"Who knew the Pacific was this wide?" I say to Alisa. "Who knew that we would want to eat all the way across?"
She lets me kid her that way. It's part of our healthy marriage.
A while back - like, before we left the Gambier on this last leg - Alisa let something slip about her provisioning efforts in New Zealand before this Pacific crossing. It seems that she did the huge provisioning push - trip after trip to various stores - and then just got completely sick of shelling out the big dollars for Kiwi food prices. So when we were delayed in our departure by several weeks, not least because of her attack of the shingles, she never did another shop to replace the food we had been eating while still in New Zealand. All told, we ate into our stores for a month before we left.
That month of food would come in handy just about...now.
We won't go hungry, mind. But cuisine might be a little basic between here and Chile.
It's a big ol' can of baked beans for dinner tonight, with rice. That will leave us with one more can of baked beans. After that's gone, we're presumably onto rice with rice.
("I've got a salad idea for tomorrow!" Alisa just said.
"Oh yeah, what's that?" I asked.
"A can of beets," she answered. "And I don't know what else.")
More critically, we seem to be suddenly without enough butter to make Christmas cookies. It goes that way. When you get low on food, you suddenly start going through what you still do have extra-quickly. Alisa has been baking a ton on this trip - every other day, cake and/or cookies and two loaves of bread. So of course the butter went. And don't ask about the ten dozen eggs we left Gambier with.
And I won't even mention the beer situation. A week ago I tried hinting that any secret stash of beer that was set aside for the holiday might best be enjoyed immediately. No joy there.
We are all completely unfussed at the prospect of passing Christmas at sea. Alisa even has a canned duck set aside for Christmas dinner. But she did ask me the other day to let her know if and when I become confident that we'll reach Valdivia before Christmas. She's pretty keen to open the duck now.
We may differ in political opinions, but I truly admire you and your family's desire (do the kids have a say???) to explore, discover, experience all the things you are living. I will never get that far, but if I can ever sell my business, I intend to try some of it. I do thank you for allowing many others and me to live with you while you venture forth.
ReplyDeleteGodspeed and bless you on your way.
I guess this is where a nice pod of mahi-mahi would come in handy.
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