BOAT & BIRD

THE BOAT
No, not that interminable German film, but our friends' yacht.
Yesterday afternoon we followed their detailed directions to San Miguel Harbour and parked facing a peaceful scene of about 100 boats of all kinds moving gently in the swell.
Apart from a couple sitting on high stools at the outside bar, there was no-one around - just the smack of club on golf ball from Amarillo Golf Course beyond the low cliff that backs the peaceful harbour.

We found our friends and were welcomed aboard, then after a drink and a chat we had the ten-cent tour. In a forty-odd-foot boat there are two double cabins, a decent-sized galley, a head with a shower, a living area that can sleep two or three more, a navigation corner, a workroom and a pantry!
Mind you, one would have to be very good friends with one's partner to live there long-term. Here they are, Davey and Nora, who lived (fairly amicably) on this boat for over a year, though they have some hair-raising tales to tell, especially as Nora can't swim.

                                                                                                          When Davey sailed the Atlantic single-handed last year, he stored his tins of food in a locker which flooded halfway across. After that, as he describes in the personal log I am persuading him to publish, every meal was an adventure.
But as you can see, he managed to find the beers yesterday.






THE BIRD   I was coming back from my walk this morning and a couple of minutes from home I spotted this little bird catching insects in a garden next to a cafe called El Buho, which means The Owl. This, of course, is not an owl but a hoopoe, and isn't it pretty?

GONE FISHING

   Not actually fishing, because our friends haven't got their yacht sea-worthy yet, but a drink on board to have a look round is way overdue, so we're off this afternoon to the marina.
(Note the subtle way I drop a yacht into the conversation?)
Davey and Nora actually lived on their boat for some years, trolling round the coast of America, but their on-land home is an apartment near us. We met them in the local bar when they'd just bought it and were moving in with no electricity turned on, so we invited them to breakfast. We've been friends ever since, and last year I held Nora's hand when Davey was sailing single-handed across the Atlantic. Forty days without knowing if he was alive or dead culminated in a triumphant arrival, and when he showed me his personal log of the voyage I typed it up and told him he should at least publish it for his grandchildren.
He demurred. I persisted. He asked me to edit it. I was proud to be asked. He added an explanation of one or two technical terms and inserted photos. He hasn't chosen a printing firm yet, but he has joined our Writers' Square. Baby steps.
Requests to see the boat were met with "She needs a lot of TLC first," but finally they've succumbed. I shall take photos and maybe, if you're very good, post them on my blog.
Oh yes - and another follower very kindly gave me his own personal award when he commented on my blog yesterday - thank you, Maurice.

YO, YUCCA & YACHTS

YO means simply “I” which is what I am going to concentrate on next month! 


YUCCA The first time I saw a yucca in flower I was amazed – the yuccas I’d seen in England were pot plants. Then I saw these strange roots for sale and learned they were yucca too – known in some places as manioc or cassava. You can boil it and serve with a mojo (sauce) – it’s rather bland on its own – and it thickens a stew beautifully. It can be fried in slices or made into chips – in fact you can treat it as you would a potato. Apparently you can also put the flower petals in a salad and eat the fruit.

YAMS are another favourite, though yam is what my OH calls them – batatas is the Canarian word, and in England you know then as sweet potatoes. I love them, though it’s difficult to tell whether I’m buying blanca or naranja unless I scratch one – I prefer the nananja. Its orange flesh tastes divine, particularly when roasted like a parsnip, and like the yucca they go beautifully in a stew or curry.

YACHTS are everywhere here – not surprising on an island – and some of them cost more than a house. There was speculation in a local newspaper last week about who owns a luxury yacht in Los Cristianos harbour – if it’s going begging I’ll take it off their hands!

Many little fishing harbours, like this one in Las Galletas, have gone up-market in recent years with marinas, but alongside the luxury yachts you will still find the local fishing boats, and the beaches will still be scattered with battered rowing boats.

A friend of ours is repairing his yacht after sailing it across from America singlehanded. I typed up his personal log of the 40-day journey, and although he makes light of it, I was scared silly by the laconic way in which he wrote of a tanker just missing him, or of losing half his drinking water, or climbing the mast to effect a repair. At least he wasn’t attacked by pirates.

YOUNG As the OH is fond of saying, with such a name we will always be young. Shame it’s not true, and the body lets us down more often, but age is a state of mind too. So as the YEARS pike up inexorably, nil desperandum!