Saturday 28th Sept. Housekeeping and veg.

We had decided to do nothing much today. A good rest was needed and we didnt have a car to entice us up and out.
I badly wanted to take everything out of the freezer in the kitchen (vs the one in the lazarette) and see what we had in there. Hard to remember, sometimes:)
I also had the desire to do some cooking in preparation for our leaving on wednesday, all going well. I say that, because things happen to keep us from doing as planned, but we can be flexible, so not a bother.

It makes life easier while underway if I dont have to rush around and prepare food while motoring. We can put the genset on to power the microwave/convection oven, and it helps to charge batteries in the process, but I dont want to be cooking per se, while motoring.

We always have books to read, so we did some of that sitting out on the cockpit deck after we ate our breakfast. We hadnt sat outside for quite a while, and it was wonderful to be able to do so in a cooler morning. The sun is coming in on our starb'd side here, so we enjoy the view of the land side of the boat to Port in the mornings and to starb'd in the afternoon, which means we watch the endless parade of interesting boats and people passing us. Many seem to not know the laws of the water and pass us at great speed, with us waving frantically to slow them down...this is a NO WAKE zone. If they created a wake, it throws our boat (and all others, I might add) against the dock and can do some damage if not fully fendered up.
This dock is less that perfect to begin with, and we have our fender boards down backed by three fendes apiece to cushion the blows.

In fact, we spend quite a few hours sitting on the cockpit seat with the back curtain up slightly so that we could make the most of the breeze which was southerly and went straight through the boat. We didnt put the aircon on at all until evening.We only did it then because of night time bugs with the doors wide open. The temperature was only 85F today, so it was a perfect day to sit and do little...although we didnt sit and do that until we had done all the other things:)

Waz cleaned, fixed and did a few other small jobs, but he too took time out today to relax and enjoy the day and the breeze in particular.

I put a bread dough mix into the machine and that took 1 1/2 hours while I made a Bacon and Egg pie, both for our lunch today and to put in the freezer for instant lunches while underway.

 

 

I made the dough into focaccia buns with chopped olives, sun dried tomatoes and artichokes and cheddar cheese on top. I also put another bread loaf on to cook through in the bread maker. This was a plain white loaf. Unfortunately it collapsed in the maker....troubleshooting that one told us there was too much humidity and heat. I normally have the aircon on and bread is fine, but yesterday, as I said, we didnt, so the heat and humidity ruined the loaf..bummer. Well, we still got a good half loaf to eat.

What I forgot to tell you about yesterday...
How could I forget? As I was writing about friday, I forgot that we had risen early so that we could go and do a shop in Youngsville, not far away. Well, having said that, it did take us 1/2 an hour to get there along a most convoluted route. We had the GPS with us, fortunately, or we night not have arrived.
Katherine and Jim recommended this Rouses Supermarket, as they get their food there.
It is the best supermarket we have been to yet!! So many choices, but we had only fresh fruit and veg to buy, although we did make some unscheduled purchases. We also met a woman who had lived in NZ for 14 yrs and considers it here spiritual home. She returned to the area here to take care of her aging parents, but plans to go back to NZ when she is able.:) She is an employee at the supermarket.

There really is very little in the way of obvious employment in the area, and we did remark on that on our way home from the supermaket. We didnt see much in the way of small commercial or industrial complex at all, in our travels locally.


Back to saturday...

We decided to have an early dinner...I thawed out some leftover salmon and mixed it with some mayo and green onion to make a salad, and then spread that over flour tortillas with chopped tomato, cucumber and avocado to make a lovely wrap or three. It was the perfect end to the day before a walk around the village.
Warren had had a walk earlier in the day when he went looking for a part for something, but I needed to get out and stretch my legs. We didnt go far as the B52 bomber mozzies got to us first.
We marvelled again, while walking, at the remains of homes that had been abandoned, and the state of some of the ones (mostly trailer homes) still occupied. It is hard to believe someone actually lives in them.
Something I have been meaning to tell you:
It is a city ordinance that you must keep your lawns mown. I love this idea and no matter what the home looks like, the lawns are mown and cared for. It does give the place a more 'kept' look and things look  only half as bad:)

Well, I finished another book...which meant it was time for bed.
We dont anticipate doing much on sunday either, although housekeeping might be a good idea...manana!:)