Food & Drink - Peanut Rum...YUM

We discovered the Peanut Butter Cup Martini at Cargo's Portside Grill in Brunswick GA. A key ingredient is peanut rum from St Lucia. It isn't easy but Cap10 Tom tracked some down from a NY online distributor and purchased two bottles. One of which is almost gone as we experiment making various yummy desert drinks in preparation for the holidays.
In case you can't stop by for one during the holidays, here are the links you will need to make your own.
http://castriescream.com/
http://www.drinkupny.com/

Honey Ryder Projects - Screens

Little things can make such a big difference. The addition of two little hinges now means that when it starts to rain in the middle of the night and I have to quickly close the hatch above our heads, it will no longer involve me getting bonked on the head by the screen, two failed attempts to reinstall it (after closing the hatch) and subsequent swearing because I can't get it back up in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping. Thank you Cap10 Tom for installing these.

Sailoft success

s/v Honey Ryder has a piece of Sunbrella that connects between the dodger and bimini. First it wouldn't go on because of a crushed zipper. Earl at KC Sailing helped me fix that. But still it wouldn't completely zip on. Hrrmph!
Finally I discovered that it wasn't cut evenly and one corner was just too small. It is a nicely made piece and I hated to totally trash it. So after spending the summer dragging it back and forth to the boat each time and much figuring and ciphering.....I successfully sewed a modification that now works like a charm.

The Two Most Important People in Brunswick GA

Sherry Jackson, our Dock Mistress at Brunswick Landing Marina and Angie, our West Marine chick.

Defining Thanksgiving

Wikipedia - Thanksgiving Day - is a harvest festival celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Traditionally, it has been a time to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. While there was an underlying religious element in the original celebration, Thanksgiving today is primarily identified as a secular holiday.^[1]Although earlier feasts are known to have taken place, Thanksgiving as it is known and celebrated today derives from a joint celebration between the Pilgrim settlers of Plymouth, Massachusetts and members of the Native American Patuxet tribe of the Wampanoag people in 1621.
After the no see-ums chased us from the Tgiving Potluck, we invited cruisers Tim, Melinda & Steven over to Honey Ryder for an after party. As Aussies and Kiwis, they admitted that they had to look up Thanksgiving Day on Wikipedia. Seems strange but we forget that it's primarily an American/Canadian holiday.
Earlier in the day, we visited with a Canadian Caliber 47 cruiser. I commented that this would be his second TGiving since the Canadian holiday is in Oct. His comment was that theirs isn't nearly as big a deal as the American one because of all the Black Friday stuff. Tom and I were horrified. OMG! So the rest of the world thinks the USA Thanksgiving is one day of non-stop eating and one day of non-stop shopping. I assured him that Black Friday is NOT part of the Thanksgiving holiday tradition. However now that I think about it....wow, how sad are we. Anyway...the after party was great fun as we discussed sailing/cruising adventures, boats, travels in the USA, our hometowns, slang words and many other interesting topics.
Saturday Tim and Melinda popped around again to invite us to a lovely steak dinner on their boat. Cruiser are the best!

TGiving Day Potluck

Brunswick Landing Marina hosted a great TGiving Potluck. Two 20 lbs smoked turkeys, two 20 lbs grilled turkeys, 1 HUGE spiral ham, 3 Boston Butts. *Side note - a Canadian cruiser told us that morning there would be "something called a Boston Butt - Sherry says it's pork but I don't know what part." I assured him it is pork and in fact it is the pork shoulder. "But she called it a Boston Butt." "Yes, but it's actually the shoulder." I don't know if that helped him or made matters worse. Anywho...attendees were required to bring a side dish. And man did the cruisers ever comply. There was SO much good food. YUM Feast indeed.
Below our new neighbor Chris starts his special "cheesy potatoes casserole".
I opted for straight on traditional mash potatoes, gravy and store bought rolls. *Check out the boat friendly masher....it swivels, pivots and folds very flat for storage. Table clothes covered the laundry machines so we could put out the spread and the chow line was formed.It was nice enough to eat outside. Until the end of the party when the no see ums came out for their TGiving feast on us. Still scratching.But like all the other holidays celebrated here in America...what holiday wouldn't be complete without some cannon fire. Jake from Dock #12 who by the way... looks like sailor Bob Bitchin's younger brother, brought this ear drum buster. He build this himself, keeps it stashed on his boat and isn't afraid to use it on any special occasions. Repeatedly! I was afraid to ask if he declares it when he cruises to other countries - some topics such as firearms on boats, are best left for non-holiday discussion times.

Fresh Out of Grandmas

Thanksgiving 2010 rolled around and we found ourselves "fresh out of grandmas" as Tom put it and therefore unable to head over the river and through the woods to grandma's house...so we headed off to s/v Honey Ryder to spend the holiday. *Come on...what is wrong with a little holiday family humor to get us all ready for the season.
We waited too late for flights all the way in so instead we flew directly to Atlanta and drove the 4 1/2 hrs to Brunswick. Flying on the eve of TGiving with the hordes of people & CHILDREN (yikes) and new TSA "third date" pat downs all in the news, we were nervous. But the hype seemed to work in our favor and scare people off. Parking was a breeze and the new "prison love" style pat down wasn't all that bad. Even traffic out of Atlanta was ok. Driving late at night through the woods of GA we did have to keep our eyes peeled for critters. The grand total was 2 coyote, 1 possum, 1 deer and 1 dog - all heart stopping sightings and all happily still alive. The last 1 1/2 hr as we approached the coast we drove in and out of fog. In Brunswick it was pretty thick and didn't burn off until mid morning.