The best Christmas greeting in the world

three talented singers and their mum have created this wonderful Christmas greeting that I simply need to share..........it goes without saying that they are fabulous ..........Elsker Jer :-)

Glædelig jul faster pirat. from Nanna Rosen Christensen on Vimeo.

Floating sheep and Neptune's anger

After Julian’s birthday Tuesday last week we sat sail for Union Island. Sailing out of the bay we were passed by a dead sheep floating around in the water and were once again reminded just how wonderful clean Chaguaramas bay is.
By the way it is the first sheep I have seen down here, and it is for sure also my first floating sheep. But perhaps we should more have taken the sheep as an omen/warning rather than a reminder, cause just as we came around ‘the corner’ disaster hit us.
Being used to the sheltered bay in Chaguaramas, the hard wind and the big waves that met us made the tug - who normally appear like an elephant on the sea - seem like a napkin being played around by the wind.

Eventually, I surrendered to the sea and took a pill to keep the bad pirates at a safe distances, and all the time the only thing I wanted to do - and I guess everybody else - was to sleep, which of cause was as good as impossible due to the constant rolling of the boat, and waves hitting the boat from all possible angles. So the best thing to do was simply to stay outside in the fresh sea air. 


A thick smell of diesel was hanging in the air. The wind hit my face like slaps, and massive waves crept up alongside the bulk, and as the dark night slowly settled down upon us, the stars came out to greet us one by one. 

All of the sudden the sky was slashed open by a massive comet. For a few seconds the night was on fire - burning in green and blue colours - before colliding with the black sea and forever absorbed and hidden by the untamed sea…………speak less.

 

After 18 hours of intense sailing, the captain felt that the Buzzard and her crew have had a sufficient of a shock and decided to make an overnight stop in Grenada, and at this point the interior of the Buzzard looked similar to the destruction of Jerusalem. No part of the boat had been spared Neptune's anger.
After a quick tidying and cleaning of the boat, the morning after, the anchor was raised once again. And with a now rather clam sea and blue sky we managed to reach Clifton - Union Island in just six hours.

Sunday, Julian and I sat off to explore the island. We packed our bags, and headed for Ashton the neighbouring village. From there we wandered inland and eventually ended up on the north side of the island. After a short swim in the water we decided to try and reach one of the many mountain peaks on the island. We eventually ended up on a peak, where the ruins of the fortress that used to protect Clifton could be seen. As we stood on the top and were kissed by a fresh coldish sea breeze, we could enjoy an illuminating panoramic view of Union Island, and the remaining islands making up the Grenadines, including a great view of the reefs in Tobago Cays.............no more and no less than breathtaking.

 

The Ghost Dolphins and land of the humming bird

Having survived hurricane Tomas we left the lush Grenada on Tuesday the 1st. and arrived in Trinidad, just after sunrise the following day. The last thing we did at the anchorage in St. George was to jump to the sea, as we know from past experience that the water in Charguaramas is everything else than clean and clear. At times we refer to it as the minefield due to all the trash (such as, cans, dead fish and dogs) floating around which easily can f….up the outboard on a dinghy.


On the way down to Trinidad we experienced a remarkable phenomenon – the ghost dolphins. Basically it is dolphins swimming at night time in a sea full of Pelagia noctiluca. Noctiluca is a jellyfish with an ability to glow in the night. Light is given off in the form of flashes when it is stimulated by turbulence created by a ship’s motion, by waves or in our case dolphins. The flashing is only of relatively short duration and gradually fades. Anyway it gives you the illusion that the dolphins is decorated with tiny golden diodes all over its body.


The first thing we did upon arriving back in Trinidad Wednesday morning was heading into Port of Spain for a roti (most Trinis favourite dish). Being out of roti-shape the roti got me good. I had to give up after haven eaten just 75 percent and leave the rest for Julian to finish.

Leaving roti heaven and walking on a pavement hotter than a match head, looking at a half dead Julian and feeling likewise myself, I asked him what he wanted, and he replied and I quote ‘air-condition, a sofa and a big TV’. So I came up with the ‘brilliant’ idea that we could pay a visit to a local phone operator, to have Julian’s sim-card fixed. After having spent around 45 minutes in the line we finally got to talk with the custom service, who after a short look on the phone handed it back and told us the card had been fixed…………guess what….. IT HADN’T …he still can’t receive and send international text. But Julian did get what he asked for during this fruitless visit, air-condition, a sofa and a big TV (think he was hoping for a nice movie, instead of the strange commercials with dancing Hindus …..well next time specify!)

Jumping to Friday afternoon where Mike (the Captain) after spotting a shrimp boat coming in, jumped into the dinghy and shortly after came back with several of kilos of shrimps ready to be peeled. After working through the small mountain of shrimps in need of peeling, we were all well awarded with a smaller shrimp party, consisting of….. yes shrimps and beer. Already there the just started weekend seemed promising.
And the goodness continued Saturday, where we packed Tracey’s (a local Trinidadian)car and went to a must go destination when in Trinidad – Maracas Bay.

The popularity of this place is not so much to do with the beautiful beach as to - yet another ‘famous’ Trini dish – Shark and Bake( shark burger).

To gather a bit of appetite we all jumped to the water. As we were coming up of the water - to dry in the sun - someone above opened for the water and made sure to obstruct this plan. After having fooled around in the rain and doing a desperate attempted to play with a Frisbee, we headed for one of the numerous food stalls opposite the beach.

One thing I always wonder about when visiting Maracas bay, is the density of footstalls selling the exactly same dish. I am not sure how it makes sense financially – 15 stalls or more, who all offer the exactly same product (shark and bake), to the almost the same price ………I guess the demand for shark and bake must extraordinary high. ….Anyway as long as it is tasty, cheap and isn’t rat I don’t care.

Sunday, I went to the cinema for the first time since March to see a movie from the annual local European Movie festival. The movie we saw was an amazing French movie called ‘Qui m’aime me suive’ that had some remarkable lines ( fx. ‘You are scaring me, I feel like I am in a horror movie.’) One thing I found really interesting during our visit was the local cinema menu, which among other things included fried chick breast, fries, and hotdogs.................

Where did the Hurricane Thomas go??

Friday morning we woke up to discover that the anchorage at St. George suddenly had emptied as by magic. Just the night before you could count around 25 boats and the day after 3............ We got word that some bad weather was heading this way. Earlier in the morning the tropical storm Tomas had been born (who later on developed into a hurricane), and it was predicted to hit here around midnight, and accordingly the whole island started closing down early afternoon. By late afternoon everybody except us had left the anchorage, as we went by the assumption that it would take more than a tropical storm to shake the tug apart. Despite the weather gurus forecast the storm did not arrive at midnight.

Saturday morning, even though the forecasts were now predicting landfall further north in the Caribbean, the town was still bringing out the sandbags and nailing up the storm shutters. After the devastation of the Island by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 the nerves were running high here.

And Saturday afternoon the weather came! Or more correctly it didn’t! Sure, St. Vincent got smashed. Here, well it went all grey, and there were several showers during the day, but where was the wind? All weather reports had predicted 40+ knots, gusting to 60, but reality was that we had no wind AT ALL! The same pattern repeated itself during the night. Once again the weather gurus convinced us of winds of 20 - 40 knots and again they were wrong. Instead we had a strange calm night if you count out the big waves that was rocking the boat hard from side to side.
It is a weird feeling, to be so close to a such a weather monster, who a short distance away is tearing another country apart, while we go unharmed by. I have to say it was bit of an anti-climax, here we were all prepared for mother nature and then nothing.....NOTHING! In fact the wind was dead flat, even more than on a normal day here.

I have to admit that I was sort of looking forward, upon returning home, to tell my nieces and nephew how I tackled and survived the Hurricane Thomas......oh well, perhaps it was for the better that Thomas never came knocking on our door.

While wating for Thomas!

 While I am waiting for Thomas to strike I will do an attempt to do an update of my blog.

Write something...anything.........you are living on a ship and sailing between islands in the lovely Caribbean surely you must see some stuff and experiences some things. 
Well yes and no..........as they say at one point it all become everyday life, and who wants to hear and read about a mediocre day............yes that is a waste of time.

I know that I am supposedly in what some might call paradise on earth, but in my paradise on earth the bread and cheese is good and doesn't have a strange aftertaste, and the weather is less humid and the oranges would yes be orange!
Not that this is going to turn into to one of these long, sad and complaining posts. This post is more meant as a reality check.
To bring everybody up to date. I am currently sailing around in the Caribbean, right now Grenada - also known as the Isle of Spices. We have been here for about a week now, before that we were 1 day in St. Vincent, 3 days in Tortola, a week in Bequia and 1 day in St. Lucia- so a lot of sailing recently. Btw on most of our sails we often see dolphins, who are trying to race our boat, a magical sight especially in the night :-)

I am living and sailing around with a tug boat by the name 'Flying Buzzard', together with 3 other crewmembers, the owner and her husband.

TO THE LEFT THE FLYING BUZZARD 

 At most days we get up at 8 in the morning, where we'll have some coffee, a slice of toast and if we are in luck a piece of fruit ( yes you would think that fruit grows everywhere here and that all trees carry fruit, well guess what, they are don't). After that work starts (btw we work 6 out of 7 days). The work includes everything from cooking, to cleaning, to fixing stuff, watch-keeping, cleaning, to banging rust......... I work as a volunteer - this means that I provided food and shelter, but no money unlike the rest of the crew who is on a contract. So not too bad, though I am convinced that my bank hates me by now and would love to see some money deposited on my account. Late afternoon, normally somewhere around 16:30 the hired crew is let off and go to do their own stuff. On days where the weather isn't like today (RAIN!) we go to the beach, or drink mate, or read books, or play on the computer, or do macrame, or snorkeling or...........you know the kind of things you would normally do after work.

After sunset, which is around 18:30 here, we normally start doing some cooking - unless if going to town (like yesterday where we went to a local Fish Festival) - and around 20:00 - 20:30 we start watching a movie. It is important if watching movies that we start before the generator is switched off as my computer only have battery for about an hour or so.

                    FRIDAY FISH FESTIVAL IN GRENADA

Sunday is our day off in the week where we try to go out and see some of the island if the weather allow us. Last week we went to an underwater sculpture park and did some snorkeling.

So all in all my life is pretty much similar to every one else'. Except that I'm living on a ship, under the rules of others and can't leave and go somewhere else as easy as when being landbased, meaning f.eks. that if I feel like going around the corner for getting an ice-cream or a cafe-latte...........well forget it. So the sense of free-moving as many think is extensive on a boat - as you can pick up the anchor and go wherever you want - well it is limited in other ways as described above. 
Furthermore, as I spent 24x7 on a tug boat on salty water - (I guess I don't have to point to the fact that metal rust when it is in connection with water and salt) - means that by now all of my cloth, including underwear have spots of rust on it. So by now I have sort of picked up a bad habit or should I say I have given up looking like a 'dancing queen, it is simply too much of an effort and I don't have the cloth for it anyway. Well guess the good news is that my cloth shopping has decreased or should I rather say completely stopped since coming down here.
I guess by the time I return to Denmark my cloth can be mistaken for the ones of a beggar. One thing is sure, during my time here on this boat I have become good at mending/gluing cloth and recycling/reusing all kind of stuff :-)

So living on a boat is not a holiday and the Caribbean is not entirely paradise, the food is not good enough for it to be paradise ;-) But yes the beaches, or many of them are amazing. And either I am drunk or the weather has started to pick up and Thomas is getting closer but I think it is time to stop for this time.

Suppe køkken historier

En lille anekdote fra min barndom som vi i min familie ynder at bringe frem i tide og utide, men mest af alt når min mor køber et hvidkålshovede.

Da jeg var yngre, eller retter sagt et barn, bestemte min mor sig for en dag, at købe det største hvidkålshovede hun kunne finde i den lokale grøntafdeling. Glad kom hun hjem med det fine hovede og proklamrede stolt at vi skulle have hvidkålssuppe til aften...........allerede der, vidste vi alle (bortset fra min mor) at vi ville gå sulten i seng!! Men for en enkelt aften kunne det jo nok gå. Vi hvad dog ikke forudset størrelsen på dette kålhovede og helt præcis hvor meget supper der kunne komme ud af et enkelt hovede. 

Så da min mor serverede os for 15 liter suppe og vi tog den første ’slurp’ ( og ja suppen var uspiselig) begyndte angsten at sprede sig.............! Der var to dominerende grunde til dette:

1 min mor smider ALDRIG mad ud

2 På mystisk vis så det ud til at min mor kunne lide suppen

Men da ingen af os andre brød sig synderligt meget om suppen, var det forsvindende små mængder som suppen dalede med den aften. Og ganske rigtig, dagen efter da klokken slog 18 blev den forhadte suppe sat på bordet igen, og atter engang sank suppen med mindre end 1 liter. Dette mønster gentog sig 4 dage før min mor endelig udviste barmhjertighed og tilsatte kød og melboller til suppen. Efter dage med kogt kål var det alt der skulle til, for at vi kunne samle nerver og smagsløg (på dette tidspunkt lammede smagsløg) til at få resten af suppen ned.

Nu spørger du nok, ’hvor vil du hen med den her historie, og hvad er forbindelsen til Grenada og dit liv som seljer-babe?’

Suppe, eller retter en ny forhadt suppe har set dagens lys................en suppe så fuld af fedt at ens tunge bliver spejlglat efter en mundfuld af dette. Der er så meget fedt i den, at hvis du forsøgte at fjerne det værste ville du ende op uden en suppe!
Første potion af suppen blev fremstillet den anden dag, og i og med at det var Kaptajnen, som havde fremstillet den var vi nød til at lyve da der blev spurgt til hvordan den smagte (eller som jeg gjorde, ikke sige noget. Men vi løj uden at overdrive......vigtigt!!

Men men men  den 70 årige kaptajnen fra en nabo båd på besøg, og han var ellevild med suppen og ville ikke stoppe med at snakke om, hvor fantastisk han syntes den var. 

Så dagen efter til frokost blev der tilsat 4 ekstra stykker fed kylling (ja jeg forstår det heller ikke, men kyllingerne er fyldt med fedt her!) og derved steg den allered anseelig fedt-mængde med 50 %.   Og til trods for at vi er 6 folk ombord, faldt suppen mængden stort set ikke. Det i sig selv er ret sigende når alt maden, der normalt bliver lavet til frokost, forsvinder som dug for solen.

Og da det blev aften............gæt hvad...........suppe!!

Dagen efter fandt en af Indonesierne nok mod til at smide suppen ud, dette til trods for at kaptajnen havde lavet den. Jubiii suppe helvedet var over...............troede vi! I dag har han lavet en ny suppe, hvor hovedingrediensen igen er fedt fra kyllinger. Og flere gode nyheder, de har købt ind så de kan laver flere potioner af suppen..........jeps der er god økonomi i at lave mad som folk ikke kan lide ;-)

Fødselsdags hilsen, The pink dream and the cursed Island

I better start this blog entry with wishing happy birthday to my brother – TILLYKKE MED FØDSELSDAGEN Kenneth!
Not even sure that he reads my blogs but anyway at least I have done it now (and I would have called if it wasn’t because of my bad internet connection – guessing everybody is getting tried of hearing that excuse all the time).
Lately, I have been extremely bad at keeping contact with people at home, sorry for being a bad sister/daughter and friend. Time just seem to fly these days and seems to take me with it on its wings.

I am not sure how to describe shortly the things I have seen and done lately, so much has happened.
As I mentioned in my latest entry we had a wedding on the boat I am currently living on.
The first guests arrived early in the morning (6 a.m.!!) bringing along with them food, decorations, (including an uncountable number of balloons) champagne, glasses and last but not least the bride’s flower bouquet. In just a few hours the Buzzard was transformed from a boosting Alpha male into a pink princess dream. More than 200 balloons were blown up, and a wedding arch was built and decorated, amazing what a few decorations can do to a tug boat. The wedding ceremony was beautiful and not an eye stayed dry.

The weather was extremely kind, especially if you take into consideration that it is the rain season down here. The love flowed (and so did the Aquavit) and everyone had a splendid time. I personally had great fun with introducing the great Danish Aquavit to people from all over the world, dancing Latin steps, jumping in the water from the top deck and catching the flower bouquet (so guessing I am the next one in line?)
Sunday and Monday was dedicated to recovering, watch the world cup final and cleaning up.

Last Friday I went with Julian (the Argentinian on the Flying Buzzard) to a small island close to the boat to explore it or attempted to, not as easy as one might think. The first sign we met on the island was a sign saying ‘Don’t wandered around on the island’……eyey……….well anyway we did just to realize that there absolutely were no path leading into the forest and the few locals told us ‘ DO NOT WANDER OFF!!’. Made me think about the movie ‘The Village’, wondering whether the island was cursed. Anyway we jumped back in the dinghy and after a small sail found a nice little bay with a church were we made a stop to see the view, relax with Mate and enjoy the setting sun.
On the way back to the Flying Buzzard we were kept company by a few play sick dolphins, who swam just below the front of the dinghy and as they would reach the surface the would hit hard with their tail and give us both a good splash of sea water. Nice………….guess it is very few people who can actually claim they have been in a water fight with dolphins. Have to say it was a perfect end to a nice afternoon/evening.

Flying Buzzard

What a bad blogger I have been recently and I fear that this update is going to be somewhat short as I already have one foot in the dinghy (or at least in my spirit) ready to go out for some pizza and beer. The main big news is that I have extended my stay in Trinidad with an additional three weeks. After already several of weeks here I still feel I haven’t seen anything of the country and having traveled half across the world I would hate going home without having visited at least one sandy–white beach down here. Moreover, I have changed my boat (the Outlier was hauled up) and I’m now living on The Flying Buzzard, and once you are here there is no turning back.
The Captains and owners of the Flying Buzzard are Jules and Mick and on the boat are Julian from Argentina, Toby the dog and two Indonesians. Despite having sworn they would not return it seems like they were magically drawn towards Trinidad. Thus, just around the 23rd of July the Flying Buzzard returned to Trinidad. And like The Buzzard was drawn to Trinidad as by some magic force I too was drawn to the Flying Buzzard and I quickly became a daily visitor on the boat
My fist week as a permanent member of the Flying Buzzard has been rather hectic as Jules and Mick’s wedding is coming up tomorrow, hence the last 7 days has consisted of banging rust, painting and cleaning the Flying Buzzard to make it ready for the big day. More to come on the big day and my adventures next week.

The land of the humming bird

After a 19 hour long sail we arrived to Trinidad two weeks ago. The two first weeks in the land of the humming bird has passed and I’m still alive and well in a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world.

So how in this new place…………wet, lush, fruity, mixed, friendly

Wet, lush, and fruity– well yes very wet as we arrived just in time for the rain season, which has brought greenness and lushness with it. So on one hand I am right now in the middle of a typical bad Danish summer, just one that’s slightly warmer 28 – 32 degrees, but on the other hand I get to see a rich green landscape with blooming trees and avoid sun burns. And with the return of the rain and the lush nature comes the food to be picked from the trees – the fruitiness. Going to an estate on the country side makes you wonder whether you have arrived to the Garden of Eden. This particular estate was in the middle of the rain forest, thus water comes in a constantly stream and feed the life there. I was stroke by the variety, the amount, the colours, the smell and the taste of the fruit, herbs and vegetables growing there. I had no idea before coming here, just how great a food source the rain forest is.

Mixed, you find an incredible diversity of ‘races’ – some in Trinidad would claim that you are not a real Trinidadian before four different ‘races’ runs in your blood. You can roughly say that the population can be split in five here. Descendants from Europe, Africa, India, ‘Syria’ (referred to as Syrians, but sure whether they actually only come from there?) and descendants from the native Indians living here – whom largely were killed by the Spain’s when the first arrived here – so natives are more likely to refer to native Indians coming from South America. Welcome to the melting pot.

You see the fusion in people’s faces, their skin, their hair and their culture. I went to an incredible concert the other day where I experienced the cultural fusion up front.  The band playing had brought together a wide range of instrument the sounds of the Indian sitar, were mixed with the ones of a steel pan drum, a sax, a Spanish guitar, bongo drums, a bass, and electronic beat box, a unlikely combination but with an capturing and hypnotizing result.

According to ‘Vision of Humanity’ Trinidad is the 94th most peaceful place out of a 149 countries, as a comparison Denmark in the top ten! Guess we can all agree upon that Trinidad isn’t safe. So you must be careful with whom you chose to socialize with. What one does is when coming here is to use the one contact you might have down here, to recommend who to hang out with, whom again will introduce you to more people. So in that way you build up a safe network. And so far the people introduced to me by my Swiss friend Ricarda have been amazingly friendly to me and have taken good care of me. The friendliness shown to new comers is truly remarkable. So far I have been on a fishing trip, an engagement party, to a country estate, football afternoon in the town and a French music festival and every single time I have been picked up where I live and brought back home again, and perhaps I should add – just for the record - that I don’t live in the town but well outside. And for the girls back home – here women very seldom pay for their own drinks they appear out of the blue in some magical way – and NO nothing is expected in return ONLY that you have a good time.

The little house on the sea

Above The Outlier dressed in a tent

Below scenes from my neighbourhood

The security guards' post

The bar

As you can see this is NOT an actioned packed place to hang out

Blow, blow thou summer wind

To avoid the situation above we have decided to press south for Trinidad and Tobago for the 'hurricane season'. Trinidad is suppose to be outside the ‘hurricane zone’, which mean we should be safe. Now I should explain here the concepts of ‘hurricane zone’ and ‘hurricane season’. The hurricane zone is generally considered to cover the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. Most hurricanes tend to bypass the "ABC islands" -- Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao -- as well as Trinidad and Tobago since they're so far south. But these islands aren't necessarily immune as all three ABC islands were under storm warnings in 2004 before Hurricane Ivan changed course and slammed into Grenada instead. Grenada, just south of the Grenadines, used to be regard as out of the zone until 2004 when it was devastated by the hurricane Ivan, and then hit again the following year by the less destructive Emily. The “hurricane season” is officially 1^st June through to the 30^th November. This simply means that you are more likely to have a hurricane at that time of year. The hurricane season normally peaks between mid-August and the end of October.

The picture below shows a Church in Granada's capital St George, which has been short of its roof since Ivan's visit in 2004.

Unlike Grenada, both Trinidad and Tobago have frequently escaped the wrath of major devastating hurricanes including the above mentioned hurricane Ivan. So fingers crossed that Trinidad and Tobago once again escape the hurricanes, especially as I would be clueless about what to do.

Welcome to Warm and Sunny Trinidad

Good that I brought my knitted sweater along

Another sunny day in Trinidad

Hallelujah and The Irish Luck

At first this title might sound a bit absurd, but it goes nice for capturing the last couple of days here in Carriacou. After leaving Clifton Friday morning we arrived just after lunchtime in Carriacou – Tyrrel Bay. Just before arriving I received a phone call on sea. The combination of not looking on the screen on the phone, hence not spotting the number, loud noises from the engine and the caller having a male voice with an accent lead me to believe that it was a Peter (a friend who is currently living in the UK but is a Slovakian) who had called me. So I started to ask him how the weather was in Brighton, how work was and if the English girls who he was serving were behaving in their best English manner and so on. I surely must have sounded like a radio and I am sure that the conversation must have made very little sense to the person whom I spoke with; as it turned out that it was not Peter but Toni an Indonesian. So why, you might ask, did Toni never correct me and said ‘Brighton why the heck are you talking about Brighton’? Despite being the best of the Indonesians on the Flying Buzzard, when it comes to talk English, Toni's English is not too developed to be fair . I can not help wonder how much he actually picked up of that conversation, but anyway it is sort of like eating a black olive and think that it is a very dark grape. It leaves you wondering, how you could mistake an Indonesian accent with a Slovakian?! Perhaps the two languages have more in common that I realized and hence ends up with a somehow similar accent.
Returning to the story. We arrived safely in the lovely bay of Tyrrel to finish up the remaining work on our report. After an event-less weekend, we sat out Monday afternoon to check out Hallelujah. Despite its name this is not a church, or its like, but a floating bar. Arriving in time for happy hour, we came to realize that this was the spot where everybody and his brother came. Cheap beer and good company, who could wish for more. Leaving behind whatever shyness I might have brought with from Denmark, I made myself familiar with the sailors on the floating bar, here in particular Jerald from North Carolina and Catherine and Pat from Dublin. And the first thing I remember speaking with Catherin about was the Eurovision, and how bad (sorry Catherine) the Irish had preformed, which of cause lead us into a lovely conversation about Johnny Logan, Abba and so on. Eventually we got around to the subject of food (As most time on a boat goes with either reading or eating, the conversation is just bound to cross these two subjects at one point or another.) and baking (one of my favorites). And I told her about my experiments with baking in a pressure cooker, and before I knew of it I was telling her that I would come around to their boat the day after and show her how it worked. Being slightly drunk I did come up with the idea that I could just swim to their boat……………..no problemo!

At the top Happy Hour at the Hallelujah
Below Saying goodbye to Irish and the infamous Hallelujah bar

Not sure what I had been thinking of, but one thing was for sure it wasn’t thought through, which I realized the day after. After all I had no intentions of standing baking in a boat wearing little more than a mermaid, so I abandoned that idea. Instead went in the dinghy and arrived dry shoed to a baking session that resulted in a lovely Irish soda bread, and a foccia that was left to rise for 3 hours so that we would not miss the Hallelujah happyhour.

The morning after (yesterday) the baking session I was rather interested in how the bread had turned out. And with the knowledge of their Irish background and a general European pride in our dairy products, I duck deep down in our fridge and located one of our many packages of Irish butter. The butter spread joy, and to my luck and in this case not Irish luck, I got to share a lovely morning on their boat Aragon, stuffing myself with good bread, tea and fun stories from Ireland and their life. And I have to agree with Pat and Catherine, Irish butter is just so much better.