You may have noticed that we have been silent for the past few days on email, FB, and the blog. Our Croatian SIM cards ran out and, being in the boonies, we were unable to recharge them. We are back at the marina in Dubrovnik, using their wifi. Tomorrow, we will leave for Cavtat to clear out of Croatia, sail to Montenegro for a few days, and then cross the Adriatic to Italy. Upon arrival in Italy, (after docking) our first order of business will be the purchase of Italian SIM cards...and we'll be back online. We may have wifi in Montegreno, but won't know till we get there. When I have nothing to write about again, I'll do a blog about this whole wifi/cell data situation.

So, you saw Captain Ken's blog about motoring for hours with no wind or the wind on our nose. You may be thinking, what do they do to entertain and amuse themselves in dead calm (or dead clam, as Mike F says) conditions. I, for one, take on projects.

On Moonbeam, we have a nice spice cabinet which was in desperate need of some TLC. It was a mess...for many reasons. Jars and bottles were all stuffed in in no order. Why? For many reasons. First of all, many of our buddies who sail with us are gourmet cooks and bring with them esoteric spices for their meals. (That would be you, for one, Bob L.) They regale us with their fabulous dishes, and then leave, taking with them their recipes but not the ingredients which occupy precious space. Then we have 'chefs of the day' (including Captain Ken) who rummage through the cabinet, can't find what they're looking for, and open a new bottle or buy one, if a shop is available. And, finally, many of our friends are missing that certain OCD quality of keeping things in some kind of order.

So...with not much to do, I took on the task of cleaning and organizing the cabinet. I tried to wash the shelf liner, to no avail. The curry smell was entrenched. Not that I have anything against the smell of curry....but not at 8 in the morning. Another epiphany: I think of have more shelf liner....I know where it is...and, I think I can actually find it easily in our 'garage'. So...no more curry smell. I ditched 'almost empty' bottles, listed out what we need to buy, and put the esoteric ingredients in a zip lock bag labelled 'Bob's Bistro Boutique' which is now in deep storage, awaiting Bob's return. (Bob: I didn't want you to worry that I had ditched them and you needed to buy more.)

The bonus of my travails: I found an unopened can of baking soda! I have been looking all over Greece and Croatia for some (there are cookies to be made) and none was to be had. I did find a substitution on the Internet (3 tsp baking powder=1 tsp of baking soda) but that was to be my fallback. I considered asking our buddy, Robert, to bring some when he comes over in a few weeks but I had already asked him to bring some Sodastream lite tonic mix (verrrry important for our popular G & T's) and given luggage and weight restrictions, i didn't want to impose any more,

So...it was all good. The spices are in order from A to Z, the baking ingredients are all together, the seasoning mixes happily share a shelf and I am one happy camper, with order triumphing over chaos. We'll see how long it lasts. (This is the 'after' pic. The 'before' pic would have broken my camera lens).