Galley Notes: Roller Coasters, an Empty Fridge & Veggie Fritters

This week it feels more like we live on a roller coaster than we do a sailboat, so have been the emotional peaks and troughs. We finally made some long-term sailing plans (HIGH), only to discover a broken pressure plate in the transmission (LOW). In a strange twist of fate, Jim, a fellow sailor we…

Shifting Gears

It is a strange phenomenon amongst sailors to ask about “your plans.” Constrained by the idea that your home is mobile, people expect you to have some sort of timeline, for the coming weeks, months or even years. They think there should be a new destination always on the horizon. As if making a plan…

Reading Round Up; Recently Published Articles

Steve is home, and as always has brought me a few treats. This time he presented me with a stack of out-of-date magazines! To you that might not seem so exciting, out-of-date and all, but when magazines are like unicorns, you don’t really care if they are a few months old. Yes, I do keep…

Galley Notes: Making Yogurt On Board (AKA. Battle of the Bacteria)

As someone who travels as part of their daily life it seems inevitable that once a year or so I suffer through a bout of food poisoning. Tuesday, on a quick trip to town to pick up laundry, it seems I also picked up some greeblies. I won’t bore you with the details but let’s…

Pseudo-Single Handing & Cooking for One

Steve is away earning beer coupons, so we can keep doing this sailing thing. If you’ve been here for a while you know this is a kind-of-regular occurrence. By that I mean he spends 8-12 weeks of the year away working, just not necessarily on any regular or predictable schedule. This time however, it was…

Looking Forward: Looking Back

It might seem like I am a little late to the party with this one, I mean aren’t you supposed to reflect about the previous year as soon as the new year dawns? The thing is I have never been very good at following trends. I don’t necessarily think that I march to the beat…

Holiday Reading Roundup: Super Typhoons, Safety Gear and Spots to Slip the Boat

It starting to look a yacht like Christmas! The weather report is looking a little wet for the 24th & 25th ’round these parts. Which means we might have ample time to curl up under the Christmas lights and catch up on our reading. In case you are in the same predicament here are a…

Galley Notes: Chicken Stock in the Pressure Cooker

Making chicken stock in my pressure cooker isn’t some sort of revelation, but it is a process I recently started using to reduce food waste. I had experimented with the idea back in the beginning, 2008, when I first bought the PC, or perhaps I should say when I bought my first PC. Back then…

Connecting the Disconnect

A few months ago I had some fleeting doubts about whether the sailing life was still for me. After 10 years did I still enjoy living on a boat, sailing the world? We were stuck in the boatyard doldrums so I knew not to pay such passing worries much attention. However, when the subject popped…

How to Repair Your Boat…Conversation

Boat owners have a habit of talking about boat repairs. Which would be fine, except that boat ownership often entails an ongoing string of breakages and repairs. Ask a question like, “How are you today?” and 90% of boat owners will tell you all about how they have been trying, probably frustratingly, to fix something….