September 1-6, 2015 "pitch in" and Mahjong

Where did the week go? 
Tuesday-Farmer’s market
I sometimes buy eggs at the market.  If you buy them at room temperature, you don’t have to refrigerate them at the boat.  This saves room in my refrigerator (especially with all those Chinese leftovers).   They sometimes sell them in a carton, but often they are in a “flat” of 20 eggs for $7.  I can probably get 12 for $3 in a grocery store, but this is closer when you don’t have a car.  But let me tell you, these eggs are huge!  I couldn’t transfer them to a regular carton.  And as the week went by, I discovered over half of them had double yokes! 

I found a cribbage partner!!  Olivia and Bob have a boat on our dock.  They are from Michigan, so we speak the same language (from the north).  They have a beautiful power boat.  I should never tour them, because it’s hard to come back to our little sailboat.  They have a walk in pantry!!  I always say our sailboat is like an RV on water.  Well power boats are like a condo on water.  Olivia and I enjoyed a few hands of cribbage.  Then we taught Amy how to play.  And Olivia had never played 3 handed cribbage.  So it was great!

Mary and Olivia playing cribbage

Since Amy has a car, we went out for dinner tonight with Amy and Ricardo.  We went to a Mexican restaurant that another boater recommended, Mi Casa.  It was very good.  We bought their dinner to pay Amy back for all the Chinese food she prepared for us.  Ricardo wanted to drive his motorcycle, so we actually drove Amy’s car.  He has his motorcycle for sale, so he wants it to be out in the public. 

Amy and Ricardo and bike for sale

Wednesday
We rode our bicycles to the auto parts store and Family Dollar for milk.  We had to buy antifreeze for the engine.  Dave will have to empty the antifreeze before repairing the leak and wanted to be prepared.  Then I decided to go for a ride, just for the exercise.  I rode down some streets with very old homes.  There is a bed and breakfast called Brunswick Manor that looks really nice and is about a mile from the marina. 

Dave worked on placing a switch protection cover on the solar panel power box in aft starboard lazarette.  We store many things in there and it could easily be bumped.

Thursday
Dave finished scraping wood on our toe rail or taff rail.  He started that project in the Bahamas.  He looked into different ways of refinishing it, and decided to go with cetol-a type of varnish.  The next steps involve sanding, caulking between sections, a couple layers of cetol, then a few layers of the clear sealer.  Then we only have to touch up the clear sealer in the future.  Each coat needs 24 hours to dry.  So it is going to be a long term project.  Especially since we get rain every day here in Georgia. 

We were invited to a  “pitch in” on dock 8.  That’s Canadian for a pot luck.  I had an older loaf of bread, so I decided to make bread pudding for the first time.  I found the recipe Dave used In Alabama a couple years ago.  I didn’t grow up eating it, so this was new for me.  We needed cream, so we improvised and used a can of coconut cream, which only improved the recipe.  There is also a whiskey sauce that goes with it.  I used Fireball whiskey which is cinnamon flavored.  It had been on our boat for about a year.  Someone recommend mixing Fireball with Rumchata (a creamy rum liqueur), but Rumchata alone is better.  The bread pudding was a great hit at the pot luck.  Everything was great.  They grilled brats, chicken, pork tenderloin and beef brisket!!  After we ate on their covered dock, a squall passed through.  We grabbed any dishes that could blow away and all huddled together where we could get protection.  This is a hardy bunch of sailors that are used to being out in the elements.  No one ran to their boats for cover.  Once it passed, we enjoyed desserts.

"pitch in"

calm after the storm

Friday
Dave banned me from the boat today so he could tear it apart to work on.  He has been working on our air conditioner, and we discovered water in the bilge.  So he cleaned that up and continued to work on the air conditioner.  I didn’t explain things correctly before.  The device that pulls the water out of the condensation tray wasn’t working correctly. It was corroded.  He tried to clean it, and it still didn’t work, so there is a new one on order.  He put in the new check valve and will finish the job when the new part is here.  In the meantime he has been manually emptying the condensation pan and cleaning the water out of the bilge.  If that still doesn’t sound right and you want more details, talk to him directly. 

I packed up movies, games, computer,  & magazines and headed for the yacht club to hang out for the day.  About 11:30, another boater from our dock came in to do yoga using a DVD of her own.  So I ran back to our boat for my yoga mat and joined her.  I used to do yoga once a week, but it had been about 10 years.  But I had good intentions of doing it again, since my yoga mat was one thing made it to the boat.  It was a 70 minute work out and I loved it.  BUT, I was light headed afterwards.  Vicki used to be a gymnast and she thinks it was from not bending over very often.  I need to “shake things up” more often.  She showed me where there are 3 other DVD’s in the club house.  So I guess I need to get back into it.

On the first Friday of the month, downtown Brunswick has a “main street event”.  So I went downtown with several other boaters from the marina.  Of course, Dave stayed home.   A lot of stores stay open and have specials, or treats.   There was live entertainment is a couple of the park like squares.  One side street had old cars on display.  It was a fun, lively atmosphere. 

Saturday
Dave patched the dinghy today.  He wants that done before putting taking it off of the deck and putting it back in the water and eventually back on the davits.   He also caulked in the vents on the stern of the boat (the ones he painted last week).

the vent is above the name

 I spent the day cleaning the boat.  With all the work we had been doing, it was hard to clean around everything.  So it felt good to get that done.  Then I rode my bike to the 5:00 mass today. 
Saturday night we watched the first college football game of the season between Alabama and Wisconsin in the yacht club.  We are still Alabama fans-and they won.  That was much better than listening to it on the radio in our boat or sitting in a bar for 3 hours.  We even fired up a few other boater to join in on the “ROLL TIDE” cheer.

Sunday
I decided to make a big pot of spaghetti today.  I started everything on the stovetop.  Then I put the pot in our Wonderbag about 1:00 to let all the flavors mix (quilted bag that works like a crock pot with no fuel).   I had an offer to go shopping with Amy.  She needed to go to JoAnn’s Fabrics.  So I hit the Dollar General in the same strip mall.  Then we went grocery shopping in Walmart.  I only needed 2 things, but ended up with 3 bags, since I had a ride. 
Dave spent the day using up data.  He was downloading charts and researching things and ordering things on Amazon.  Much easier than bicycling to the big shopping areas that aren’t close to the marina. 
We had a nice spaghetti dinner with Ricardo and Amy.  We actually cleared off the table and were able to have all 4 of us sit at it together.  Usually we are clearing a spot for the two of us to eat at the table.

Amy, Ricardo, Dave and spaghetti dinner

After dinner, I learned how to play Mahjong, a Chinese game using tiles.   I guess there is a Chinese version and an American version.  Obviously, we played the Chinese version, since Amy is from China.

Rhonda studying Mahjong tiles