The Adventures of Twoflower

Tomorrow is D-DAY (Departure Day).  We tried to get out earlier, but it was not meant to be.  Plumbing leaks and last minute issues kept us in St Joseph, but tomorrow, we plan to be (and need to be) out of our slip at Island Pointe.  Our hosts here have been so generous and we’ve made what I believe will be lifelong friends, but it’s time for Twoflower to see the world- or at least the lower peninsula.  Feather took an unexpected bath when she tried to get off the boat and missed the dock.  It got even more interesting when she slipped her harness.  She was able to swim to the neighbor’s little floating dock and Chuck fished her out.  She seemed pretty unaffected; Chuck and I, not so much. Chuck ran some more safety line around the deck today. No pictures because we were busy. Dinner tonight, cooked in our new Magma cookware set, (thanks Lori for showing us these)was black bean burritos. I’m a little limited since the spice kit I painstakingly prepared...

We started the day with a hearty breakfast of eggs and turkey sausage cooked on the built in Origo alcohol burner stove. I’m using already cracked eggs in a carton because they are easier to store in the built in fridge.  I froze a bunch of meat including sausage at home to start us off well and not make the fridge work too hard. It’s all slowly thawing in the fridge now.   We were only missing toast. I’m going to try to get a camping toaster that will work with the stove in the future.   Lunch was leftover pizza from Barnstormers in St Joseph.  If you haven’t tried them, and you’re local, I highly recommend them.   Dinner was beef kabobs with corn on the cob and long grain and wild rice, cooked on the Magma grill. It was going so well until I set the corn husks on fire. So far all the galley equipment is working well...my cooking...meh. Hoping the Captain doesn’t make me walk the plank.

Welcome to Twoflower's blog! Twoflower is a character from Terry Prachett's stories.  He's the world's first tourist and believes that as long as he doesn't get involved, nothing bad can happen to him.  Mostly, he's correct.  Here's a linky if you want to read a bit more:   https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Twoflower In our world, Twoflower is a 1979 30' O'Day sailboat.  She's well outfitting for cruising the Great Lakes, and has mostly been well maintained.  She was sadly neglected for a handful of years as her original owner got older, and then sold to new owners.  The new owners did a BUNCH of work to combat the previous neglect, then sold her to us in November of 2020.  Yay us! If we get technical here, I'll be as accurate as I can.  For the rest, we may not  let the truth (or grammar, or spelling) get in the way of a good story. We have been working steadily for a few months to get her ready.  We are leaving in the next da...

  My turn today to play Tetris. Chuck and I had a little miscommunication about food stores. I asked him how much emergency food we needed to keep on the boat, as in if we got stuck and couldn’t get into port to re-supply.  The answer: 4 days.   Ok, fine.  So to me that means we’ve got to have four days of food on board that we don’t really wanna eat unless we have to. Things like Ramen, canned soup and canned meat,mac & cheese. Easy -peasy. So I dutifully stocked up on such items and then I started thinking about a menu for the boat given how we can cook.  The result was the Tetris game that Chuck had to play yesterday to fit everything in the truck. Now it’s my turn to fit everything in the sailboat. Don’t worry I have a plan. 

 ...The important thing is to leave- C Smith And so we crossed the state, looking like the Beverly Hillbillies:pickup bed stuffed to the gills, bags and boxes strapped to the tonneau cover.  Feather trembled with excitement in the small space we had left in the backseat once Chuck completed the epic game of Tetris that was loading the truck.  Twoflower waited for us at the dock in Saint Joseph, ready for her next big adventure after two years on dry land.