Das Boat! Part 2
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There was some stuff I was looking forward to a lot, things like sunsets, sunrises, starry nights and maybe seeing some wildlife.
The chances of all of the above happening took a downturn on the first night when around 9pm the fog moved in and it felt like we were sailing in a cloudy glass bottle with nothing changing in any direction, no matter which way you looked all you could see was a wall of mist.
I brought on about twenty boxes of instant noodles which I planned to use for each meal over the next six days, but seeing as the cook on board was cooking for us I gave her the noodles, no doubt we’ll all have noodles one of the nights coming up.(Yum!...not !)
I’m scolding myself for eating a whole bag of fruit and nut mix yesterday, I’ve nothing today and badly miss something to have a chew on, or a bottle of soda to drink. Its tea, coffee or water on the boat...thats it.
It’s a strange thing. The idleness makes you think about food more. When I’m on the road I don’t really think about food at all but now on the boat when you spend a lot of your time doing “Not a whole lot” you start to think about nose bag a lot more.
I’ve always been partial to fodder and find myself thinking about Banoffie pie, even more than the topless girl whose in the poster in my cabin. For those of you who don’t know what a Banoffie pie is, let me explain.
You take sweet meal biscuit and bind it together gently with caramel. On top of this biscuity caramely base you put a thin layer of soft caramel. (Are you foaming at the mouth yet?)
That done you take a couple of banana’s, not green! But not going brown either, yellow, the way their supposed to be and chop it up and put it around the base. (Ah yes!...you see now where the Ban-offie name started eh?) Well from there you whip up some fresh cream. (Now if the thought taking a bottle of that satanic instant spray stuff out comes to your mind, head off the down the shops and buy a cactus and stick it up your backside!)…..like I said freshly whipped cream.
You then cover bananas with the cream and this is really the only point at which there is flexibility in the recipe…you may or may not add a sprinkle of chocolate chips.
If you know what the pie is, and maybe have made it..and make it slightly differently ....and now find yourself uttering a derisory Harumphh in this general direction...might I remind you of the first commandment... I am the Banoffie pie, and thou shalt have no false Banoffies before me"
Pop it in the fridge for the amount of time it takes to boil a kettle of water to make some tea…..make sure there’s enough water so you can make yourself at least two large cups (In Ireland we’d call a large mug “Tae” (tay), and if its drunk with either a large cheese sandwich or Banoffie its best drunk in large slugs as opposed to sips.... important you keep the head down when your eating it...or a goose will come through the window and rob the plate of pie you.
(Is there anything worse than running out of tea before you’ve finished the pie? And then have to refill and reboil the kettle?, only bollixes half fill the kettle with water)
Cut yourself off a slice of Banoffie at least the width and length of a DVD cover case, and wolf into it like you’re expecting a baby. Make sure you take large slugs of “tay”, the heat will prevent the cholesterol in the cream turning you into a solid before you finish.
Moving swiftly along:
There are actually some women on board, five all told. Two old ladies, one ship cook (25?), and two kind of early thirties types.
As usual men (all men?), yeah all men (except those who putt from the rough) do the “I would” and “I wouldn’t” filtering routine.
I’m finding my “I wouldn’ts” which included all five on the first day is already down to three as I sit here writing at noon on the third day, with one other moved into the “I might if I'd ten pints” category.
More later
Oisin
I am sure he will be popular with the crew 
