Today was a time to catch up on some work around the boat. We have a Splendide washer/dryer combo located in a cabinet in the master head. It’s rather small, so we have to do laundry every few days or we end up doing too many loads in one day. The shorts and shirt above are how much we can fit in one laundry load. On the other line are one sheet and two pillow cases, another load. We don’t use the dryer because it’s non-vented and non-efficient. Mark strung lines up on the deck and the clothes dry quickly in the windy weather. Yes, we do look like the Clampetts (Beverly Hillbillies) but so does everyone else around us. Well, maybe not the cruisers in Megayachts.
We make fresh bread every other day in the breadmaker and today I made a loaf of white bread. Tonight for dinner we had tomato soup and delicious toasted cheese sandwiches made with fresh bread.
I’m trying different ginger cookie recipes as ginger is a great aid to calm the effects of seasickness. I’m looking for the perfect combination of soft inside and crispy outside. I have ginger tea, ginger cookies, and ginger pills. There is also a ginger candy available that I haven’t tried. Still, I must admit that when I know we are going to be in for a rough day or two of sailing, I put a dramamine patch behind my ear.
The third item I baked was caramel rolls. Using my mom’s overnight roll recipe, I make four dozen rolls. You start at 5 pm and let the dough rise until 10 pm. Then you make the rolls, cover them to rise again overnight, and bake them in the morning. If you’d like my mom’s recipe,
click here.
There has been a lot of talk here in the last few days here about the tick problem in the Bahamas. Apparently they have gotten much worse in the last year. A cruiser’s dog died in Georgetown a few weeks ago after getting bitten by a tick. She was a Portuguese Water Dog.
People who have been here in past years say that there used to be many Bahamian dogs, called “Potcakes.” ( I bet someone who read the title of this blog thought I baked something called potcakes.) They are different mixed breeds, sometimes a brown, black and white dog of medium size, similar to a German Shepherd/Retriever mix. The Royal Bahamian Potcake is a mixture of African dog breeds: the Basenji, the Pharaoh Hound and the Rhodesian Ridgeback. There are many varieties of the Potcake. The name came from what they eat, which is leftover foods scraped out of pots and made into cakes, hence potcakes. I was reading an article written eight years ago about dogs in the Bahamas and the writer said almost every home had several dogs. We’ve heard in previous years you might see packs of feral dogs roaming the streets and beaches. Now they are almost all gone, mainly from tick-borne diseases and infections.
We have been told by the local vet that if dogs are kept on the beach below the high water line, the chances of getting ticks are minimal. Mark checks Daisy after each visit to the beach (twice a day) and keeps her out of the grass. As soon as she gets out of the dinghy onto the boat, we wash her off on the sugar scoops (steps) using a fresh water hose to remove the salt and sand. Unfortunately, ticks don’t wash off, and in fact can swim.
While everyone is talking about how bad it is getting here, we can’t believe that the tick situation is worse than what we experienced in Minnesota. We lived in a rural area and it was impossible to avoid the ticks. Daisy was in the grass and tall weeds constantly and Mark found ticks on her almost daily.
It is worrisome, but with diligence we are fairly certain Daisy will continue to be healthy and safe.
