Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Christmas Weekend at Redshanks

The cold front continued on Christmas morning as we made our way south past an anchorage called Sand Dollar where some lovely and expensive boats were anchored. Smile. Two year's ago, Braveheart was anchored there. Three year's ago we spoke unknowingly to the Wurtz family, owners of Black Hawk. One never knows with whom you're chatting on the beach.

Our plan was to spend Christmas with our raw food friends, Ralf, Birguitte and Pascalle, whose boat name is Tacelopes, in the well-protected Redshank's anchorage.

The scenery as we made our way there was breath-taking.



A study of the sky is always mesmerizing.


Photos similar to those found in tourist magazines are easy to take.

Redshanks is well protected and a great choice for a cold front.

We've been sprouting of course. This is a photo of the set-up for our jar sprouts. Dave made a wooden grid of teak to support the jars at an angle and had a stainless steel drainage tray custom made. It works very well, even under sail. Here you see quinoa, lentils and adzuki beans. The photo shows half the width of the sprouting rack which holds six jars in total with room for more in the soaking stage.


Here, you can see sunflower seeds planted in trays with ankle weights used to weight them down. This year, we're trying something new. We have three trays of soil piled one on top of the other. We intend to flip the first root map for our second crop, use the second tray for our third and fourth crops, the third tray for our fifth and sixth crops, and with any luck the first tray which will have been composting on the bottom will be ready to be used again for our seventh and eighth crops. We'll let you know how the plan goes.

So far, the alph alpha and clover baby greens have been doing well. I learnt to put the lids of peanut butter jars under the plastic needlepoint sheets in order to avoid 'root rot' caused by insufficient drainage. Birguitte has suggested that I put a drop of freshly squeezed lime juice rather than my usual food grade hydrogen peroxide in the spray water. Her sprouts are amazing so I'll definately give this a try. I use hydrogen peroxide in the soak water.

In this photo, you can see our boat decorated for Christmas with greeting cards I've saved from past years hung on the hand-rails.

Space is definately at a premium.

But what a beautiful place to be...

In the end, our friends weren't able to come on Christmas Day because their vehicle wouldn't start, but the next morning was another beautiful day and we looked forward to their arrival.


Our friends sailed from Germany in the early '80s, began eating a raw food diet fifteen years ago. Ten years ago they bought and cleared land here in The Bahamas in order to build a house. They live totally off the grid. This is a boat they purchased a couple of years ago and not the one they did their crossing on. It has a daggerboard which is a terrific feature on the shallow banks of The Bahamas.

We had a lovely raw food dinner together, all be it a day later than planned.

Our friend Robin (http://www.rawketscience.blotspot.com/) inspired me to make pizza. Yummm!!!

And December 27th was another lovely day.



We had our first meal of the day with our raw food friends on their boat and enjoyed their signature breakfast made of fresh grapefruit, oranges and almonds processed in their VitaMix which is powered by a 1200 WATT inverter. What a great way to begin the day!

With that, we went to the beach to exercise. It's prestine...

And a great place to harvest the Sargassum seaweed that I'm adding to my smoothies each day. At first, I just used the berries but soon used the entire plant. Lately, I've been dehydrating and then puverizing it in the grinder so that I can easily add it to anything. It looks identical to the powdered kelp we purchased on-line.

I also use fresh Aloe Vera leaves from our raw food friends' garden. I fillet one leaf per day and include an inch of the flesh which aids with regularity.

The scenery is spectaular.

You can easily have a beach to yourself here.


This is a photo of our dinghy anchored amongst mangroves in Redshank's.

Dave got some unscheduled exercise. Smile.

This was dinner on the 27th. We used ground raw sesame seeds as a substitute for parmesan on our zucchini pasta with raw marinara sauce and re-hydrated mushrooms. Tacelopes grinds sesame seeds and eats them with honey as a snack. We wrapped shredded cabbage and carrots in nori sheets. Tacelopes' house dressing is made with fresh coconut.

On Monday, we made our way back to our anchorage at Volleyball Beach. These are photos of the sunrise on Tuesday morning. It's all very beautiful!

No comments: