Saturday, December 20, 2014

1 Year anniversary!

Yesterday, when I finally found a good wifi connection, I got a message from a friend back in Israel.
She wanted to catch up, and was wondering how was life in Boston...
So much has happened during this year, and yet my reply was: " We've left Boston a year ago yesterday, and have been sailing the Caribbean ever since, a bit of a bumpy start (hit a reef, lost our boat) but now everything is great"
That's it. our year in a nutshell.
it was exactly 3 days and one year ago when we said our last goodbyes to GilGil, and wearing Crocs and socks got into a taxi in 20 degrees F. ready to fly out to San Juan, board our boat and start the adventure of a life time. One year and 3 days later, the adventure is still here.


Kids at the Boston airport, December 2013
Same kids, one year later, December 2014
Mika lost 5 teeth and grew new ones, Gur learned to read and write in Hebrew and English, and Arbel started the trip with night diapers, which now looks like a light years away...
And they're all about four inch taller...

A short post it is, but deserved an entry of its own.
Happy 1st birthday Crazy Boat Trip!

Happy Hanukkah everyone!




Made in Del-Max

Life on the boat brings out all the creativity we have. 
Some things are hard to find, others are out of our budget, and in some cases we run across local creations we just have to recreate. 
Here are some of the things we have proudly manufactured:

The Rain Catcher (RC-001)
Water is limited on the boat. We have 2 water tanks that can hold up to 100 gallons (about 400 litters). This water is used for drinking showering cooking an dish washing, and when they're gone we either have to find a marina with a fuel dock to tie up to, or do water runs with our jugs. Since we only have 16gallons of jugs this can meen many back breaking runs. Not fun. 
On the other hand, it does rain so often out here... Which is why we have decided we must have our own rain catcher. 
Oren came up with the design and we have dusted our brains to pull out all that high school trigonometry to optimize  the angles and size. Then it was down to me and Marina's old sewing machine... 
And it's working! We have been catching rain!

The Dodger
When sailing in strong winds and rainy days, especially when going up wind, sitting at the cockpit and specifically at the helm can be very uncomfortable. unless you have a dodger protecting you. Which we didn't. We got a very high quote from the canvas guy for manufacturing one for us which is when Oren came up with the brilliant idea of me making one...
With the help of Marina's sewing machine and the moral support of Carole from La Jeanoise (who basically told me it can be done) I have set up to create the dodgy dodger. But hey! It works!

Window covers
The boat originally had very dark window covers. Once again Oren had a vision... Replace the dark opaque covers with semi transperant ones, that would block the sun heat but let the light come in. 
Done!

Home made Sorbet de Coco
After tasting it in Guadaloup, Oren took upon himself the mission of Re-creating the flavor of the local speciality, Le Sorbet de Coco. 
Trial and error with the help of Mr. Google have helped him bring this creation to perfection. Served only on board Del-Max. 

The Chanukiya (menorah)
It is the Jewish month of Kislev and Jews all over the world are lighting their Menorahs. I tried to prepare (as Liron must remember) to all the holidays we were supposed to celebrate on board, but since we left right after Hanukkah last year, we weren't supposed to make it on board to celebrate another one. Yet here we are...
And so we have collected bottle caps, Gur painted a paint mixing stick and Oren was in charge of connecting them into our very own Menorah. Four candles are already behind us and four more to go. 
Happy Hanukkah! 

Homemade Yogurt
We like Yogurt. We eat it with Granola in the morning, and use it to thicken our smootheys. We like Yogurt. The problem is, that Unlike the French islands, where the dairy fridge is packed with a huge variety of yogurts, other islands don't stock them at all. 
Little did we know, if you have just a few spoons of good Yogurt, you can recreate it and make more and more and more. It's a miracle!
Our friend Ida from s/v Cheers came over for a Yogurt workshop and introduced us to the secret (yet oh so simple) world of yogurt making. 
We have been making it for a while now. 
Love it!

We are constantly learning more and more tricks, recipes and ideas for making our lives better and easier and implementing them one at a time. 

Wanna see for yourself? Come visit!

Stay creative!
The Del Maxians