothly. This laptop will be a backup to the one I am now using.
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The image is of the remote dock at Jaynes Island State Park, room for many boats but empty.