Stretching an avocado, tomato and an apple

The last few days have been what I suspected a cruiser's life would be. Gorgeous weather, some smooth homeschooling, swimming and hiking, kayaking and fishing, family games at night, and reading. We moved on from Cabo San Lucas and anchored overnight at Bahia Los Frailes. Did some of the above the next day in Los Frailes, including swimming the 1.5 miles to and from shore for some added excercise with Danielle. Yesterday morning we decided to move on to our next anchor point on the way to La Paz - we try to do no more than a day's worth of sailing to avoid those exhausting overnight watches, and now with one less crew, we'd get even less sleep if we sailed all the way through to La Paz.

We arrived at Bahia de los Muertos after a gorgeous afternoon of sailing. Along the way we hit some clouds with what may have been some sprinkles. Arrived in the bay during sunlight hours, with plans to stay the following day, and head out on Sunday early to get to La Paz by Sunday night. We heard on the radio that a norther (cold strong wind blowing from the north) would be heading in Monday so we hoped to avoid this.

We settled in to a shabbat dinner with homemade challah, Trader Joe's soup, and fish tacos (unfortunately, the frozen kind - haven't had much luck with fresh fish over the last few days, but I'll leave it to Harrison to post about that) with cabbage, tomatoes and guacamole, plus rice and beans. Desert was homemade oatmeal raisin/pecan cookies. Hey, there's lots of time to cook on board...

We played a great game of hearts after supper and I headed in early. Apparently, that's when the winds started picking up. I sensed in my sleep that we were tossing a whole lot, and realized that Michael had been up several times to check the anchor. I too did my own checking at around 2 a.m. to make sure the boat hadn't dragged - all seemed fine although the winds were steady at 15 knots and gusting up to 25 knots. Standing out there, I must say that the winds felt more like hurricane force. The boat was wagging back and forth around the anchor, which made me a bit anxious, but it was a relief to know that the anchor itself hadn't moved. At 3 a.m. Michael woke me to tell me things had changed. Our anchor was dragging, and we had come much closer to a fishing boat that had been moored what seemed like hundreds of feet away when I had gone to sleep. After debating some, we lifted the anchor and moved the boat to re-anchor further from shore. Apparently, several boats did the same. We learned this morning over the radio that few boats got any sleep at all due to their own anchor watches, dragging, and re-positioning. We've also learned that this norther has moved in early and won't settle out until Monday evening. We are stuck here until then.

The only fresh produce left is one tomato, an avocado and an apple. Any suggestions for how to make those stretch for five people over four days? How do we ration the remaining two fresh eggs when there are five of us swooning over them? But still loads of Trader Joe's packaged food. I know we won't starve but what I wouldn't give for a fresh glass of orange juice and a crunchy colorful salad.

I think I'll make some pancakes to try to brighten up the crews' spirits. Am thinking we need those two eggs for the batter. Will serve with Trader Joe's real maple syrup.

More later.