Month: February 2021

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Wild West Winnie Loop

A long land voyage.

In these uncertain times (ugh) we opted not to fly and rent a car to visit our fresh niece Winifred. We figured it was only fair to visit Tay’s family as well, in case we love Mexico enough to move there, we can say a proper goodbye to both families. But we needed a stopover halfway to Denver. I have friends in Phoenix so it was all coming together. Plus our truck is stored in Hannah & Joe’s driveway in Vancouver WA, so we could get that. It’ll be nice to have our own car when we wind down the voyage. We also scored a stopover in San Fran for the home stretch. The plan was set for our loop, and as is our custom, got delayed for weather. Rental cars aren’t guaranteed to be 4wd, and would definitely have San Diego style tires which would be lacking in the great white North.

·      Leg 1. San Diego to Phoenix. 6 hrs & 360 miles. An easy first day along the Mexico border, brief pit stop rolling in the sand dunes, and warmly greeted by some golf, a sunset, and wonderful dinner & conversation with the Sweitzers. 

·      Leg 2. Phoenix to Loveland. 14 hrs & 870 miles. America is stunning part 1. Sedona, Flagstaff, Moab, Colorado canyons & our first taste of snowy roads in a year. Greeted by -15 degree weather, cold Busch lights, and a warm Buschy welcome. We spent 3 days with the Buschys. Threw axes for Valentine’s day and had a blast.

·      Leg 3. Loveland to Bozeman. 10 hrs & 600 miles. A cold Wyoming day and a heated game of horse-horse (Tay the victor). Greeted by the Holidays with a fire, feast, and A NIECE!!! We spent 4 days in Bozeman seeing old friends, fawning over Lil’ Win’ and a surprise visit from Troy, who quit his job in DC to fly in and see us for a day! Talk about dedication & poetic license. (He actually came to ski and had already planned on quitting but it all worked out so we overlapped a day).

·      Leg 4. Bozeman to Vancouver. 13 hrs & 760 miles. The drive from Bozeman to Spokane is becoming like a commute to us, but the new territory on the South route to Portland is stunning in the winter. The Columbia River gorge is deep, green, and overwhelming. We were welcomed in by Joe and caught up about old boat adventures and new. We saw our ole pal Max and got introduced to Joe’s ½ jeep. He cut the back half off…you can ask him why but we didn’t get a clear answer.

We didn’t get any pictures of the green part, but its green!

o   Now that we have Tay’s truck but need to deliver the renal back to SD, we’re in 2 cars, but luckily have a good pair of walkee-talkees.

·      Leg 5. Vancouver WA, to San Francisco. 14 hrs & 810 miles. There’s a fine line between trusting google maps, and being too independent.  We wanted to see the Redwoods and drive the coast road. A mudslide ruined the coast road but google maps suggested a quick hour detour around the slide. Once in Redwood National Park, the rangers informed us the ‘detour’ was more of a game trail and had to be closed due to the number of google-trusting-tourists’ getting stuck. We backtracked a hundred miles north to I-5 and resumed. Coming into SF over the bay bridge at night has to be one of the most stunning “Welcome” to a city out there. The pizza at Max & Matt’s was a close second.

·      Leg 6. San Francisco to San Diego. 9 hrs & 600 miles. This leg also could’ve been shorter but we wanted to see sections of the coast we missed, and having already listened to 2 Steinbeck audiobooks on this trip, we wanted to detour through Salinas & King City, and take a few back roads. Southern California is another amazing part of the country. This time of year its green rolling hills, and striking ocean views which we missed on the foggy sail down. We pulled into San Diego, tuckered out, but pumped to pick up Eunice from her second home.

Eunice loves looking out windows…and was medium about seeing us again.

Total Trip Sats:

4139 Miles.

67 hours

9 States

3 Audio Books:

3 cases of LaCroix

3 stops for food/coffee (shocking I know, but we prepared an obscene amount of veggies, dips, bags of popcorn, and sliced cheeses before we left San Diego, plus we didn’t want to catch the ol’ ‘rona)

Back to the boat…and some navy seal training on our dock. Stay tuned.
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Scootie on Scooter

Rikka AKA Scooter AKA the sea-fearingest-sailor

This last week we took a long land-voyage and had one of the busiest 2-week stretches in a while, and I was not able to get an email update out. My sincerest apologies.

Before our great western loop, my sister Rikka flew into San Diego for a weekend of sailing and merriment. She was a more enthused sailor than most guests and I suspect it had something to do with her not trusting her dumb little brother could pull off the whole sailing thing. She was convinced we’d die off the coast of Oregon so she wanted us to prove that we knew what we were doing. We spent her first day in town cruising up and down the San Diego bay seeing the sights and ships. After that, she kindly insisted we do another day sailing outside of the bay to see the open pacific and some better wind and swell.

We spent super bowl Sunday with Chuck and Kitsy and as always at their house ate like kings.

We also made two attempts at the Cabrillo monument national park hoping for the combination of low tide, and low popularity so we could experience the tide pools. This was a highlight. We spent hours wandering the slippery rocks looking at all manner of sea creatures: Rainbow Sea Stars, Sea hares, fish, hermit crabs, snails, non-rainbow starfish, and dozens of un-identifiable-brightly-colored-oddly-shaped aliens.

We crammed in a beach day, long dinghy ride, found an ancestor’s grave at the Point Loma Military Cemetery, a fish taco night, and even some movies. I’d like to think we’re getting more efficient at hosting guests and stacking the days with festive, sea-related activities. We also scored the best oranges I’ve ever tasted willy nilly in a golf cart on the side of the road.

California is AWESOME

This visit nearly rounds out the last of our immediate family members to see & sail on scooter. Maria & Schmitz are the remaining outliers but they have a great excuse, hence the reason for our Wild-West-Winnie-(w)Road-Trip. Tales from the long drive coming soon. Aka tomorrow.

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Scooter’s Galley Volume 5

Canned Fish

I think canned fish gets a bad rap. I guess all canned meat gets met with some trepidation but I’m pro canned meat. (except Vienna sausages…ew).

Canned chicken is good on the boat. It lasts forever and doesn’t need to be refrigerated, plus in a stir fry it’s ok. Canned corned beef hash is an excellent treat on a Saturday morning. And although canned tuna can be lame and is probably packed with dolphin meat, the other canned fishes are AWESOME. So here’s my review of the canned fish section at your local grocery store.

My canned fish interest started when I read “The Voyage of the Cormorant”. A guy sails solo down the Baja, surfing and eating canned sardines along the way. It is a great story and helped me process our failure last season. For our boat journey, it seemed fitting to always have a bunch of canned fish on board. During project days, we almost always hoover some saltines & sardines for lunch. On Fridays in Seattle, we did ‘Tinis&Dines’ (sardines & martinis).

Eunice loves canned fish, but luckily she won’t eat off our plates. She requires her own portion as well as explicit permission to eat it.

We got a gift of some canned fish from our van life friends, Wayne & Katrina. They gave us a great variety of canned fishes that arent always available at our local Kroger. We tried a few that were not pictured above. But here’s what you need to know before your next canned fish purchase:

Tuna. Canned/bagged tuna all tastes the same. If you’re not gonna eat it mashed up with mayo, canned is better cause it retains some flakes, but the 79 cent cans on the bottom shelf aren’t great, spring for name brand.

In the bags, it’s all pretty lame. Some of the flavored ones are ok, but none are really that good. Costco sells a mercury-free yellowfin in a pouch. This was the best tuna option in my opinion.

Sardines. No need to splurge here. They’re pretty much all the same, but they’re all good. Cheaper brands usually have smaller fish. The ones packed in Mustard are gross. The hot sauce packed sardines are good, but packed in olive oil is best. Add your own hot sauce.

Mackerel: This is the best-canned fish. Slightly larger fish than the sardines, but way more flavor and structure. Every brand of Mackerel we tried was good. World Market has some colorful cans in bright paper wrapping that were the best. It is firm, oily, and is really tasty.

This was the best fish overall

Anchovies: These aren’t really an ‘eat-for-lunch-on-a-cracker’ type fish. But everyone needs a few of these cans in their pantry. Next time you’re cooking something that needs a little extra depth, mush up a couple anchovies into it. They can add great salty umami to pasta sauces, lentil soups, or pizza (assuming you own a full-sized oven). I do most of the cooking in our family, but Taylor is forever the keeper of the secret family caesar dressing recipe, and it requires a few anchovies. It’s BOMB!

Salmon: Salmon shouldn’t be canned. It’s probably more sustainable than tuna, and I’m sure its price tag is justified some way, but canned salmon isn’t great. However, I fully intend to keep exploring canned salmon because I made salmon cakes last month that were heavenly, but the ingredients (With fresh salmon) are out of scooter’s price range.

Trout: Actually really good. Maybe because it was the only smoked fish we had, but it was excellent. You could proudly serve canned trout on a charcuterie board (although maybe mush it up with some cream cheese so it doesn’t look so weird).

I get that this one doesn’t present great, but it is really delicious.

In Summary:

The Good:

  • Canned meats in general (with some key exceptions).
  • Mackerel, king of the canned fish.
  • Sardines, and Anchovies should be staples of the pantry, at sea, or on land.

The Bad:

  • Canned salmon isn’t flavorful.
  • Canned tiny shrimp are horrible and don’t belong on a $24 salad. (looking at you Tide’s Tavern in Gig Harbor)
  • People who categorically dismiss canned fish have weak bloodlines and history will not be kind to you.

Editors note: SPAM (king of the canned meats) has been on the grocery list for some time. Once I convince Taylor of its redeeming qualities will make an appearance in Scooter’s Galley.

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Wind Pinned

Throwback Time!

Frankly, this week was a little underwhelming. I even postponed the newsletter a couple of days hoping something exciting would happen. Here’s a brief recap:

Gale force winds kept us from leaving the San Diego Yacht Club as planned. We provisioned to leave the docks for a few weeks, but the wind angered the seas, and our Catalina plan was put back on hold.

A lot of angry water between us and Catalina

The coast guard paperwork may be done soon, and with a special visitor planned (Aunt Scootie), we looked to hunker down in San Diego a while longer. It took a few days on the phone with every marina in town but we finally lucked out and found a slip. They were very gracious and allowed us a short term liveaboard contract.

Scooter’s first-ever liveaboard approved slip!

We went to a birthday party! Shoutout to S/V Space Cowboy for inviting us and making us feel like we have local friends. We had a bunch of fun dinners with Chuck & Kitsy. I played golf with Dave, and Taylor hung out with our friends, Max & Matt Jones who were visiting from SF. Despite being pinned down, we had a ton of fun.

Birthday Party Views

Anyway, in lieu of a more fascinating update, here’s a throwback tale to another pinned-down-by-wind story.

Last summer, post-decision not to go South, we spent some time touring the San Juan Islands. This was Tay and my first time cruising just the two of us after Hannah and Joe returned to land.

We bit off more than we could chew one day. Passing between two narrow islands with a significant current rushing between them, we had full sails up, a fishing rod in the water, and while Taylor helmed I had an entire disassembled outboard sprawled about the cockpit. We hooked a fish, and chaos ensued. We traded off reeling and steering and trying to wrangle the sails, while every nut and bolt from the outboard tried to get lost.

Scooter, the previous night in the stunning San Juans

It was a good marriage exercise while we yelled at each other trying to survive. The boat got close to the rocks on shore then close to the passing ferry, then close to the various sailboats, then back to the shore. Tay landed the whopper of a Salmon, and a flopping fish in the spare motor parts added another tier to our chaos cake.

We got the sails down, bonked the fish, stashed it in the cooler, and got the outboard cleaned up. We sailed into Friday Harbor as we calmed down and apologized to each other. As we rolled in, the sky on one side was violently dark while the other was clear blue. We got into a slip right as the wall hit. In the days pre-dodger, we had to set up a tarp over the cockpit.

The storm lasted 4 days which took a big hit out of our budget, Friday Harbor was one of the most expensive marinas at the time. But we were content. We watched all 5 Pirates of the Caribbean movies, ate ungodly amounts of salmon, and sat in the rain.

Knock on wood we get pinned down in places this amazing from here on out.

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Scooter’s Galley Volume 4

What to expect on a visit to Scooter.

Scooter has provided an awesome platform for friends and family to visit, and vacation safely. It’s also easier to convince people to visit a yacht in sunny California than an apartment in Cincinnati, so I’m happy.

With our visitors, we sometimes teeter on the edge of spending too much time eating and thinking about food (assuming that’s even possible). So here’s a weekend menu from a traditional visit.

Arrive Friday to a traditional sit-down dinner. An introduction to the boat, a cocktail to relieve travel stress, and something rich. Chicken picatta, pork tenderloin in a demi-glace, or maybe a steak dinner.

Saturday morning we generally have a classic breakfast; eggs, bacon, and home fried potatoes crisped in duck fat. We have yet to take pictures of that meal though, so our reader will have to use their imagination. It’s slow, and lets us wake up our guests with the smell of bacon.

Lunch Saturday is our only meal, on average, we eat out. In-n-out burger, or some authentic tacos from our favorite hole-in-the-wall. This works cause Saturday tends to be explore, hike, beach day, or something else out and about.

Saturday dinner often follows the dinghy ride, so we cook something that I can make on auto pilot. Dinghy rides are magical because they’re so fun, we accidentally usually drink too much and stay out on the water past a normal dinner time. So my auto-pilot meals are fish tacos or indian curry.

Sunday mornings we’ve made a habit of sailing. So I’m at the helm and Taylor takes on breakfast. She’s mastered the art of pancakes from scratch, which is extra impressive because most of the time we’re missing most of the ingredients. No milk is fixed by water and heavy cream, no eggs apparently can be replaced with oil but the fluff of the whites is recreated by baking soda and vinegar, but we never have white vinegar so instead apple cider vinegar has to work. Every time, no matter the substitutions, the pancakes turn out delicious. since we may have done Indian the night before, the first round of pancakes are always yellow, pulling a little turmeric out of the pan (yes, we wash our dishes).

They get rounder over time.

Sunday lunch is the classic Char-scooter-ie board. The piest-de-resistance of the visit, since we’re out on the water, sails up, Pirates of the Caribean music playing in the background.

Sunday night we make sushi! Sushi lets the visitor participate and it’s hard to screw up. We have our little collection of condiments and toppings, and have access to great fresh fish at the local fishmongers.

Then the guests leave and Tay and I go back to our weekday meals. Oatmeal, Canned fish, ramen, and lentils!

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Floors & Logistics

The joy of improving small spaces

If you live in a 96 square foot house, it’s pretty easy to tackle home improvement projects. A home improvement project is on the level of fixing up a bathroom. It’s pretty easy to care about every square inch.

On the flip side, we don’t have the luxury of avoiding a portion of the house for a few days, or closing the door on our bathroom sized house.

So I decided, in our boredom, that we should improve our little house for resale value. our floors were old and absorbed water. *see the at-sea adventure they were coated in a few inches of water and constantly subject to wet residents*.

We learned boat floors are ideally a brilliant white holly pinstripe on a teak background. Our floors were just a bunch of brown. Home Depot doesn’t sell marine varnish, but luckily the man at the paint section pointed us toward a marine supply store near the boat and gave us his business name for a discount. We popped into the marine store and got a wealth of info from the ‘varnish’ guy, as well as a 40% discount on our supplies. Thanks Walt.

Post acid wash

First step is a deep clean with soap and water, followed by a hard scrub with oxalic acid. When that dried I attacked the floors with Chuck’s sander, which meant moving anything that can collect dust out of the boat. We had a pile of cushions and clothes outside the boat while the sander screamed away.

Despite our efforts, everything was covered in sawdust.

The logistical challenge that we struggled to overcome was varnishing the floors while Eunice and Taylor roamed about the house. We decided that at midnight, the girls would go to bed, and I’d lay down a coat. I’d paint myself back into the corner of the bedroom and lock us all in, and hopefully, by morning, the floors would be dry enough to walk on.

I put down 3 coats, and each day the floors were tackier and tackier when we woke up, but they looked good.

The third coat took 72 hours to cure. The floors desperately need a fourth and fifth coat, but at 3 days a pop, we’re going to take what we can get for now. Its hard to schedule not walking on them 3 days at a time. They’re looking a lot better but it might be a while before I can post a true ‘after’ picture.

At the end of the flooring project, we intended to sail north for Catalina but the weather had other plans. A storm rolled down the coast pumping 40+ knot winds. Luckily Chuck convinced the yacht club to allow us to stay a few more days while the weather subsided.

40-knot winds and 20-foot seas don’t capture well via selfie

In our delay, we had some other highlights (in no particular order of significance):

  • We invited Bob Goff to dinner. He declined via email but we had a blast with Chuck and Kitsy
  • Taylor started a dog portrait business and it’s booming. Get in early before ‘Taylor Holiday Dog Paintings’ get famous.
  • I fixed our manual water pump!
  • Taylor diagnosed me as a 9 on the enneagram.
  • We finished all of the marvel films…(they felt like homework by the end).
  • Tay’s truck stored in Washington got overrun by mold.
  • My sister had a baby! Little niece Winifred Jane joined the family!