Kaimusailing

I thought I was getting better with the hip pain, but as the day wears on I end up a cripple. As before, I can ride the bike all over the place but can’t stand or walk without eventually getting pain. I had some old dishes to wash and also go through the pizza utensils. I was up and down the swim ladder on Kaimu. It was better to organize so I didn’t have to go up and down so often. I was missing pizza pans and eventually got it all together. Yes, it was a return to Pizza Night. The day was supposed to get up to 84 degrees. The yeast are going to like this one.
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I needed to get to the post office for at least one package and to Ace hardware for solvents to patch the deflatable dinghy. Eloisa was my ride and she was nowhere to be found. I texted her. No reply.
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In the communal kitchen, long ago declared uninhabitable, I worked to clean stuff and prepare for Pizza Night. I needed 4 bowls and 4 pizza pans, a large bowl for dough, a knife and spoon, and I had to clean the cutting board. I like cleaning dishes and I think I do a good job of it. But, I can’t leave stuff in the kitchen, it seems some people think that everything there is up for grabs, and they grab it.
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I got a reply from Eloisa, she was out getting cleaning supplies. She now had a business going on. She cleaned Robert’s boat and the went on cleaning boats and word got around. She called it an accidental business. She asked when did I want to go out. Well, now or in 2 hours. I had shortened the pizza dough process by combining 3 cups of flour, 2 cups of warm water, and a tablespoon of yeast along with a tablespoon of honey in a bowl, whisked into a consistency of pancake batter.
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It was a short trip, to the post office and Ace hardware, both right across the street from each other. I got a package at the post office of PVC patches and another, my blood pressure medicine from Mauritius. At Ace I got acetone and xylene, solvents to clean for patching a dinghy.
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It was another summer-like day, now in the beginning of March, everything was so beautiful. Allergies erupted from all the Spring pollen. I had been coughing from that, and limping from my arthritis flare up. What a sight.
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Back at the communal condemned kitchen the yeast mixture had expanded and crept up most of the mixing bowl and the whisk was flooded with dough halfway up the handle. I was able to pick away dough from the whisk. I conked down the foaming dough in the bowl. I was trying to get some sticky dough off me and into the bowl. The dough was very sticky, so I scooped in an additional half cup of flour. The idea was that the flour was needed to make the dough drier and less sticky. It worked well enough that I could form the 4 little bambinos of dough and cover them in olive oiled bowls to finish rising for the next couple of hours.
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Although I was sore and limping I brought the pizza oven and propane tank around to the entrance of the woodshop which is right near the stone table we have been frequenting. I set the oven on a small table from the condemned communal kitchen side of the building. The ingredients that needed prepping were brought to the stone table along with the cutting board and my cheap dollar store stainless knife, dull thing.
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The no-see-ums were out in force and swarming, biting. I left to spray Deep Woods Off on my exposed extremities. They still swarmed and attacked. I prepped the hickory smoked sausage, mushrooms, and mozzarella. Denis the Canadian truckdriver showed me a photo from Radio Bill who is happily in Rome with his sweetheart, it is a photo of buffalo milk mozzarella, the real stuff. I don’t think I can get any in St. Marys, Georgia. I put all the prepped items in zip lok bags as well as a liter of merlot in a plastic bottle.
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I figured I had enough time to patch the deflatable dinghy. I used paper towels and the two solvents which didn’t clean as well as I had hoped. Then I applied HH-66 adhesive and set my phone timer to 3 minutes. The directions say allow the glue to dry for 2-5 minutes and in the 80 degree heat I guessed that 3 minutes should do it. Then I applied the patches. One was a new patch, the other was an old patch that was half off. I left that dinghy tube deflated till the next day.
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It was a quarter to 5 and I texted it’s 5 o’clock somewhere and poured a glass (plastic) of wine. I lit the oven at 5 and began making the first pie. It would be a sausage pie. The grocers now had Cento tomato puree on hand and I was glad to be using that instead of second best Cento crushed tomatoes. The Cento whole tomatoes are grown in volcanic soil near Mt. Vesuvius in Italy, they are certified. The other products are the same strain of roma tomatoes, called San Maranzo, but they are grown in volcanic soil in California.
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The black dog named Blue was scampering all over the boatyard so I knew Eloisa would not be far behind. Strangely he wouldn’t come near to have a treat of a piece of sausage. Robert’s malmute HaiChi came over with his wolf like howl and got a piece of sausage. I even gave Eloisa a piece. Cosmo the boatyard’s dog was nearby as well as a fourth dog from one of the other boats. Robert did not show up, he was not feeling well. Helicopter Dave and Roughrider Lynn showed up with Black Box merlot. A dutch lady sailor who had been aloof but was friends with Lynn came over and joined us.
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I made a second pie, mushrooms, then a third which I really messed up. I absent mindedly removed the top of the Italian spice jar and a huge pile of spice fell on the pie. I was able to remove almost all of it though there was a lot of spice on the sauce. The garlic salt I was using was kind of stuck together due to moisture so I had to remove the top to get the salt out. I did the same with the Italian spice when I should have just opened the cap and shaken the spice out. A further mistake was forgetting to put the mozzarella on the pie. Wine works wonders. The last pie had a ton of mozzarella on it. It was probably the best pie of all, but we were full by that time. The no-see-ums never let up and we disbanded as the sun set.
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The next day I pumped up the dingy to test the patches. The no-see-ums were really aggressive. The forecast was for thunderstorms and there were low rainy looking clouds, but no rain yet. My hip was still sore and I biked around to loosen it up. Blue, the black dog, was sniffing around my boat. Eloisa must be nearby. I started biking around the corner but she was not there. We continued all the way to Doc’s Chop Shop where the vamper was parked and Eloisa was working with swaths of filmy fabric and a patio umbrella out near the edge of the marsh.
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The umbrella looked flimsy and I ended up getting enlisted to hold it up, hold this piece of cord here, and that there, while she got dangerously close to me. I was unshowered and didn’t want to get too close to her and upset her. She persisted and it was a wonder we weren’t tied up together there. I suggested I go off and get cleaned up to go to town and we could get what she needed to make what she wanted. A bug free screened space, airy, and close to nature.
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We went to the fabric store where the proprietor and Eloisa conversed about how they were both mermaids. The store was full of a zillion fabrics. We then went to Lowe’s to look at patio tables with holes in the middle to help hold up an umbrella. Probably it would cost $100 and up. Their bug proof mesh wasn’t too dear, but she explained to me, womansplained, that for only 20 or 30 bucks we could get one from Amazon, jeesh, she said, I should have already ordered one. We went to Walmart and I ordered the mesh tent from Amazon and 64 oz of Awesome cleaner to make the 25 buck free shipping quota. I needed water and wine, she needed clothespins, I also needed a bunch of gym shorts to work in the upcoming heat. When I returned to the vehicle I could see she had purchased clothespins so now she had a bunch.
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Back at the boatyard I unloaded my water and wine and inner city style gym shorts. They might upset a few of the Trumpophiles. She took me to my bike that was now rained on. Did I really have to go anywhere, she said she was going to start cleaning the renter’s apartment. Not an enviable task, but for her, business. I said she was earning her money.
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I was hungry, I had leftover chili from way back, we must eat it. I said 10 minutes. She agreed. I got the chili, a spare bowl, spoons, a liter of wine, glasses (plastics), microwaved it in the condemned communal kitchen, and texted her to park in front of the kitchen, then a yardbird pulled up in his pickup truck in the space I told her to take. I moved around to the woodshop entrance, where the now extinct pizza oven was situated. I rearranged the furniture so there were two nice plush rollaround office chairs for us to sit in.
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Blue came scampering down through the boatyard. Eloisa was wafting along in her ethereal way, with her blue filmy shawl. I was already eating, as usual, crunching blue corn chips and week old Ole Mole Chili. I poured wine for her before her footstep hit the Dodge City boardwalk porch. We ate lunch leisurely, but a black pickup truck came by. It was a Chevy Silverado, completely blacked out, she said there should be a party in back. The truck must have turned around because it came back, now with the driver’s side on our side. It was “Bob with one O” driving. That rascal. He acquired boats and battled cancer. I introduced him to Eloisa. As we talked I found out he was going to scrap one of his boats and acquire a motorsailer. As we talked I realized this was the same boat Geoff the Phd chemist and I had gone over some time ago. He and the St. Marys Yacht Club were involved with the owners. The husband had passed away and now the widow was selling the boat.
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Just then who should show up but Geoff and I pointed at the black truck and said talk to him. Soon they were engaged. I explained, mansplained, to Eloisa what I thought was going on. After a while Geoff came over with a piece of paper in his hand. Looked like some sort of building plan. It was a proposed transient marina facility in downtown St. Marys. He said it was an awful plan. The tidal currents in the waterfront of St. Marys are strong and many have had to rush out to secure their boats. When you visit here Bahama moor or maybe have a super anchor.
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The plan had docks parallel to the shore and finger piers jutting out across the current. Very bad. If the current is running, which it will except at high and low tides, you will be trying to get into a slip with a fierce current trying to destroy your boat. I agree with Geoff. Bad design.
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Eloisa ran off to continue her afternoon work and I returned to the dinghy to reinflate and retest for leaks using soapy water. I couldn’t find the remaining leak. Oh, well. It was better than it was and useable with an occasional pump up. Geoff had pointed out that in the corner of the dinghy some patch flaps were loose. Better fix that.
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I fixed the corner patch and then started pouring water into the dinghy, trundling it from the communal wash basin about 4 gallons at a time. At first there were no indications of the water leaking out of the dinghy, but later there was a definite patch of wet soil, the dinghy was leaking out from around its floor, and if it were in the water, that water would be leaking in.
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It was roast pork night, roast pork from my Omnia oven and caesar salad from Eloisa, awaiting a rainstorm. I asked Robert could we have dinner in his boat cockpit, it has a hard dodger so we would not get wet, not far for Eloisa and her salad, and I would brave it gathering things like plates and utensils, roast pork in zip lok bags, a liter of wine in a plastic bottle, and cup to drink from.
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At Robert’s boat I tried to boost Blue, the black haired dog, up the ladder, but he skittered away back down to earth. Robert put my bag of goodies in a cooler. Eloisa came along with the salad and somehow we got it all aboard. She wanted to use the top of the cooler to organize the dinner, but I said let’s get the other stuff out. We did, and she was putting caesar salad on the corner of a plate, then some of the roast pork. We moved along. Robert wondered where the plates had come from, but we all got served and drank wine, except Robert doesn’t drink. Nice conversation. Robert is my brother, I believe, and we both love Eloisa, who is lovable ,
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The next day I was feeling down, the weather was iffy, rain on the way. I went to the communal bathroom for morning festivities, and biked near Eloisa with toilet paper streaming from my handlebars.
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Do you want to go to the beach, she said, Oh yes, but I would just go along, let me put away my toilet paper and I’ll be back. I brought my smart cell phone along, a pen, some reading glasses, and we set out for the beach.
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It was raining off and on, she is very observant of the speed limits. She is a professional driver. I Googled ice cream, and other such things, I don’t know, women sometimes crave something, or they need some comfort food. I thought ice cream would be good, so I told her about the place on the way to a good coffee shop. We drove down and back up Center St.
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There was a sign, Green Turtle Tavern, with an arrow. We diverted from the ice cream shop. The funky bar allowed dogs, so we could sit at the end of the bar. He didn’t have ingredients for Jamaican coffee. Or coffee, for that matter. Eloisa went off for a couple cups of black coffee. I asked if he had food, but this is a drinking bar, not a bistro. He said the restaurant across the street would deliver and he had a take out menu from them. The menu looked good, Eloisa returned with two hot black coffees. I had a drink glass with a shot of Kahlua and a shot of black Jamaican rum and filled the remainder with coffee. I let Eloisa have a sip. Mmmm. But she wisely had coffee with one shot of Franjelico. I sent her across the street to get some food. I noticed the golf tournament was up on the flat screen and it was at TCP Sawgrass, about 30 miles South of us. I texted my friend Marco and asked if he was working that golf match and he replied yes. Wow, only 30 miles away and they have clear blue skies while we have overcast and rain. It turned out they were airing last year’s match as this year’s was suspended due to the inclement weather.
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I had run across a Hobie cat listed on Boat Angel’s site and put in a maximum bid of $301 using Auction Sniper. The current bid was $26 and the auction had about 3 hours to go.
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I ate my salad with shrimp and ranch dressing and had another of the potent coffees. I was trying to cheer up Eloisa who was down due to the cloudy rainy weather. I was feeling great. She wanted to drive along the beach. There is a Dairy Queen a ways down the beach and I said let’s go and get some ice cream.
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It was a nice run down among the dunes and beach houses, some were upscale, some under construction, some for sale. We had bypassed the DQ and doubled back to find it. We had chocolate cones and Blue had a pup cup of vanilla. We drove across the island and sadly left Fernandina and headed up RT17 to Kingsland. My hip was acting up and we stopped at the Publix grocers to get any ingredients for salmon salad, which is what I was going to concoct for supper along with Ritz crackers and merlot. I had the ingredient list on my phone and saw I needed a lemon and some onion. I returned to the car to ask her if she had those but she wasn’t there. I painfully walked back to the store and she came out, perplexed. She said she was standing right next to me and then I was gone and she thought I was shopping, looked through the store for me, then came out. Yes, she has onion and lemon. We returned to the boatyard.
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I won the Hobie cat at $260. It is located on Amelia Island where we just had been.
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I made the salmon salad with canned wild caught salmon, diced celery and onion, mayo, and dijon mustard. I emptied the rest of a box of Ritz snack packs, regular, not the whole wheat, into a plastic grocery store bag. I grabbed my nearly empty box of merlot and biked up to the forbidden Breezeway. I had a mall fork in the plastic bowl of salmon salad and scooped some onto a cracker and gave it to Eloisa who took a bite then gave the rest to Blue who eagerly chomped it. It was dark in the Breezeway and she said let’s go out back. It was a beautiful sunset taking place. Free Willy, her cat that has maybe been adopted by Doc, of Doc’s Chop Shop, was roaming around, but one whiff of the salmon salad and he came onto my lap. These animals are not afraid of humans no matter how fierce.
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The phone rang and it was my friend Tom who was a Hobie 16 owner with a lot of experience, we didn’t chat for long. The sunset seemed to take place in fast forward with the clouds changing colors from orange to purple and the sky losing its blue and becoming twilight, then stars coming out. Eloisa said it was a half moon and so it was high overhead with stars around it. The Ritz crackers were attacked by Blue who got a few before we subdued him. It was time to retreat from our repast. What a nice evening and prolonged snack.
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The next day I awakened to rain pouring down. A trickle from the hatch above me didn’t get noticed until I felt the cold wetness against my butt. The terrible wet spot effect. I secured the hatch better. I had to get up and in my horror saw the laptop getting rained on with water from the hatch. Everything was wet. I put on my clothes that were somehow dry and mopped up rainwater with a sponge on the companionway, the air mattress, and others like the laptop, phone, a box of wine was a spongy mass of wet cardboard. Well, there was almost no wine in it, so it was not a drastic casualty. But...I texted Eloisa, are you out of wine, yes, the reply. I needed wine and bread. I worried about her dealing with a dark rainy day, but she was fine, our excursion to Dairy Queen seemed to set her up to deal with this unusual weather.
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We had to go shopping, not only for wine and bread (for communion she asked), but I received a sale email from Winn-Dixie and I perused it to see if we could make something to eat. Cabbage was on sale, $.39/lb, brisket, as in corned beef brisket, was on sale. Corned beef and cabbage, corned beef and cabbage. I jotted down the needed ingredients on my notepad, got my wallet, and biked up to the Breezeway/Chop shop area where she was parked, tending the Breezeway renter’s dog, Lady. She was not ready to roll, but I sat in the Breezeway, patient. I was glad that she wasn’t sad on this rainy day.
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We rolled into the grocers and rolled out with everything we needed except for celery, which she had on hand. I had to get organized to make the dish, ala Alton Brown, so I took the brisket and the stock pot into the condemned communal kitchen and washed the pot, loaded the brisket into it, covered it by ½ inch of water, added the spice packet, and brought it back to Kaimu to cook on the propane cooktop. Very effective. I had to go back, clean the cutting board and the cheap dollar store stainless kitchen knife, and prep the cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, and celery. I put the preps in zip lok bags, brought them all back to Kaimu to throw them into the stock pot at appropriate times. The brisket gets 2 hours or so, then veggies, cabbage last for about a half hour.
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I shut down the burner to low and the stock pot kept perking along. I had to wait over an hour to add more of the prepped ingredients, so I had Schitt’s Creek playing on Prime Video, I am anticipating a surreptitious bill on the account associated with Amazon. I have never subscribed to Amazon Prime.
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The series Schitt’s Creek is funny, if you can follow the weird mental gymnastics the protagonists go through to wriggle their way through the scripts that it looks like Eugene and Dan Levy write. It is alternately, to me, frustrating and very funny. The episodes kept running along. I threw the vegetables in about 15 minutes early. I was worried. A while later I threw the cabbage in and the stock pot was full to capacity. I had to jam down the lid to make sure the cabbage would be cooked. The burner was now on high. I got ready to serve, cleaned dishes from a couple days ago, some utensils, the ladle, and cleaned the cutting board and knife to slice the brisket. Time was running out.
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Eloisa was out partying with Roughrider Lynn and my ears were burning. What about Robert, who had been worrying about chest pains, I asked if he was in love, and his prosthesis bothered him. We could eat on his boat in the cockpit which was covered, or in the forbidden Breezeway, or on the communal porch, probably the worst place to gather to eat.
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We agreed to meet on the communal porch in the rain. I had to hustle to get stuff down there from the stove, but Eloisa showed up, driving a bit too far. The rain was falling and we got the stock pot of corned beef and cabbage ready to dish out. The wine came out. Robert showed up. Where did you park, he said at his boat, he had walked down through the boatyard in the rain. He talked about taking a 3 mile hike with his new buddies.
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Blue got his own stainless bowl of the concoction fed to him by his mom, Eloisa, bite by bite. He was animated, barking at anyone who moved. I had a plate of the boiled Irish stew. I had some of Eloisa’s wine. I poured for her too. It was chilly in the dark with the no-see-ums still bothering. Robert left after one small plate of the Irish stew.
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We had a gale forecast the next day and it was blowing steady 25 knots with howling gusts. Cabbage for lunch.
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The image is of fading sunset clouds over the North River Marsh.