Eating at Sea

Amaris sails the world

16.30.10 N

31.27.25 W

Eating at sea

While traveling around the Med, we have routinely been surprised on how food is presented to a buyer.  We were routinely shown entire carcases from which to choose our cut of beef, pork, lamb, or horse.  Well, we never saw the carcass of a horse, but the meat was certainly available in several countries. 

In preparing for our crossing we visited several meat markets, produce markets, fish mongers, etc.  In many cases it seemed that we were getting food direct from the growers - which of course we like.  Now that we are 400 miles however from shore, we are finding our food is - well passing the ripe stage quickly.  The oranges never really looked like oranges (mostly missing the varnish that we are so familiar with in the US), and we have bets as to each lemon...  or lime as we are not really sure what it is until we cut into it.  Our papayas and mangos have been delicious - and are all ready TODAY.   The pineapples that we purchased however two days ago are now beyond very ripe.  I fear we are living the pesticide free life with produce that will all be bad in another two days.  My mother will be somewhat proud.  So much however for balanced meals next week however as we dive into the canned food stores.

Today we were lucky enough to catch a Dorado.  Dorado is a stunningly beautiful fish - one I always hope is too small when we get it on deck.  Sadly, today's was of edible size.  Dorado aka Mahi Mahi have bright colors of green, yellow, and blue which fade to an ashen grey as they die.  It is very sad to watch.

After "killing" it by filling it's gills with our cheapest hard alcohol (most people use vodka - but we forgot to get any), Shawn and I looked the other way while the crew butchered the fish.  Well, I first questioned Jill who was holding my bottle of Glenmore a 12 year old Scotch.  Not sure what she was going to do with that - but certainly not poor it down the throat of any fish...

Sailing has been slow today and we finally had to break out the spinnaker.  We were expecting the wind to fill in from the East (away from the NE) and gybed the wrong direction for a chunk of the night yesterday - taking us down from 5th place to 10th with this poor decision made by yours truly.  Spinnaker sailing is anything but fast for us as a catamaran.  We do much better sailing off the wind and gybing back and forth every 8-10 hours, although this adds a lot of distance for us to cover daily.  This type of sailing takes away all our speed advantage and makes errors like last nights difficult to make up for.  At least for those of you watching through the ARC website, we will appear to be going in a more or less straight line towards the finish - still 1750 miles to the West.

Oh well, fish for dinner I suppose!