We stayed in Panama City for 15 days to wait out the bad winter storms and to wait until our friends on the German sail vessel D’Accord arrived. We spend a few days at the beach with Ute, Karsten, Lisa who is two years and Paulina who is 9 month old. It is a great experience for Chris and myself to play with the kids and see how they adjust to the sailing life. I personally think they are adjusting much better than some adults – like me. I am still very frightened about a lot of things and I hope that I will get over my fear eventually and actually like to sail in 25 knots of wind when the waves are spraying in my face.
We have met Donna and Tom on their boat Foxy lady in Destin and caught up with them in their home town Panama City. They graciously invited us to Sunday brunch at the Yacht club and after that to their absolute fabulous house to watch football and play pinball. I loved that game – but I guess not enough space on Lucky Star for a pin ball machine. We met Henry their cat and I am sure that Jackie Dog would have love to have met him as well. After that day with them I guess Chris and I both realized that this is what our sailing trip is all about. To meet people like Donna and Tom who have been just so wonderful and generous to strangers who share the same passion – boats, the ocean and adventures. We really hope that we will catch up with them further South where they are planning to go as well.
In days of laying safely moored at a marina I had time to cook some wonderful meals – I loved a potato soup I made several times:
Smokey Potato Soup
This recipe is for four people, but we always had leftover lunch when the soup tastes even better
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium shallots, thinly sliced
1 ½ pounds baking potatoes
6 cups of chicken stock
½ cup heavy cream
Salt, pepper, cayenne pepper
4 ounces fatty slab bacon cut into ½ inch cubes
8 garlic cloves chopped
In a sauce pan melt butter and add shallots, cook over low heat until softened for about 5 minutes. Add potatoes and stock boil until tender.
Meanwhile in a small saucepan cover the bacon with one inch of water simmer low for about 15 minutes. Transfer bacon to a food processor (drain water) add garlic and puree until smooth.
Working in batches puree the soup in a blender return to saucepan add cream and season with salt, pepper and cayenne.
Add bacon and garlic and serve. We loved it …
We left on January 30th very early in the morning just to get caught in very heavy fog. We decided to anchor for a while and left around 9:30 a.m. the fog was not much better out there, so we got to use our Radar for the first time for “real”. It was a very eerie feeling and I questioned again why we are doing this, but as always the weather got better and the afternoon was actually quite nice, we sailed to Eagle Harbor near Port St. Joe and spend the night there, heavy wind again, but we were just fine. It is the most important thing to have good anchors – and somebody on board who knows how to use them.
We spend the next morning playing at the beach and left in the early afternoon for Port St. Joe where we stayed the night. Off the next morning to White City where we docked at a State Park dock for two nights. Very bad winter storms again. Poor Jackie Dog stayed in bed all day frightened of the Thunderstorms that did not seem to stop. Lots and lots of rain trying to wash the salt water from the boat. White City is actually on a river and again, we are out of the Salt water for a few days. We do like the ocean better, but it is nice not to have to deal with the salt.
