Original Drink Recipe: “Sex on the Boat”

This is an original drink recipe created by yours truly, The First Mate!
Sex on the Boat
Blend Together:
¾ Cherimoya flesh
2 cups ice
1 cup coconut milk
½ banana
¾ cup rum
Garnish with slice of orange, drizzle of dark rum, and umbrella

Makes 2 drinks.
The Cherimoya, also known as custard apple or sherbert fruit, is a large tropical fruit about the size of a grapefruit. It has juicy white flesh and large black seeds. It tastes like a combination of papaya, mango, pineapple, and vanilla. This cherimoya came in our CSA box!

Enjoy!

Running a New Line for the USC Flag!

Let's get our priorities straight! Football season is just around the corner! The Captain got a wonderful USC flag to fly, but we needed a new line from the mast.

We are a little hesitant to step down the mast again, after our last debacle. Hence . . . the ladder. . . Some video for your viewing pleasure. By the way, the finches are "house finches" and don't mind human beings around at all. Our presence has not deterred them in any way from pooping all over the deck. We will be scrubbing said deck tomorrow!

Sailing Teamwork and "Divorce Docking"

For a sailor that mostly goes it single handed sailing I found this video on CNN about coaching and teamwork interesting. The second half of the video is where the teamwork becomes the focus. This is has increasingly been a topic of interest since I want to get the first mate more time on the water and also to avoid the weekend sporting event of "Divorce docking". This the time honored event that happens most summer weekends in a harbor near you where a husband steering a boat to dock yells orders to his wife, who has just made a perilous jump to the dock and is currently trying to control a several ton object, yells back. We have already done this a few times and I never questioned the duty assignments. Let's review;  we have one job that requires a gentle touch with a little finesse and another job that requires brut force to man-handle a couple tons with momentum. Hmm.. might want to rethink those assignments.

MBYC ocean race and Today's Quote

"The ocean has always been a salve to my soul...the best thing for a cut or abrasion was
to go swimming in salt water. Later down the road of life, I made the discovery that salt
water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land."
-Jimmy Buffett

The Morro Bay Yacht club ocean fleet race was today and it should be an interesting day sailing if the start was any indication. The winds were close if not at a Force 5 ( 17 - 21 knots/15-24) or even up to a gale (28 knots or 31 mph) so everyone had the foul weather gear on. Then leaving the harbor not one but two boats ran aground near the harbor mouth. One boat was able to get clear but the other was aground hard and had to wait for the tide to come up a bit. Hopefully on the next race I can get some action shots to post.

Baby Bird Update: 2 Weeks Old

Thank goodness these little guys are growing quick!  Hopefully by next week they will be out of the nest. We are definitely sailing on Memorial Day weekend, so they have a deadline!

Where to get help about your boat . . . ONLINE

This is a short note on a resource that I have found very helpful in learning the ins-n-outs of Training Wheels.  This resource is Yahoo Groups.

I have had specific questions about my boat that needed to be answered. Luckily, I found a Yahoo Group for Coronado 25 sailboat owners and most of the members are even Coronado 25 owners of my exact boat. This has been a treasure trove of good information on specifics like dealing the original seacock valves or changing the drain tube on the ice box. I have rarely seen any topic not get at least 3 good responses for solutions or support.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Coronado25/

I bought this old antique thing....What is Barometric Pressure Anyways?

Isn't it cool!  It is an old anchor!  And a barometer! 

Uhmmm, yeah, and what does it do . . . .  Exactly?
This is an "aneroid" barometer, as opposed to a mercury barometer.  It measures atmospheric pressure.  It did not come with any directions!!!

Ok, I have to admit that this post is mostly lifted from wikipedia, but the drama is to unfold: the needle is supposed to move from 29 up to 30 or down to 28, depending on the weather!
Reader beware: THIS POST IS PLAGERIZED FROM MANY SOURCES!

Average sea-level pressure is 101.325 kPa (1013.25 mbar, or hPa) or 29.921 inches of mercury (inHg) or 760 millimeters (mmHg).  Apparently, I am supposed to call the local radio station or weather station or coast guard and see what the local barometric pressure is, then set my barometer to that reading.  There is a screw on the back in order to do this.

It is all mechanical, so no batteries are needed. If the metal chamber cracks then the barometer will no longer work.  These barometers usually have words such as “Stormy” for low pressures (980 to 1000 hPa) and “Dry” for high pressures (1020 to1030 hPa). These words are at best only a first guide to the weather and date back to Vice-Admiral (Royal Navy) Robert Fitzroy (1805-65) who first visited New Zealand with Charles Darwin on the Beagle in 1835.

Will it rain? Tap the (aneroid) barometer!

It is OK to tap the outer glass of an aneroid barometer (firmly but lightly). By so doing you shift any recent pressure change stored in the mechanical linkage to the measuring needle. The resulting slight movement indicates whether the pressure is rising, steady, or falling. If the measuring needle goes to the left then there has been a drop in pressure recently.

Saturday Morning Bike Ride and Baby Finches!

We took the bikes down to get coffee.  The Captain read the local paper.  I read a little of Secrets of Six Figure Women.  Nice foggy Saturday morning reading....

Then we went to check the Finch eggs.  I was thinking it would be too early, but they already hatched!

When will we be able to sail again?  We have to wait for the chicks to fly out of the nest. 

 It could be weeks....

And when I got home to post this, Jessica Watson completed her solo circumnavigation sail:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/05/15/burrows.watson.homecoming.cnn?hpt=T2

Reflections on Sailing

The March/April 2010 issue of Good Old Boat ended with an interesting article by Matthew Goldman reflecting on his past love affair with the sea as the spring thaw approaches. The article is not generally written in a way that I would normally like, a little "old world" in its phrasing, but it struck a chord none the less. This reminiscing made me dream a little for the day when I am old and can look back over the years thinking fondly of the time I have spent on the water. As I am just starting out at sailing how can I apply this today?

The first thing that comes to mind is that no matter what happens I doubt I will describe in this way:
"And when I'm away upon the wind, don't look for me on your calm fetch of this world. I'll be, perhaps, in the lee of that island, yonder: be perhaps, on the far side of that billow; be, perhaps, behind that faintest of stars that lifts from the sea."

But I also notice that in his romanticized reflecting he didn’t mention about the times when things didn’t go right. Times like when in a stiff wind he couldn’t come about so decided to jibe and ended up the head sail wrapped around itself in knots or the time he ran aground because he was too busy finding the perfect spot to put his beer down. Even the repair job that took much longer than it should and still ended up sloppy looking didn’t get a mention. Why? All it takes is one good day at the tiller with a decent breeze to make any number of unpleasant memories fade away. It is good thing to remember in general that no matter how tough things are now and how much work is yet to be done, in the end we will remember the good times most and it will all be worth it.

A Bird in the Sail is Worth Two in the Bush

We spent the afternoon of Mother's Day on the Boat. 

Mother's Day ALERT!!! 

We discovered that our little finch friend had built a new nest and laid eggs!!!  I guess this mean that we can't go sailing for a while.  How long do finch eggs take to hatch?  How much bird poop do little finches make? 

Bustin Loose: A Very Impressive Sailboat Seen in Monterey

Check out this yacht!  She is yar!  (As Sarah Jessica Parker would say in Failure to Launch) 
I think I have yacht lust.  But, I know that this boat is way out of our league!  It was a beauty to watch though!

Interesting Seal Behavior in Monterey

There were about ten seals floating in the water with their fins up in the air.

It was the weirdest thing!  I thought maybe it was a mating ritual.  They were all just floating there peacefully with tails and arms and noses in the air.  I googled this phenomenon and it seems that they are just trying to cool off!  Sticking a fin in the air is similar to throwing sand on one's back, I guess!

But, it did get a lot of attention!

A Weekend Out of Town!

Sorry, we have been delinquent bloggers recently.  The Captain ran his first marathon, the Big Sur International Marathon!  It was a well organized event on the Central Coast.  Lots of spectacular vistas and amazing ocean scenery! 

And we went to the marina in Monterey!  Lots to share!  The next couple posts will be about this marina visit.  We saw some pretty funny and interesting harbor and dockside life.  Look and see for yourself.

We walked the board walk and got lunch on the sunny, warm patio.

And we found a potential buyer for our extra outboard motor!  Just Kidding.  But, it was a funny sight:

Happy Sailing, Mizzen!  One day we may meet on the ocean blue! 

I will post more on our Monterey visit.  Stay tuned!