Author Archives: Schooner Mahdee

Almond Breeze

Posted on by under food, living aboard

Sometimes I totally crave milk. Since David has an intolerance for all milk products (milk, butter, cheese, whey, read all the labels…milk is everywhere!), I find that I don’t get my milk-fixes. Since we also don’t have refrigeration, there’s another reason I seldom get my milk-fix! Typically, whenever we grocery shop, I purchase 8 oz of cottage cheese or some yogurt so I can eat it immediately as a dairy meal on that day. I usually don’t buy cheese even though many cheeses do well unrefrigerated but stored in the cool bilges; this is because I really begin to crave cheese so if I’ve had a little of it I want a LOT! So, no cheese for me.

For the past year, my “milk-fix” has been taken care of by purchasing a product called Almond Breeze. It’s almond milk. Just like they make soy milk but this one’s almond milk. Much, much tastier than soy milk, though. It is in one quart cartons that do not require refrigeration–ah, but today I found a 1/2 gallon (that requires refrigeration) container of the unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze at Vons–on sale for the same price as the one quart container. So, David and I are drinking lots of Almond Breeze today. I can’t say I’ll ever crave this stuff, but, it’s better than not having anything like milk.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason Has Netted a Multitude of Reasons

Posted on by under living aboard, Musings, sailing, Wooden Boats

People often say that buying and restoring an old wood boat requires one to set aside all logic. The same can be said for living and voyaging on a sailboat as well. So, in doing both, we seem to have had a several-years-long “lapse of reason” but that’s OK, because our moments are now filled with many, many reasons to have taken the plunge.

There comes a moment, almost every day, when I look around the boat–seeing something about the boat, the waterscape, the landscape beyond and I think “this moment is the reason we’re here; it is priceless.” Here, as in, voyaging on a sailboat, to be exact THIS old, 1931 schooner. Priceless, as in, beyond value. It sounds trite, or silly maybe to someone reading this blog. But it it true for me.

Today, that moment came when a pod of 4 dolphins swam around and around Mahdee in the still waters of the anchorage.

Yesterday, that moment came when a family of teeny tiny little ducks came swimming by the stern.

The day before yesterday, that moment came when at dusk, the Christmas lights twinkled on the Hotel Del Coronado–making it look like a fairytale castle over the water.

Last week, I smiled in the moment filled with the smell of seaweed and sight of all the tiny crabs scampering about on a seldom used mooring pickup line.

Last month, a misty daybreak with dewdrops sparkling on the wood combings gave us a breathtaking background to our routine of weighing anchor.

On the sail down the coast in October, the winds, waves, and sail combined such that moment after moment unfolded before me with all the reasons in the world to be thankful for this time sailing the Mahdee.

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I selected this post to be featured on my blog’s page at Sailing Blogs.

They should call “Varnish” “Vanish”

Posted on by under living aboard, Musings, Projects

Just remove the r and that will do it. Every few months I varnish a bit of Mahdee’s brightwork. Coat after coat after coat I wonder what happens to it. For example, I have at least 20 coats on the cockpit combings but yet there are places where it has worn down to bare wood and I can say with certainty that the thickness of the existing varnish at best is the equivalent of something like 4 or 5 coats. Today, I sanded the cockpit combings and put on a coat. Tomorrow morning, I’ll achieve another coat and hopefully a third tomorrow afternoon and a fourth on Tuesday before the weather gets too cold again for good drying.

The few places I’d “spot varnished” in September on the combing were bright and shiny still; the problem was that I’d not varnished the combing at all in August when I varnished everything else on the boat. My notes say that the cockpit combing was last varnished in late April of 2010. No wonder it was pretty much gone!

We’re calling it “Vanish” since it certainly wears away to nothing.

The logistics of varnishing keep it as an illusive and seldom completed task here on the boat. I cannot varnish when it is wet, too hot or brightly sunny (the varnish will bubble) , too late in the day (dew will fall) or when David is doing any of his typical messy work. Can’t varnish when we’ll be moving the boat from one anchorage to another (that’s every three days) but yet varnishing is best done at anchor rather than at the dock (too many lines in the way when at the dock). So, a good varnish day is like getting all the stars to align–we’re at anchor, it’s not our last day at anchor (since it is best to varnish two days in a row), David has other things to do besides make dusty messes; and the weather is neither too hot, too cold, too wet, or too windy. Got it? Yep, very rare days are the varnish days.

Since I’m “ahead” of David on getting a cold, I feel better than him today and thus can go about my sanding and varnishing while he sits inside barely able to think and not in the mood for dusty projects! Perfect varnish time. The weather is great, and we’ll be here until early Tuesday morning! The stars have aligned.

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