17º 29.485s 149º 51.164w
Sun Sep 22 2019
Throughout
our lives Isabel and I have each had our passions. She’s always been into
sailing but has dabbled in other activities including hiking and rafting. When
I met her she had been backpacking around the world for a couple of years, much
of it spent sailing in the South Pacific. After hearing her stories about
sailing with her college gang and afterwards, I think it would classify as an
extreme sport.
I
got into skydiving and made nearly 1200 jumps, but along the way got distracted
by flying airplanes and helicopters and gliders. Aerobatic flying offered
bigger challenges, and racing gliders cross country with the Arizona Soaring
Association proved to be by far the most extreme sport for me, at least the way
I did it. Nobody would argue about that after I spent 3 months in a hospital
bed in 1996 and had to learn to walk again.
We
met on a live-aboard SCUBA excursion – a five day trip to the Coral Sea and
Osprey reef near Cairns, Australia. Chased around Northeastern Oz together for
a few weeks, then later played house for 6 months in Arizona where I was living
and working. Going our separate ways or getting married was our eventual
option, and we elected to risk an error of commission rather than omission.
Our
pornography, if you want to think of it that way, is badass looking and performing
sailboats and food. It used to be airplanes for me and I still love them, but
Isabel has always been into boats and knowns aplenty. We’ve always loved good
food and drink - Isabel more wine and me more craft beer. Lately we’ve really
been focused on obtaining great groceries and converting them into even better
meals, i.e. what can we create with the fresh local ingredients we can find and
what we can cook with our little gas stove and killer Australian grill. That’s
one of the things our generation of Seawind 1160 is known for –and we often
refer to our JollyDogs as a BBQ grill with a boat built around her.
When
you live on a sailboat you actually have time to source good local ingredients
including sometimes catching a great fish, and you have time to prepare
interesting meals. Each day includes an adventure, some exercise, a task, some
relaxation, and great food. We enjoy the evenings after dinner either reading
or watching a movie from our extensive library. Among our favorite movies are
what would definitely be classified as “food porn”.
I
think I commented a few months ago about the movie “Chef”, and a particular
scene involving the preparation of a grilled cheese sandwich. It is perhaps one
of the most mouth-watering visual and audible sensory experiences ever. At
least for us. There’s another foodie movie out there, one we watched again
recently. We spent 60 days in India last year, and one of the highlights of the
trip was the amazing cuisine we sampled and the cooking lessons we took.
The
movie is “The 100 Foot Walk”. It’s an amazing testament to both Indian and
French cuisine and what happens when the two are fused by a genius chef.
Watching it is like being one of Pavlov’s dogs, hearing a gong going off rather
than just the tinkle of a bell.
Today
we had a crowd join us on the boat to celebrate the completion of Isabel’s yoga
instructor certification course. Fourteen of us in total, including cruisers
from Easy, Agape, and Amelie, the yoga course directors and several of the
students (now instructors). There was lots of meeting new people, swimming and
snorkeling, sunning on the foredeck, and cooking. A little drinking, a lot of
eating. Happy, friendly people from France, Italy, New Zealand, Borneo,
England, and the US. All sharing thoughts, stories, smiles, and delicious food.
It
doesn’t get much better than this.
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