Weekend in Newfound Bay, St. John

We tried our new crab trap Friday night. Zach caught a fish in Coral Bay off the boat and chopped it up for bait. We dropped the trap just outside of the bay. Early Saturday morning Zach went to pick up the trap, unfortunately he found an empty bait bag and two holes in the side of the trap!

I spent the morning stowing and tying down, getting Kate ready to sail while Zach ran around doing errands on St. John. By noon we picked up both our anchors and we were on our way. A steady breeze around 15-17 knots, we were in front of Round Bay in about an hour and decided to keep going to Newfound Bay. The entrance to Newfound Bay has a reef on both sides with a nice "path" down the middle with a small anchorage in about 10-12' of water. We put out two anchors and headed over to the reef. Within about the first ten minutes Zach had snared two small lobsters, just barely legal size and let another go. Hooch and I cooled off in the water.

After our swim, I repaired the crab trap with some waxed twine and filled the bait bag with more of the fish from Friday. We put it directly under the boat where we could see it clearly sitting on the bottom, 12 feet below us.

I steamed the lobsters for dinner, using old bay, lemon juice, bay leaves, garlic and onions in the water. They took only about 15 min. The best Caribbean lobsters I have ever tasted, we ate them all, legs, antennae and all, delicious!

In the VI a lobster needs to be 3.5" from base of the body to the base of the tail - this little guy is a hair larger.

After dinner we checked the crab trap. Empty! Completely empty, the whole bait bag was gone! Starting to think our little collapsible crab trap just isn't going to work, but we gave it another try. The lobster shells and heads went into the trap directly in the bottom, since we know longer have a bag to put them in. We dropped it back under the boat for the night. When we checked the crab trap first thing in the morning one of the heads was gone, but otherwise no change, no crabs.

I jumped into the water with my snorkel and found two cow fish hovering around the trap. We went for an early morning snorkel and saw lots of fish, but no more lobsters! Back at the boat, we had pork chops and eggs for breakfast. After cleaning up, we went back for another snorkel on the other side of the reef. This time we brought Hooch and our camera. Still lots of fish, but less coral unless you went rather far out into the opening of the bay.

We listened to the weather on our VHF and found a low pressure area was supposed to be coming through the area Sunday night or Monday so we canceled our plans to spend another night and sail back early in the morning Monday. We picked up anchor around 2pm and headed back to Coral Bay.

On our way home we sailed into Hurricane Hole and yelled a quick hello to Andrew, Zach's boss, before heading into Coral Bay and dropping our primary anchor behind S/V Breath.

Monday morning finds Zach back at work and I did quick sand and a second coat of primer on the cooler. I won't be able to do the first coat of paint for 16 hrs. So, tomorrow morning should be the first coat. I put up the awning and started getting the boat back in order after our weekend sailing.

When I checked the forecast this morning, I found the first Low pressure area that could really be a problem for us this year. It currently has a 20% chance of developing into a tropical cyclone and looks like it is heading toward the Leeward Islands. We will have to keep a close eye on this in the next day or two.

Savory Monkey Bread (Pull-Apart Bread)

Today, after finishing as much as could be done with the cooler project and hanging the load of laundry I did, I decided to make some bread for dinner. I wanted something a little different and was thinking of making dinner rolls. My favorite kind of dinner roll are rolled in garlic and parmesan cheese – so good fresh from the oven! To try something a little different I decided to do something similar but put them all into a bread pan – like I do when I make Monkey Bread (a dessert).
I had some whipping cream on hand so I used half cream and half water, heated for a few seconds on the stove to rid the cream of its' chill. I added some salt, sugar and oil to the pot and gave it a little whisk. While I waited to make sure my yeast was going to react I put a couple cups of flour into a ziplock bag. The "bag method" as we call it allows me to knead the dough inside the bag to cut down on the flour mess and keep dog hairs out of the dough. It rises right in the bag and can be kneaded as many times as necessary or thrown into the cooler to finish later. This very convenient method was taught to me by the owner/charter chef of S/V Ragamuffin. After I finished kneading I threw the bag into the cockpit in the sun to rise. 

While I had the cream out I put about a cup into the   food processor with a little almond extract and processed until it turned to whipped cream which will be great for our coffee in the morning!

When I notice the dough doubled in size I punch it down and give it a little more kneading (but I never go overboard). I mixed together granulated garlic, parmesan cheese, oregano, and sage. Next I started pulling little handfuls of dough out and rolling it into the spice mixture and throwing it into a greased bread pan. When the dough it all used I set it aside to rise again. Once it looks ready into the preheated oven it goes, approximately 350 degrees, rotating once, for about 30-40 min.

Installing our new Force 10 stove

Hiking to Brown Bay with Zach & Hooch

Brown Bay - rougher than last time we were here with Jerry

Zach did some snorkeling and saw a Barracuda the size of him and a large Permit.  Conch everywhere, but it isn't season so we didn't take any.  Hooch and Zach did some body surfing, Hooch turning and jumping on Zach's legs and fins to try to ride him in.  It was very entertaining!

All done snorkeling!!!

This mask leaks, do you have one to fit my face better?

Overlooking Hurricane Hole from Brown Bay Trail

Canning

14 July 2012 - Saturday

Zach has to work today, so I decided to give my extremely sore body a break from the upside down sanding.  Not to mention the itching, Zach didn’t even like hugging me last night saying it made him itch!

Getting ready to can

Butter, Bacon & Pork

Before it went into pressure cooker

I have been experimenting with canning meat, without refrigeration it is a very appealing idea.  So far I have tried bacon and pork.  I continue to can butter, because it is awesome!  Today I am trying ground beef/pork.  Half I am going to do with seasoning and a small amount of broth to be used in meals.





Didn't look much different after it came out.  Just a little bit darker.


A couple years ago I tried drying ground beef and vacuum sealing it for future us.  Unfortunately, it tasted similar to dog food, hope this tastes better!


Squall came through while the meat was in the cooker.  We really need the water, but my design for awning/rain catch has a few flaws.  Shown here, the water pools off to the sides and the hose is in the middle.  Plus after a year in the sun the fabric leaks if the water sits on it.  For now, we have to stand outside and hold up the sides so the water funnels into our tanks.  I'm still debating about what to do as a real solution.

 I used the rest of the ground beef/sausage to make up a sauce.  Here is a picture of the jars just before I closed the lid and started jarring it!  Will have to let you know in the future which we like best! 

Working on Kate

13 July 2012

Now that my full time job is working on Kate, our neglected 1962 Allied Seawind, I decided I should start writing our blog again.  More like a journal for me, I will be able to look back and see what I have accomplished and hopefully the notes about how to do it better/easier next time.  Our camera miracously started working again out of the blue, but I still can’t find the cord to download it to the computer.  I love using the camera for boat projects I so often have a hard time describing what something looks like or forget what it used to look like before I started taking it apart.

Frozen Pin

My first project today, I started yesterday.  I am trying to replace our broken transmission cable.  Both ends are frozen in place and despite tapping, spraying with first Lanolin and then PB I still couldn’t free up the pin on one side.  What finally worked was a large socket on the pin head side, around the head so no pressure was applied to that side with a slide clamp tightened on the other side of the pin and the socket.  Still took all my strength, but it finally broke loose and allowed me to struggle with vise grips to get it the rest of the way out. 

Notice the line and block hanging (old kill switch line)

Transmision side of new cable

I had to remount the block on the wall using an epoxy paste.  I found it was too thick, Zach thought this might be why our old cable was bending.  So I planed it down with one of Zach’s hand planes, which took a little getting used to but worked well.  I realized that the shifter has three holes that the pin can go through creating a larger circle with each hole farther out and therefore greater cable bending.  I think this is the reason the old cable was getting bent, I probably did this wrong two years ago when I replaced it last!  So I used the inside hole this time and it seems to work much smoother.  All back together and we have forward, neutral and reverse, YEAH!!!

While I was down in that area I noticed that our cord for our kill switch gets caught on the back of the shifter.  So I shortened the line the block was attached to added more line and ran it through a guide which I screwed to the wall.  We can use our kill switch without lifting the seat again!

Not a fun place to hang out - but won't having a built in cooler be nice!

On to my internal cooler project, the hardest project I’m working on because of all the paint and fiberglass dust.  This will be day two working on sanding the cooler, yesterday I chipped off all the loose fiberglass and peeling paint and now I am trying to prep it for minor glass work on the bottom corners, 5200 to seal around the old side door, then prime and paint.  Hanging upside down in a small box sanding fiberglass is no fun.  I wore a mask and goggles, could barely breathe, could see very little and got incredibly itchy and light headed.  Taking breaks from being upside down, I prepped the surface of the inside of the other cockpit wall to remount the water pump block which is falling off.  After that was sanded and wire brushed I again used thickened epoxy and a clamp to remount.  By the end of the day the cooler still isn’t ready for glass, but I’m exhausted!

Water pump I originally installed a couple years ago - hope I did a better job this time!

I made a great breakfast before dropping Zach off at work of pork chops and eggs.  Put oil and gas in the outboard.  For dinner we still have some mussels left so I am going to make a white sauce with sausage and mussels over pasta – yum!