Galley Duty

[Kendra]
Guess some of you are wondering how and what we eat on Helm's Deep, especially when we are under way. Well...
Galley Duty does usually fall to me even though Matt is the better cook. Which is why I am answering food and foodstuffs inquiries.
To begin, we have a lot more to consider than we did when we had a conventional kitchen. Are we moving? If so, how far are we heeled over to either side? And which side, because on OUR boat one side IS easier than the other - boiling water on the feet told me so. Is fresh meat available? What in our ice box, (literally), needs to "go" first?
If at dock or anchored or otherwise NOT moving, our options are a-plenty. The only thing we really cannot do is bake. Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that the oven and stovetop that came with the boat is out of commission until we find a compressed natural gas dealer. We use a Coleman dual fuel camping stove to cook. That's two burners. And yet another consideration. What can be combined into one dish? Even better, what can I cook that will combine meat, starch, and veggie? Also, will it be easy to keep and then reheat in one skillet? Seriously, sudoku has nothing on this puzzle!
Breakfast is a toss up. If we have eggs we try to use them up right away. We keep bagels and cheese handy. Oatmeal and Cream-Of-Wheat is easy enough using the hot water left over from making coffee. Lunch is almost always sandwiches. We keep some fruit on hand for snacks, along with some sort of crackers, nuts, or cereal bars. Dinner all depends on conditions. We have a grill that is easy to use when not moving, but if we are underway we'll have pasta and sauce or maybe something with a canned meat. Canned chicken is my friend.
Some of you might be wondering how we can use the stove at all while the boat is tossing around at sea. The camping stove is mounted on the gimbal stove that is boat original. A gimbal stove is easy to understand in theory, but it is still a trip to watch at work. It swings with the movement of the boat and when not hindered, provides a stable cooking surface. Of course, there was that one time...
Back to the ice box. At some point we, (Matt), will convert the super-insulated cooler into an electric refrigeration system. Until then, we rely on bags of ice, or if we're lucky blocks of ice. This last run we were able to find dry ice. So far, dry ice + block ice = cold food for several days. :)
Anyway, hope this answers some of your questions.

Leaving Port. St. Joe

Sailed 5 days to Port St. Joe Florida... was very nice. Clear blue waters and white beaches, good food and friendly folks. Wish we could stay for a while, but have decided to set sail for Tampa Bay - one step closer to the Keys! Should be about three days on the water, but winds are light and are supposed to shift in an unfavorable direction - so could take longer. We are all stocked up with food, gas, water, beer and wine and so looking forward nice offshore run. See ya in Tampa!

Offat's Bayou to Houma

Hanging out in Offat's Bayou was just about what we expected - peaceful. Anchored out in front of Moody Gardens close to the Colonel (a big paddle boat). Saw one more sailboat anchored out in the general area. That was it. The three of us. Like I said, peaceful. The following morning we decided to take our new dinghy out to explore a little. We set out to find the supposed fuel stop and restaurant at the south end of the bayou and maybe do some fishing. It was a nice sunny day with some pretty good wind. We were so excited about taking the tender out that we didn't think to grab some lifejackets. Bad move. Good news is no one fell out. Bad news is we got a ticket. On the up side, the game warden was cool and he told us about all the good fishing holes.
We ended up changing locations to the south end of the bayou. Never found the fuel stop but we did find Boudreaux's Restaurant. It was easy and convenient to take the dinghy to the dock and dine, which we did on two occasions. One evening our friends Neil and Carolina came to visit. Matt picked them both up at Boudreaux's and brought them to Helm's Deep for beers and such, then we went back to the restaurant for dinner an some Saturday night entertainment. Sunday my parents came for a visit. They were kind enough to run us on a couple of errands before we went back to the boat. Spent the day visiting and sailing, then put some steaks on the grill. Great visit with the folks AND we got an early Christmas present! And now we know that, yes, you CAN play wii on a boat!!
Now the decision to either wait for a weather window to head out into the Gulf and toward Florida or to take the ICW on up to New Orleans. Either way we needed to restock and fill up with water. We had been all over the bayou at this point and the only place we thought might have water turned out to be a private residence. Thankfully Dick and his wife were extra kind and allowed us to pull the boat over to one of their several slips and fill up with water. Left the boat there while we rode our bikes to the Wally-world and bought enough to feed us for weeks. The backpacks were pushed to capacity on that trip!
The next day the decision had been made to continue up the ICW due to weather conditions in the Gulf. Impatient were we… And now we know better. The goal was to try to make it to New Orleans by Halloween. After a couple of days and nights plowing up the ICW with not much wind the goal changed to getting to NO by the Sunday night football game. We stayed one night in Intracoastal City at a recommended dockage. Strange accents but nice people.
We made it as far as Houma. And here we are now waiting patiently for our weather window to get OUT of the Intracoastal and into the Gulf.