Personal Blogs

I'm crewing on Ximera, a 58ft yacht, sailing out ot the Canaries arounf the 19 November, down to Cape Verde then across the Atlantic to Barbados. I am also the cook. There will be seven of us. Suddenly cooking for the family doesn't look like enoug. I have to plan the inventory too. 

I'm looking at fresh food out of port, and then more pasta and rice based dishes, some with sauces I prepare and freeze. I hate cooking from tins, but will have to. I'm not sure how much capacity thtere is for forzen. There is vaccum packed and dry foor too. 

Whilst cooking at home has always been a case of 'what's in the cupboard' and 'what's in the garden' or ... a quick trip to corner shop, supermarket, farm shop or quay, this has to be planned. I ma therefore working through some cook books for menus.

To start with I'll do a one week menu and simply multiply this three/four times.

Then I'll refine it, and share it with the rest of the crew.

With a month to go I also plan to try out things I've not cooked before on the family. More pasta dishes, more use of couscous as well as rice - curries for the first time as well.

Butternut squash will keep for a few weeks surely? Onion in a paper sack carefully stored. Onions as well?

Anyone out there got ideas? Done a 'great adventure' like this or regularly cook for seven adults and have suggestions.

My other thinking is to start vegan, add some milk products and fish, and have red and white meat frozen or in tins. These days that is how we eat, far less milk products, meat and fish less often and 'local'. 

I wonder if we'll fish?

Fig. 1. Many firsts

First time to log and chart any off-shore trip

First time to have the helm on a four hour night-time shift: just me, the full moon, the occasional visit by dolphins and 'ghost' ships that appeared, off radar, without any night-time navigation lights on.

First time to speak Spanish and be understood - even it was only asking for a one-way ticket at the bus station.

First time plotting a course and keeping the log.

First time sleeping overnight in an airport - the flight out went too early for the trains and taking a taxi negated getting a cheap flight.

First time to see the straights of Gibraltar - staggered by the narrow gap between Europe and Africa.

First time to be seasick: hideous, only lasted a few hours thankfully.

The list goes on of firsts.

Never more than four hours sleep in a row since last Friday.

I read a book cover to cover on the flight out (including departure lounge) 'Close to the Wind' by Jon Waters, someone else who did a university course in creative writing and is now being published. It's taken five years.

First time to use GPS system on a boat that not only plots your exact position, but identifies other boats in the same detail: size, speed across water, destination, bearing and so on. 

Shattered.