No Hardtack For Us!

I had a wicked time trying to cook a meal on the little two-burner propane stove the first few times. By the time I moved off the boat and into a house five years later, I could cook a full Thanksgiving dinner on the tiny stove – turkey, pumpkin pie, and all the trimmings.

There was a small oven on the stove, and I had this fantasy that people would be lured by the smell of baking bread as we sailed along. Probably no one else could smell it, but it was enough to tantalize myself and whatever crew was sailing with me at the time.

My recipe was simple – a no-knead whole wheat bread. Put 7 ½ cups of whole wheat flour in a large bowl and set it in a very low oven for about 20 minutes. Dissolve 6 teaspoons dry yeast in 1 cup lukewarm water and add 1 tablespoon honey. Mix 4 tablespoons molasses with 1 cup warm water. Combine yeast and molasses mixtures and add with 2 tablespoons salt to the warm flour. Add enough water to make a sticky dough, approximately 2 cups.

I usually get 2 large loaves out of this, or you can get 3 small loaves. Butter your pans and turn the dough into the pans. No need to knead the dough. Let it rise for an hour and preheat oven to 450 F. Bake about 50 minutes or until crust is brown. I let it stand in the oven for a bit after I turn off the oven. You are supposed to let it cool before you eat it, but I’ve never been able to do that!

I marked it in my cookbook that I fixed this for the first time on July 25, 1980 out of Avalon. Mark turned 21 years old the next day, so we celebrated that night.

Split pea soup with smoky pork became a tradition on all our homeward bound trips after a week or more at sea. It’s a good thing stoves on a sailboat are gimbaled so that they remain steady and the soup doesn’t slop out when we are heeled over on a good run.

I like to use bacon ends and scraps. Brown these in a pan, then add chopped onion and slivers of carrot and cook slightly. Add a package of split peas and water. Add seasonings. I put in pepper, oregano, marjoram, bay leaf, or whatever I have on hand. Simmer until peas and veggies are cooked, but I like to leave the peas slightly lumpy for a hearty soup. It thickens as it stands, but it rarely has time to stand.

A big mug of hot pea soup with freshly baked bread slathered in butter seemed to make it easier to head back home. There was no hardtack for us! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardtack

STORMS AT SEA

One morning, while safely tied up in the harbor, my son met me in the galley with his cup of coffee and said, “Did we have a storm at sea last night?” I blushed, and we both laughed. It seems that a “guest” who had spent the night with me on board had gotten a little rambunctious and we rocked the whole boat!

Several months later, my friends Marty and Darline sailed to Catalina with us. They seemed to enjoy themselves that first night, and at breakfast the next morning, I calmly asked, “Was there a storm at sea last night?” She blushed furiously and he laughed at the joke.

The next time they went sailing with us, Darline said, “There won’t be any storms at sea this time. We did that last night!” So it was obvious everyone knew what we were talking about.

Several years ago, that same couple was checking into a hotel in Mexico (I think) for their wedding anniversary. As Marty was signing them in, he fell across the counter with a fatal heart attack. There will be no more “storms at sea” for them, but they remain close in my memories.

They both helped out on the boat more times than I can remember – getting the engine started, hauling in sails, preparing delicious meals, and just generally being there for whatever was needed. I will have more stories about Darline and Marty as time goes on. For now, I send them both my “aloha” wherever they wander. I wish them well.

Mahalo nui loa, Marty – a hui hou!
(Translation from Hawai`ian: Thank you very much, Marty – until we meet again!)

Shakedown Cruise Part 2

The shakedown wasn’t over yet! We felt like the pounding would never stop. Lothlorien would come up over some of the swells and surf down the other side. Sometimes she would come up and pound down on the other side with a huge bang, shuddering the whole boat.

After one of those particularly hard crashes, water started flooding into the cabin until we had several inches of water standing. I really wasn't ready to have my brand new boat sink! I had an image of the entire hull splitting in half beneath us. We started to bail out water, but they had not hooked up the pump, so we had to use an empty coffee can.

We finally got most of it out, so we started trying to figure out what was happening. When the water started coming in again, this time I decided to taste it - it was fresh water! With a little investigation, we found that the hose to the faucet had come off and every time we turned the water on, we were flooding the cabin. It could have been worse, and although it turned out to be a simple problem, with an equally simple solution, it was scary.

Because we decided to motor sail rather than try to sail into that mess, we had lashed the jib down with bungee cords on the bow deck. The jib came loose and started flying all around, going over the side into the water. Once more the boys made their way along the lifelines and were securing the jib. They would go down and green water would wash up over them and the deck. All I could do was watch - and pray, "Dear God, let them come up again!" I don't know if they ever realized how much danger they were in, and of course, there were no safety lines.

After fifteen hours of non-stop pounding, and when we felt we couldn't stand any more, we finally were able to put into Newport Beach. Any one of these incidents could have been total disaster. I could have lost my boys or we could have lost our mast.

During that whole trip, all I thought was, "Peace be still! God, please quiet the storm!" Three days later, we sailed into Oceanside Harbor under fair skies and calm seas to make our home.

This was truly a woman-owned boat, held together with bobby pins and prayer.

Shakedown Cruise Part 1

I have many sea stories to tell, but one of the most memorable is that first shakedown cruise after I picked up my new boat – the Lothlorien.

I bought her in the late 1970s in the middle of winter. My sons and I went to Marina del Rey to bring the boat down to Oceanside Harbor. One of those notoriously wicked winter storms of California came up and aborted several attempts.

At last it seemed everything had finally calmed down. Our weather station predicted smooth seas, two to four foot swells, five to ten knots of wind, almost perfect sailing weather. About three hours into the trip, we ran into an even worse storm. In a phrase most of you know, but that a friend states in a little different way, the ship really hit the sand!

We had gone too far and we were in a position too dangerous to turn around. The wind was coming directly at us and getting stronger. The swells were so high that we would have broached, or rolled, if we had turned broadside to them. We had no choice but to continue on.

It was soon obvious the weather man was not where we were, and he didn't change his report until about twelve hours later. He kept saying it was calm.

This was a bona fide "shakedown cruise." Murphy's law was certainly active that day. Everything that could go wrong, did - and at the worst possible moment. We discovered very quickly that the person who commissioned our boat had forgotten to put in a few cotter pins.

First the turnbuckle on one of the starboard shrouds came loose and started swinging in the air. One of the boys managed to crawl up to it, screw it back on, then secure it with an old bobby pin that I somehow had found in the pocket of my jacket.

Then my son's friend asked what held the boom onto the mast. I said, "That little cotter pin right...there..." Well, that little cotter pin was missing, too, and the boom was starting to work its way off the mast. The boys braced themselves against the wind, wrapped themselves around the mast, and put in another bobby pin.

I was poorly prepared. I had not thought to have a supply of spare cotter pins with me on board. I quickly replaced all the bobby pins with cotter pins when I reached Oceanside Harbor.

Lothlorien

In the late 1970s, when Flower Power and Free Love were languishing, I flirted with trading the equity in my house for equity in a new 37' O’Day sloop-rigged sailboat. Within five months, I became a “live-aboard” with fifteen-year-old Erik, my youngest child. We christened our new home Lothlorien, for the sanctuary in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy to which the Elf King and Elf Queen transported Frodo and his friends at a critical point in their adventure.

It was within the Lothlorien that all their healing and protection took place, while all the dangers and threats were forced to remain outside its borders. Our Lothlorien was that haven for us, our personal sanctuary of peace, safety, and healing. We needed the storms of life to remain outside. We often invited our friends to savor that sanctuary with us for a day sail, a weekend cruise, or sometimes longer.

Characters who don’t know much about boats always ask, “How many does she sleep?” That’s the wrong question! We sailors usually respond by saying that a sailboat will “drink six, feed four and sleep two.” There may be room enough to sleep an army by spreading people out over decks and into hammocks, but you abandon all carnal comforts in doing so. Naturally, this can depend on just how close you are with the friends you bring along, too. My boat basically was designed to sleep six, but six people really wouldn’t do that if they wanted to remain friends after the cruise was over.

The moldy picture above shows me at the helm of the Lothlorien. Join me as I take you on a cruise through the various harbors and squalls of my life.