Cookies you say?

Another pretty calm day for the crew. The sea is not calm, however, getting up to its (now) usual shenanigans - making waves and all that.

I’m feeling excited for the holiday season which seems like it will start pretty much as soon as I get home. Yippee! I keep thinking about holiday cookies. I want to make them. Lots of them. I want to eat them. I want to share them with our neighbors in cute little baskets with a holiday card.

I had to do something. And so, in the spirit of the season, I made Jane’s Peanut Butter Cookies today. Some barriers to perfection: no cookie sheets or baking sheets of any kind on board. No teaspoon measurement tools. We only had baking powder instead of baking soda. Her recipe is so simple it never lets me down. Today was no exception. As you can see, no baking sheet lead to a single casualty. :)

Lovely talks with Jan. I feel very grateful to have such a good friend on board.

Just read the 4th week of The Artist’s Way and Julia Cameron says I shouldn’t do any reading for a week. Well, sorry Julia, that’s not going to happen when the 5th Stormlight Archives book comes out in 4 days. It’ll just have to wait. I’m too excited.

A few As for the Qs I’ve received in comments on previous posts:

Q: Is it weird being away from land for so long?

A: Not as weird as I thought. It doesn’t frighten me at all that I can’t see land. It does sometimes feel pretty odd in that the only real indicator I have that we’re making progress towards our destination is the chart plotter. Without any reference points, it sometimes feels as if we could be making no progress at all.

Q: What’s with the flying fish? Why do they fly onto the boat? Can you eat them?

A: The flying fish jump out of the water to escape predators. If you watch the water on either flank as the boat sails, you’re bound to see them making haste into more distant waters. Sometimes, they mess up and fly onto the boat instead. You can eat them, but there’s not a lot to them, especially the smaller ones. Plus, usually we find them in the morning when they’re already dead and dry having been on the boat for some unknown period of time in the night. Less appetizing to say the least.

Q: What’s the temperature like on board?

A: In the direct sun, it’s very hot. Especially mid morning to noon. But if you find some shade in the wind, it’s actually quite pleasant and cool. Staying in the shade also means less sunscreen which is nice - I always feel so sticky after sunscreen. When I go to bed at night recently, because the seas are so big and splashy, I have to close the hatch above my bed. It’s normally nice to have open for some fresh air, but it’s just not possible when the seas are this big. Sometimes I feel really hot at night and it takes me a bit to cool down before I can fall asleep. The little fan helps. If it’s hot enough, sometimes I’ll risk opening the hatch for a little bit. I’ve paid the price for that a couple times already with a surprise saltwater shower.

Our destination is feeling more real all the time. We’re at the point where I can reasonably extrapolate our time to landfall. I don’t have to zoom out very far on the chartplotter anymore to see St Marten and other Caribbean islands. Looking forward to a surprise visitor in St Marten as well! (A surprise for you, not for me.)

Pasta for dinner!

E