December 13, 2006

We've spent the past week in St. Maarten working through the work list I posted above. So far the more time consuming projects have been servicing the windlass, the watermaker installation, washing all 22 of our cushion covers by hand in the bathtub and replacing the forward and aft hatch seals. We're hoping to finish up the watermaker installation tomorrow, so that we can head up to Anguilla this weekend.

We're finally up and running on skype, and really enjoying being able to talk to our families. And I missed the folks on Grey's Anatomy so much that we finally joined the rest of our generation on ITunes - but it takes ages to download anything on the flimsy wireless connection that I have here - like 7 hours an episode.

We also found down-below shoes - shoes that don't ever leave the boat (we wear different shoes ashore and ditch them as soon as we get back aboard) so that we don't track dirt around down below. I swore I would never by a pair of crocs as they are possibly the ugliest shoes known to man. But they are comfortable. The croc flip flops are not quite as ugly, but still super comfy. The rest of the cruisers here seem to agree. Island Water World recently got in a shipment, but by the time we stumbled across the display, choices were somewhat limited. Sten went with the black and yellow as a nod to his CAT heritage, and I chose the blue and white because they were the only ones in my size.
















Along with flip flops, I live in Sahalie's Sport Camis (loads of support) and linen skirts. Sten is loving his Railriders Hemingway Shorts (in part because he has gotten so skinny that his old Patagucci Stand Up Shorts are all way too big for him now) and light woven Humidor shirts from Quicksilver. All our winter gear from the trip down is clean and stowed away. We don't expect to need them again until the leg from Tonga to New Zealand this time next year.

Last Saturday we went to the market in Marigot, were I was thrilled to discover nigella seeds, which were called for by a breadstick recipe that I'd been wanting to make, but I'd never heard of them, much less seen them. They are a peppery little seed and they gave the breadsticks an interesting flavor. I told my mom about the recipe and she comes out with - "oh, yeah, that's the seed that gives Armenian cheese its distinctive flavor." How does she know this stuff?















Now that I have a bag of them (seeds, not breadsticks - Sten demolished half of those over lunch), I'm going to have to find some other uses for them.