Thermos Cooking.....the coolest thing since sliced bread!

Starship's galley is sometimes filled with a very mixed assortment of provisions, especially when we are away from cities and towns. After a big provisioning run, we'll always eat what will go bad first, and then after a few weeks I'm left with a somewhat odd supply of food. At these moments I always wish that I'd have the internet to search for a recipe to use my random ingredients or a phone to call my Mom for advice, but both are usually impossible. I really wanted to find a good cookbook for cruisers....and stumbled upon the "The Boat Galley Cookbook". I'm totally in love with this cookbook. It has lots of simple meals geared towards boat living and has given me lots of cooking inspiration.

One of the neatest things in the cookbook is the "Thermos Cooking" chapter. Who knew that you could make yogurt, beans, rice and soups in a thermos? Following the cookbook instructions, I've used my thermos often to make beans (usually black or garbanzo). The beans go great in salads, tacos, stir-fries and chilies. In using a thermos to rehydrate dried beans instead of the stovetop, we save our propane and don't heat up the galley (a HUGE advantage in the tropics). The only downside is you need to plan ahead, because it takes at least 6 hours to cook the beans. Here are some of the results:

Yogurt has been my other thermos adventure. I was amazed at how easy it was to make. Here are the instructions in short:
 - preheat the thermos by filling it with very hot water
 - heat a mixture of powered milk and water to 110-120 F
 - add a "yogurt starter"* to your mixture and let sit in thermos for ~5 hours
 .....then voila.... thick and creamy YOGURT!
*I had a lot of success using Yoplait yogurt drink as the culture.

Here are the full length instructions.

Nothing beats delicious fruit and home made yogurt for breakfast. I'm hoping we will be eating homemade yogurt all throughout the Pacific.

In short, The Galley Cookbook and thermos cooking are awesome!

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Location:

Punta de Mita

Latitude:

20.7665333

Longitude:

-105.5172

New Blog Layout & Features

Since I know a lot of people only read the blog via their email subscription, I thought I'd take a little time to share what you are missing by not visiting the blog website.

First we changed the layout of the page to make it a bit cleaner (we think). We should also give props to our friends on SV Nyon since they inspired our layout change with their great blog.

Some interesting things to note about the layout:

Can you find the starship??

1. The top banner image changes each time you visit the site (can you get all 12??) 
2. On some browsers there should be a little starship before our blog name 
3. There's a new navigation menu under the banner image with a crew bio, vessel information, the plan and a new where are we map

Possibly the coolest new feature (in my humble opinion), is the new "Where are we?" page which includes an interactive google map of all our position reports since we left Half Moon Bay California!

All the sailboats are places we have anchored or passed through on passage!

Some interesting things to note about the map:

Location details window with explanation of available features

1. It looks best in full screen mode (I think) 
2. It is interactive, click on a sailboat for details about that position report
3. You can see latitude and longitude of every anchorage we have visited and zoom right in (our current location is a red sailboat, yellow sailboats are past locations) 
4. All blog entries, photo albums and videos are associated with a place 
5. Using the "< Prev" & "Next >" links at the bottom of an information window you can move from anchorage to anchorage in the order we visited them

I hope this convinces you to check in on the blog website from time to time just to see where we are. It should be especially interesting during the pacific crossing to see our progress across the puddle updated daily using our Single-Side Band radio.

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Location:

Punta de Mita

Latitude:

20.7665333

Longitude:

-105.5172

A Day in the Life at Punta de Mita

With my parents safely back in Canada, Anne-Marie and I have started to fall into a routine of preparing for the puddle jump in the morning, and having a bit of fun in the afternoon.

I thought I would try to share with you what a cruising day is like for us here at Punta de Mita.

Sunrise in Punta de Mita

8:50 AM - Unchained Twinkle (our dingy) from Starship, and got the outboard warming up. This also involves pumping it up a bit since it has a slow leak.

8:55 AM - Navigated the waves on the way to the beach. There is no dock here so we have to land Twinkle on the beach, which can be interesting when a good swell is running....

9:05 AM - Arrived outside the pharmacy to find they aren't open yet. Had a brief chat with Richard, the founder of Latitude 38, as he was passing by the doctor's office.

9:10 AM - The doctor has arrived and seen us. This was the first time in a year we have needed to go to the doctor. We caught a bit of a stomach bug or something and having it taken care of from start to finish only cost us $166 out of pocket. That included rushed lab tests, the doctor consultation, and 6 different prescriptions!

9:30 AM - I walked over to the main highway to catch a van to La Cruz, where I planned on doing some sewing aboard our friend's catamaran "Double Diamond".

9:40 AM - A couple from Vancouver boarded the van and joked about how they had to wait a whole minute for the bus this time. The public transit here is really great! They have vans running very frequently and it's always an interesting ride, as my parents could tell you about.

9:50 AM - I arrived at the Marina in La Cruz, but found Double Diamond's slip empty! Attempts to hail them on the radio failed and I worried they may have gone to Paradise Village Marina early. I decided to start walking around the marina to see if I could spot them or give them a call on the radio again.

9:55 AM - As I approached the corner of the marina near the beach, I saw a group of people stretching. I realized this must be the open water swimming group, which has really expanded to nearly a dozen people. One of those people I recognized as Jeff from Double Diamond, so I went over and found out that they decided to stay in the La Cruz anchorage instead of in the marina, but I could still go out to the anchorage to do my sewing.

10:00 AM - Since I was wearing my bathing suit, I decided to join in on the open water swim session. Jeff was doing the swim so it seemed to make more sense than just waiting for him on the beach.

10:45 AM to 2:00 PM - Aboard Double Diamond sewing and talking with Jeff and Melody. They very generously allowed me to use their sewing machine for a few odds and ends projects. It's always fun being on their big catamaran with ample space and the cool lounge music they have pumping! Jeff and Melody where concerned about the pelicans diving for fish so close to their boat. The pelicans sometimes even crashed into their boat, as they have been known to do on Starship too.

2:15 PM - Back on the bus to Punta de Mita with completed sewing projects in hand. I radioed Anne-Marie to come pick me up on the beach and on the way back to Starship we could see the surfing conditions were looking really good!

New Quarter Berth Shelf Netting

New Opening Port Sun Shade & Rain Fly

2 x New Winch Handle Holders

3:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Anne-Mare and I loaded up the dingy with our surfing gear and headed out. We anchored the dingy just outside of the surf break and paddled in. As we waited for the next set to roll in, we could see just outside the anchorage there was a whale raising it's tail high out of the water and slapping it down repeatedly. Then sporadically in the same area, a little baby whale was breaching! What a sight to see while bobbing in the ocean waiting for the next set of waves.

Chris Surfing Near Punta de Mita

6:00 PM - 10:00 PM - Returned to the boat totally exhausted! We ate some Mexican style hot dogs for dinner and watch a couple episodes of Seinfeld before heading to bed.

Sunset in Punta de Mita

I hope you enjoyed a little peek into our daily routine.

View Larger Map

Location:

Punta de Mita

Latitude:

20.7665333

Longitude:

-105.5172

Herb and Michelle Explore Banderas Bay

We had a very exciting week exploring Banderas Bay with Herb and Michelle.

Sunday Market in La Cruz

In the past when visitors had come to Starship, we had the opportunity to stake out the best places to take them ahead of time. This time though we had just arrived in Banderas Bay, so we were all figuring things out together for the first time.

Standup Paddle Yoga at Sunday Market in La Cruz

The trip got off to a bit of a rough start as Michelle's luggage did not make her connection. After one failed attempt to have it delivered to a restaurant near the boat, we decided it would be easiest to take a taxi back to the airport and pickup the luggage ourselves.

Trying to relax, waiting for the luggage which never came...

Finally with Michelle's luggage onboard we decided to set out from La Cruz to Punta de Mita, a small tourist town near the mouth of the bay which is famous for surfing.

Herb and Michelle experience the finest street dining La Cruz has to offer!

Enroute we observed quite a spectacular show put on by the Humpback whales in the bay. We had heard from a lot of cruisers how amazing the whales are here, and they weren't kidding! At one point we had to take evasive action to avoid a pod we had been watching.

The best breeching photo we captured

Trying not to hit the whales.

After Punta de Mita, we headed for Puerto Vallarta where we stayed in Marina Vallarta. The state of the marina facilities was very disappointing. Missing cleats, no power, questionable water, and disgusting showers. Luckily the area around the marina was bustling and interesting. It was also a short, bumpy bus ride to the downtown core.

After leaving Marina Vallarta, we went for a lunch stop at a place called Los Arcos, or "The Arcs". Named after it's islands with arcing sea caves, it made for a great snorkelling stop for Anne-Marie and Michelle.

Michelle summoning the courage to jump from the boat. 

Michelle and Anne-Marie ready to go exploring.

View through one of the arcing sea caves.

Our next stop took us over to Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta, which is affectionately referred to as "Disney Land". Paradise Village was miles above Marina Vallarta in terms of facilities and service! On top of that, it was 40% cheaper, with full access to the resort facilities.

Michelle riding the Crocodile slide

Anne-Marie on the Crocodile slide

They have two tigers! And lots of parrots that say "Hola" & "Agua"

Paradise Village was a perfect place for Herb & Michelle to end their stay. The shower facilities were excellent so they could prepare for reintegration with the civilized world. And there was a really interesting mangrove that you can tour in the dinghy behind Paradise Village. On the tour we got a close up look at Green Iguanas, various birds, and crocodiles!

The African Queen! 

Iguana Ménage à trois

Check out more pictures in our Picasa photo album, and our video (only on the website, not in email) below:

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Location:

La Cruz

Latitude:

20.7485167

Longitude:

-105.3721667

Puddle Jump - Here We Come!

I had a lazy day on board doing "internet stuff" and realized that it's really time to make this JUMP thing official.

Chris training for the JUMP

 The Pacific Puddle Jump is a rally of boats that leave the west coast of the Americas to sail to French Polynesia sometime between March - May. We plan to leave mid/late March. Boats depart somewhere between California to the Galapagos, with the the largest concentration leaving from Banderas Bay and Panama. Even though we won't be in visual contact with other boats, we'll stay in radio contact to share information such as weather. There are currently 87 boat registered and I'm sure many more to follow. We've become friends with a few of the boats that are crossing this year and it really is a wonderful feeling to know we'll be crossing an ocean with friends. It somehow makes me feel less crazy about the whole thing!

Starship has been officially registered for the 2013 Pacific Puddle Jump Rally!

I remember being so nervous when we left left San Francisco to sail south and start this adventure. I'll never forget the stress of seeing our cars being towed away and the constant nagging thought afterwards that we'd forgotten to buy something crucial. I remember the panic attack I had when I saw all the contents from our storage van on our dock and realized we had to fit all that stuff in our little boat. I was extremely anxious and many questions rotated through my brain as we left our slip for the last time....How did Chris convince me to do this anyway? Will I like the cruising/sailing lifestyle? Is Starship well equipped and sea-worthy? Do we know how to sail well-enough?

I am much more confident about sailing to French Polynesia and beyond because I know the answer to the last 3 questions is YES! I'm still not exactly sure how Chris convinced me to start this whole sailing thing, but I'm so happy that he did.

Knowing my personality, I'm sure I will not sleep the night before we leave and I'll be nervous, but I don't think it will be as extreme as my initial shove off anxieties. This past year we've done a lot of boat projects/maintenance, sailing and practicing. All of this "work" has left me with a profound sense of trust and confidence in what we're doing. I trust Chris as captain and myself as first mate. I trust Starship and all the work we've put into her. AND now I know that I love this sailing/cruising lifestyle. I'm very happy with our last year and excited for the Puddle Jump. South Pacific, here we come!

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Location:

La Cruz

Latitude:

20.7485167

Longitude:

-105.3721667