Yup, we’re down to getting creative with stuff that lasts a loooong time.

Today we made Smoked Salmon Alfredo. Funny how dried peas come to life almost as good as fresh. We’re tried canned and they are terrible, but dried are actually delicious. You just have to boil them, then simmer them for about 10-15 minutes. I used the last of our fresh garlic (“fresh” after three weeks or so being a relative term, but the cloves hadn’t sprouted), butter, aseptic packaged cream, butter that’s been under the freezer and is still fine and parmesan which never goes bad. Oh and our last package of smoked salmon from New Zealand. Wow, it was delicious!

We always judge our meals by whether we would share them with friends or not. Good thing there aren’t any close friends around ’cause we didn’t want to share! Actually there are five other boats tucked in here waiting out the weather like we are. Noone moved off their boats today. The wind was smoking. You couldn’t really stand up on deck without holding something to keep from being blown off the side. It’s high twenties gusting to mid-thirties. The gusts make the wind look like it is dancing across the top of the water. Sometimes the top of the water is almost being blown into the air. Some of the gusts are healing Charisma over such that you have to hang on when down below. I even let the stove gimbal while I was cooking because stuff was flying all over the place as the gusts would hit and nothing would sit still.

The gribs (weather charts) say two more days of wind including some strong rain as a low approaches. Then as the low passes, we have a nice window to leave and go back up to Savusavu to resupply. Probably three days from now.

I keep thinking I’m going to jump in the water and go snorkeling and then a huge gust hits and I think; “maybe tomorrow”. What I ended up doing was reading all day. That’s nice too and something I haven’t done in a long time. It was actually very relaxing. Ann finished the rain catcher which is now rigged up waiting for rain and then she did some quilting, but the big Sailrite sewing machine is made for thick fabrics and doesn’t do so well with simple quilting material. She’s roughing out some stuff to bring back to the US during the holidays to finish but no quilts are going to get made on our hulking boat sewing machine unless they are made from six layers of Dacron with leather trim.

Life in Fulanga.