African Chicken/ Plum Basil

I participated in a cooking contest during the boat show... and I'm still not sure how I placed. We were in the middle of preparing the boat for out first charter and didn't make it to the party where they announced how everyone placed. BUT I did make in onto the official CD of contest photos. I made my African Chicken Peanut Soup and Plum Basil Salad. Most people can't even repeat the name of the soup so I was sure it would be the only one of its kind. (and it was)

African Chicken Peanut Soup
(serves 4)
2 cooked chicken boobs, diced
3/4 c. white onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 T. dark sesame oil
2 t. yellow curry powder
3/4 t. salt
1/2 t. ground black pepper
1/2 t. crushed red pepper flakes
4 c. chicken stock (2 cans)
1/4 c. tomato paste
1 can whole stewed tomatoes, drained
4 T. chunky peanut butter

In a large pot saute chicken, onion, and garlic in sesame oil for about 10 minutes- until onion is tender. Add curry powder, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Saute for 1 minute. Use scissors to cut stewed tomatoes into bite size pieces. Add stock, tomato paste, stewed tomatoes, and peanut butter. Stir until well combined. Heat almost to a boil and serve with crusty bread or salad.

Plum Basil Salad
2 T. olive oil
2 T. fresh lemon juice
2 T. fresh orange juice
1 T. balsamic vinegar
1 t. grated orange zest
1 t. grated lime zest
pink sea salt
coarse black pepper
10 oz. baby spinach
2 c. basil leaves, torn
2 black or red plums

In a small bowl whisk together oil, lemon juice, orange juice, vinegar, and zests. Season with salt and pepper. In a large bowl toss the basil and spinach -add dressing and coat well. Top with sliced plums, salt, pepper, and any extra zest for color.

Swimmin with Dolphins

Location: Secret Cove, BVI

If you didn't already hate us because of our totally cool job, you can start now. We pulled into one of our favorite secret spots this afternoon with our current charter. Just after we set the anchor a dolphin swam right up to the boat. I instantly grabbed my mask and jumped in after it. Our guests followed suit and it didn't even phase our little friend. He continued swimming around the boat with us. Sasha started some water sports with the kids and the dolphin loved it! He swam with the dingy all afternoon! Our guests loved it (especially the girl who's afraid of all things that swim).

Busy!

Just finished a wonderful charter and we are busy preparing for what we hope will be another great one!  Pictures and stories soon...

Amazin' Flamin' Dinners

Current Location: The Baths, Virgin Gorda

Lat/Lon: 18°25.89' N 64°26.74' W

Air Temp: 79°F Sea Temp: 79°F

Weather: Sunny, Clear

Last night's dinner was quite an event.  The captain helped out by making his famous Columbian/French/Puerto-Rican Rice & Beans while Tara broiled some local Red Snapper, which all looked and tasted amazing!  Tara finished by with her famous flaming coffee (without setting herself or the boat on fire)!!  Everyone was pleased and impressed.

 

Vacation is over, time to go on vacation

Current Location: Diamond Cay, JVD

Lat/Lon: 18°27.03' N 65°43.43' W

Air Temp: 79°F Sea Temp: 79°F

Weather: Cool, Clear

Brrrrrr!  Winter must be here.  Water temp PLUNGED into the low upper 70's.

Today's post has one photo of me actually doing work!  I wiped down the hulls as a preemptive strike against marine growth and to renew the antifouling paint.  

Then we went to the bubbly pool on the north face of Jost Van Dyke, and there was a good swell running.  That pool was BUBBLY!

Then Tara took me surfing!!!  TOW INS AT JOST!!

Now we are back on charter, but still sending you warmth and love.  (Just not as much warmth, it's getting cold here!)

More Pictures

Here are some pictures from the last week or so.  We accomplished a lot (in no particular order): changed the oil in the Volvos, caught and ate lobster in St. Croix, installed a new (plastic-coated) cable to lock the dinghy and engine, visited the Gold Coast Catamaran factory in Salt River, St. Croix (with Capt. Kirk, and yes that is a 67' long, 15' tall catamaran in the background), visited the Annaberg Sugar Mill ruin in St. John (they used live coral as a building material!), scrubbed the dingy, cleaned and oiled the teak (note before and after in photos, and how the teak shines now!), and scraped and re-painted the big windows.  We also had a feline visitor who saw how nice the boat looked and decided to hop on and say "hi".  Sasha: "Can we keep him?"  Tara: "No."

More Work

Current Location: Francis Bay, St. John
Lat/Lon: 18°21.85' N 65°44.76' W
Air Temp: 80°F Sea Temp: 80°F
Weather: Breezy, Cool, Clear

Again, proof that Tara does all the work around here. She is unstoppable! It took three computers and a few tips from me to design this PVC wine rack, and Tara built it all herself! Looks good!

Ahoy St. Croix

Hope your holiday season is going as well as ours!! We just heard our first Christmas carols on the radio this past week and realized that it's finally that time of year again. The big debate now is whether or not to start playing carols on the boat. What do you think?
We just made it back from St. Croix-- averaged 8.75 kts for the entire 35 miles up to St. Thomas. It only took us about 5 hours which was a great surprise as we were not sure what to expect. I manned the fishing pole and 4 hours later again realized why the call it fishing and not catching. Not one single bite :( Sasha and I did some diving with a friend of Capt. Monk's while in St. Croix. Dr. Bob is an Animal Science Researcher who has been working/diving on St. Croix for 15 years and was a great scuba guide!! There are very loose regulations on lobstering so we caught some dinner while we were down. The diving was great because there were walls that drop from 30 to 10,000 ft with amazing relief and swim throughs. Sasha had fun swimming around with a mohawk-- he thought it might make him look more like a fish. In reality it just made his head feel cold faster. We had planned to spend a few more days down in St. Croix, but our window of small seas and east wind came today so we went with it!

Culebra Days and Nights

Current Location: Ensenada Honda, Culebra, PR
Lat/Lon: 18°18.6' N 65°17.5' W
Air Temp: 80°F Sea Temp: 80°F
Weather: Clear, Light NE Breeze

Continuing our trend of working harder while on our vacation, we sailed down to Culebra to "relax" for a few days. Here is an abbreviated list of things we accomplished while here:
- Removed dinghy engine
- Beached, flipped, scraped, washed, scrubbed, and sanded the dinghy
- Applied three coats of antifouling paint to dinghy bottom
- Tara scrubbed all the teak on Hypnautic
- Installed a ventilation fan in the cockpit fridge cabinet
- Installed two waterproof GFCI-protected 120VAC outlets in the cockpit
- Ate a Barbara Rosa's, a local culinary institution
- Hung out at the Dinghy Dock
- I even cooked dinner tonight
This does not include the two hours spent stirring the gallon of bottom paint (all the copper clumped up at the bottom). Many thanks to Kirk and Pam for their help and advice, loaning us tools, letting us shower off the paint at their house, and for helping us flip and scrub the dinghy!

Also, Tara is probably entirely correct about how awesome it was to finally be on vacation. Getting some more surf at Sandy Spit was awesome!!!

Here are some pics, Tara scrubbing Teak, Sasha Surfing

Vacation

Here are pictures from our vacation so far. We're having fun and getting lots of work done around here! We spent one morning at Sandy Spit surfing, playing in the sand, and swimming. We were entertaining enough that other tourists were asking to have their picture taken with us. I'd never been buried in sand before so Sasha did his best-- ? Later that evening after dinner Sasha mentioned that he'd never buzzed his hair before so I did my best -- :) There are a few more "hair pictures" to come. I has been quite the progression.