Peppermint Sticks Redux

The time has come to say “’til we meet again.” We enjoyed our second stay at Coconut Grove. The people at the sailing club are terrific. We will think of Dwayne and Pat and Lee and Terry and Lauren often and look forward to seeing them again next year. If you like restaurants, the Grove is the place to be. French, Japanese, Italian, Mediterranean, Mexican, Fusion and more, they’re all here. We ate at George’s the other day. Claudia had Avocado Tartare. We wondered how else you could have avocado. We decided that it was the presentation that qualified it for the moniker. Peter ordered a pan-seared tuna dish. Good fortune decreed that the kitchen had run out of tuna and he had to settle for the best Steak Tartare ever—served with French fries cooked in garlic flavored oil. Superb!
Most of the boats in the mooring field belong to members of the sailing club. We were a bit jealous of them. Most sailing and yacht clubs have reciprocity agreements with each other through national memberships. We were dismayed to learn that our club, Port Oliver Yacht Club, did not have reciprocal agreements with Coconut Grove Sailing Club. Oh well, their loss. They won’t be able to tie up at Port Oliver and join in the festivities on the second Friday of the month. One of the highlights of our recent visit was the moonrise on March 19, when the moon was at its closest point to the Earth in 18 years. It was beautiful!

So now, it’s back to the peppermint stick smokestacks of Fort Lauderdale. We will have to haul out again. Peter decided to inspect the steering gear (taking a hint from our experience on Second Wind). The steering gear was in fine shape, cables taut, attachments free of wear and so on. However, the nuts and bolts that hold the rudder bearing in place are severely corroded, crying out, “Replace, NOW.” In addition, we have had a persistent problem with the seacock that drains the holding tank. Might as well deal with that as well as long as we are going to be out of the water.

 

Long Island virtually begs you to stay forever. It’s not that there is a lot going on; quite the contrary. But the people are friendly and their lifestyle interesting. We drove to the south end of the island where the road literally ends on a beautiful beach that spills into the incredible blue waters of the Bahamas. Not a person insight!
Serendipity was with us when we picked up a hitch-hiker, Ernest Watson.  Ernest owns a little roadside bar and restaurant where we had an ice cold beer while he entertained us with stories about his life. He told us how to hunt wild boar and land crabs. He told us about spearing lobster and fish. He showed us his garden and the kid goat he nursed back to health. Then he told us how to cook it all. We learned that he was going for land crabs that night and that they were a staple item on the menu.   We arranged to return the next day for lunch. The menu—crab and rice, lobster salad and whatever else he thought appropriate (he chose broiled lobster tails!) Real down home Bahamian food!
Another drive took us north. The difference was striking. Where in the South there were many abandoned houses, some in great disrepair, the North had many fine homes with well-kept yards. We stopped for lunch at Max’s (world famous) Conch Bar in Deadman’s Cay. Coming to the Bahamas and not having a conch salad would be like going to Rome and not visiting the Coliseum. When we arrived, the tiki hut bar was crowded with an international set. We sat next to a French couple who enthusiastically recommended the grilled conch.  We watched Max as he expertly chopped and diced the ingredients for conch salad (recipe below) with a razor sharp 12 inch blade, putting Benihana to shame.
The Queen’s highway that runs the entire length of the island is bordered on each side with stone walls in various states of repair. The walls are remnants of the plantations that were established by Loyalists who fled the American colonies during the Revolution.  There are many architecturally unique churches scattered about the island some reminiscent of Mission style and small chapels in Greece. Clarence Town is known for two of the several churches built by Father Jerome in the Bahamas. 
It is somewhat ironic that in spite of our change of plans, fortune brought us to Long Island, our destination when we first set out in December. Now, having spent a few days there we know we want to return next winter.

Conch Salad
Chop and dice roughly equal quantities of tomato, green pepper and onion. Some people squeeze the juice from the diced tomatoes before adding them to the mix (Friendly Joe on Bimini who prepares the best salad we’ve tasted, does this). Some people also chop and dice a bit of apple for the salad. Then, chop and finely dice some raw conch (the quantity roughly equal to the rest of the ingredients so you have about half conch and half vegetables). Squeeze a good quantity of lime juice into the salad. (Personally, we also like to add some lime zest, but that’s not authentic) Some people also add some orange juice to the mixture. A bit of goat pepper (habañero) or other kind of pepper for heat. Salt to taste. Enjoy. We also use this recipe for diced fresh raw tuna and snapper.

Long Island at last!

Seven or eight hundred miles of water have passed under the keel since Ponce, Puerto Rico. We anchored at Boqueron to stage for crossing the dreaded Mona Passage. Fortunately it did not live up to its reputation and we again experienced an uneventful crossing. However, on our third night out, still off the north coast of Hispaniola, things deteriorated rather rapidly. Peter was on watch while everyone else slept. He was stretched out on the helmsman’s seat reading by flashlight while Otto steered the boat under full sail. Suddenly Otto jumped out of gear and the boat careened off course. The boat crashed through the waves and became a slave to the wind. Peter’s cursing awakened Al. It was apparent that we needed to shorten  

sail. Thankfully the reefing lines for the mainsail are led back to the cockpit and it was a relatively simple matter to take a reef there. The line for furling the jib is also led back to the cockpit, but it was jammed! This required a trip to the bow with the waves tossing and turning the boat. Al finally worked up the nerve to crawl forward to fix the problem and we could finally reef the jib and the ride became more comfortable and the boat was easier to handle. Claudia slept through the entire episode.
 The rocking and rolling in the anchorage at Matthewtown, Great Iguana, Bahamas were a welcome respite from the 25-30 knot winds of the night before and after 3 nights underway a dip in the clear turquoise water was refreshing. After a good night’s sleep we were again underway. Hand steering this time since Otto was apparently on strike for better working conditions. The next morning brought us back to Clarencetown, Long Island, Bahamas where we first stepped on board Second Wind five years ago. Ironically, Long Island was our original destination when we set out from Brunswick back in December!

The new adventure has begun! We left “Now or Never!” on a mooring ball at Coconut Grove Sailing Club. We met our friend Al at the airport. He had quite a long layover so, of course, we had to take him to “El Atlacatl” in Little Havana to sample the Mariscada. Then we all boarded a plane and headed to Sint Maarten where we provisioned “Second Wind.” Soon, we were on our way to Puerto Rico. The sailing was great! (see below for “what she said”) We turned off the engine as soon as we left the lagoon. The wind was from the NE at 12-15 knots and we were headed straight West. We set the sails and hardly touched them for the next 20 hours—woo-hoo! 6 knots! 7 knots! Even 8 knots! We were cooking in 6 foot seas (what she said below) We set the whisker pole to sail wing and wing as we came to the southern shore of Puerto Rico. By now, we had a following sea with 8 foot waves and an occasional 10 footer. There is nothing quite like looking aft to see a wall of water towering over the transom.
Our arrival at Ponce provided the only real excitement of the 30 hour trip. Since the jib was poled out certain precautions needed to be observed when furling the sail. Even so, the sail got pinched in the jaws of the whisker pole and we had a problem getting the sail rolled up. We started the engine and discovered that we had no steering gear. Yikes! We dug out the emergency tiller and with some difficulty, we were able to pilot the boat into the anchorage where we dropped the hook and rewarded ourselves with a ‘ti punch (basically rum, lime wedge and a bit of sugar).
“What she said” Great sailing my eye! Sure 6, 7, 8 knots. That didn’t change the fact that the boat was bobbing up and down on every 6 foot wave that passed! I spent the next 24 hours curled up in a fetal position in the V-berth.

We’re wrapping up our séjour in the Grove today. The sun is shining brightly and music is drifting across the mooring field from the park adjacent to the Sailing Club. The 48th annual Coconut Grove Arts Festival is taking place this weekend. It is estimated that 150,000 people attend this event to look at and buy art work from over 300 artists from all over the world. I don’t think we’ve ever seen so many people in one place! The art work, from painting to sculpture to jewelry and tapestry, is truly spectacular and truly expensive. The food vendors represent the usual hodgepodge of gyros, hotdogs and hamburgers with a bit of Latin food tossed in--pinchos, chicharrones and empanadas, all equally expensive.

We ate at a Cuban restaurant this week, La Carreta. Claudia ordered a sampler pletter that had enough food to satisfy our appetites for 2 days. In fact, we brought home the leftovers for lunch the following day. Peter nearly always orders picadillo at Cuban restaurants. It’s a very popular dish which consists of seasoned ground beef. His Cuban friend Carlos taught him how to make it several years ago. It’s been a favorite in our household for years. The version served at La Carreta was almost as good as Carlos’ version.

We went to the Barnacle State Park, within walking distance of the Sailing Club. It is the site of the oldest residence in Miami Dade County still standing on its original foundations. It’s a beautiful home that was well thought out by the boat builder who designed it. It’s located on five acres of Florida Hammock right downtown in the Grove. It’s amazing how quiet and peaceful it is there just a few hundred feet from traffic and city noises.

Tomorrow begins a new adventure. We’ll keep you posted.

Of Valentines and Regattas

Another weekend has come and gone and likewise another Valentine’s Day. The weekend brought yet another regatta to Coconut Grove. This time it was a Melges regatta. This was the second of three Melges regattas in the Miami Winter Melges series. Approximately 60 teams gathered to compete in the Melges 20 and 24 divisions. The Melges is a state of the art racing dinghy. I told a friend about the event and he said that racing dinghies provided a relatively inexpensive way to enjoy sailing. HaHa! The Melges 20 comes with a price tag of $47,000 and the 24 $67,000. That is, of course before spending thousands on new Mylar/Kevlar sails and all the other high tech upgrades these folks put in their boats.

Valentine’s Day was special (tongue in cheek humor!). Running out of clothes--time to do laundry. So Claudia heads for the laundry room at Dinner Key Marina. Since we were also running out of rum, certainly a more serious problem than clothes, Peter heads off to the liquor store. After such exertions, we didn’t feel like cooking on the boat so we had lunch at Scotty’s Landing. This visit was not equal to our last. Of course, maybe Valentine’s Day is not equal to Peter’s birthday. All was not bad on the culinary front. We decided to try to duplicate the Tartare de Saumon that was so good at the Bouchon du Grove. Our attempt was aided by logging onto a couple of French cooking sites where we watched instructional video clips. The result is that we have added another recipe to our repertoire.

The other day, a French couple arrived in the mooring field. The Sailing Club staff had a bit of trouble communicating with them. Enter Peter, the angel of mercy. A bit of translation service and the French boat was tied to a mooring ball. Actually, the French couple was probably able to speak adequate English. They’ve made it all the way down here from New York, partly on the ICW. That’s a feat that would be virtually impossible without a working knowledge of English.

We’re still hanging out in Coconut Grove. The weather has been fabulous and the town is great. Some friends of ours went to the Bahamas with the recent weather window. We’re going to stick around here for a bit, another adventure looms. Meanwhile, we’ll enjoy the weather and the town. We had a terrific meal at a local restaurant, le Bouchon du Grove. Peter had Moules Marinières and Claudia a Tartare de Saumon. Moules is one of our favorite dishes (a tradition on Xmas Eve). The Bouchon did a great job, serving up a full kilo of delicious mussels steamed in a white wine broth. The Tartare of Salmon came swimming in a delicate cream seasoned with lime zest and basil oil.

Our walks around town have yielded yet more additions to Peter’s collection of doors and windows from around the world. (pictures, you understand, not the actual ‘things’ ;) One of them looked as if it could have been from Timbuktu. I don’t know what is so fascinating about doors and windows but Peter has pictures of them from all over. Maybe he’ll do a collage some day.

And then there is the varnishing. Peter spent a lot of time last winter sanding and varnishing the toe rail. The elements have begun to take their toll. The plans were to do something about it in some nice quiet, exotic cove. Well, Coconut Grove is not quiet, some may consider it exotic, but it is nice. So, progress has been made to rescue the teak from the ravages of weather. Claudia, the slug, has tried to clean the starboard scoop with the magical “Mr Clean” sponges and after working quite a while, decided that this one would not come as clean as the port one. She is, however, keeping the saloon relatively tidy and the galley spotless!

Went out for lunch for Peter’s birthday. A really local place next to the exorbitantly priced “Chart House.” We had a great view of the water and the boats anchored there. We had a shrimp ceviche that was only so so . And a conch salad that could NOT compare to “Friendly Joe’s “ on Bimini –(or even Peter’s ceviche) then we shared a burger which was also so so. Oh, well we stopped at the “fresh market” and bought some salmon and smoked salmon to try to replicate my tartare, as well as two lovely lamb chops to go with the rest of the fresh spinach that we have. *sigh* LIFE IS GOOD. Even for old codgers!!!!!