St Bart Spicy Olives

The holidays will soon be here. This means holiday gatherings as well and holiday food. I always keep this appetizer handy in case people stop by or we invite friends to a last minute dinner. We had these on the island of St Bart's in 2008. We were on a bareboat charter with our good friends Tim and Kim. After a less than stellar mooring, we cleared in, clean up and hit the first bar ashore. They offered these spicy olives along with 1664 beer - yum! I came home and tried to re-create the recipe and I think I am pretty close.

St Bart Spicy Olives
1 jar olives - drained
1 1/2 T tomato paste - approximately
1 t olive oil - approximately
lemon zest
hot sauce -to taste (preferable something from the islands)
Mix it all together and put it back in the olive jar














*For the record - we did NOT know that the mooring field was front and back moorings. We were very prepared for a front mooring. Not so much for front and back. The good news is that we did get safely moored front and back and we did not hit any other boats. It wasn't pretty but we accomplished what we needed to do. The bad news is that Tim had to jump in the water in his last set of dry boat clothes to retrieve the floating boat hook.

Honey's Tools

Even though s/v Honey Ryder came very well equipped, we are of course making changes, upgrades and such to make her ours and prepare for the many adventures the three of us will have in the future. This includes Honey's own laptop, and numerous charts - both paper and software as well as cruising guides.

Sailing Trips - Savannah to Brunswick cont

The twists and turns of the ICW made the trip back just as long in hours as the sail up to Savannah on the outside. This meant we needed to find a spot to anchor. We got through Hells Gate - a tricky stretch and then pulled off in Redbird Creek. The chartplotter was alarmingly off in terms of depth but we did ok. Shoaling no doubt. We tossed out the hook and settled in amongst the marshland with no one for miles but thousands of birds. The current of the creek kept us in the middle however it swung us around 180 in the middle of the night so that our nose was headed out and the stern was into the wind. It was weird. We didn't realize the current would do that. Live and learn. *Little Mud Creek was the other hairy spot. We hit it at high tide and got through fine. No way we could have made it at any other time.
The next morning we headed out just before dawn.
It was chilly so we busted out the fleece, foulies and caps. I kept my feet warm in my sea boots. One of the best buys I have made.
Traffic was fairly light on the ICW. But we weren't the only ones.
Twelve and a half hours later we pulled into our slip. We completed trip up and back to Savannah, covering approx 195 nm. Perfect way to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary.