Cooking at Sea

I got a lovely little book for Christmas - Mrs Cook's Book of Recipes for Mariners in Distant Seas, by John Dunmore.

Dunmore imagines Captain Cook's wife Elizabeth collecting recipes and cookery tips from the explorers she met, including Sir Joseph Banks and Captain Vancouver. Needless to say, most are firmly in the 'yuck' category, such as boiled jellyfish and the stewed rat served on Bougainville's expedition to the southern ocean.

Banks recommends that albatross should be parboiled overnight to mitigate the saltiness, and then stewed. Best served with a prune sauce, apparently.

The most inexplicable dish is gruel, which is made by boiling a handful of oatmeal in a pint of water for a few minutes, and then straining. Rather too homeopathic to count as food, I would have thought, but apparently it was made with the sweepings of the storeroom floor when food was running out, and was surprisingly sustaining.

My favourite is Poor Knight's Pudding, basically French toast with sugar and cinnamon. Captain Cook liked it so much he named a group of islands off New Zealand 'Poor Knights Islands'.

Hobie kayakers meet Great White Shark

A group of Australian fishermen off Sydney were horrified to meet a Great White Shark whitch tipped one of them into the water and circled round ominously before pushing off - see this report on the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7802226.stm.
Interestingly, the fishermen are in kayaks driven by the Hobie Mirage drive. It is a tribute to its speed and reliability that they were fishing so far out in such tiny boats. One of them says 'Do you see the size of that thing - it's bigger than my boat'.
And, being Aussies, the report is punctuated by a Morse code of bleeps - quite understandably, given the circumstances.

Boats on Buildings

No, this is not a late Christmas card, for it shows Christ calling Peter and Andrew as they were fishing in Lake Gallilee. The subject is particularly appropriate for my local church, Fishbourne in Sussex. It would be nice to think that the faces are those of local characters, perhaps the Smurthwaite brothers commemorated (they were ironmongers and chandlers in Chichester), but the faces are too Apostolic for that. And the landscape isn't the South Downs, either. But is the boat a local fishing boat?

Nokia Sports Tracker

Nokia Sports Tracker, one of the best applications for mobile phones ever, has so far not been available for my E71, which is one of the best phones ever. Until now, so I took it out for a test row yesterday.
Sports Tracker simply records where you went and how fast, showing the evidence as maps and graphs on the phone screen for analysis. And you can upload the data to the website for everyone to see how lazy you have been.
It even allows you to take pics, which are attached automatically to the track based on the time it was taken.
And tracks can be uploaded as a .kmz file for display on Google Earth. Unfortunately, Google seems to have a policy of taking pictures at low tide so it looks as though I was rowing through mud.

Hobie Mirage drive double skiff

The Hobie Mirage drive is a miracle of engineering elegance, propelling a boat forward by fins that flap under it like a turtle's. American boat designer Chris Ostlind has created a double Mirage-powered skiff that is clearly capable of a remarkable turn of speed, as this video by boatbuilder Mack Horton in Melbourne, OZ, shows. It is featured on Duckworks magazine today.

Rowing Slow

Mike Davenport's day job is helping rowers win races by fine tuning their shells and riggers for maximum speed, and he has developed a great website with lots of tips for improving your setup. Normally, of course, this blog advocates a much more laid back approach to rowing but even if all you do is potter up the river to the pub, getting your boat properly adjusted will add a lot to your pleasure. I found this out when I raised the Snarleyow's riggers a bit and found this simple change transformed the boat and doubled the pleasure.

Mike is not, however, totally focused on winning. He also appreciates the simple pleasure of recreational rowing. He writes:

Thanks Chris.
Wanted to let you know that your photos are super. They add greatly to your blog. 
I've also signed up for your RSS. It gets tiresome having a constant focus on speed. It is really nice to read about the pleasure part of rowing . . . more should be doing that.
Mike

Mike has even produced a short ebook for free download from his site, called Rowing Slow, and a delightful read it is, explaining exactly why everyone should row for pleasure occasionally even if you usually row to beat the opposition into a heaving porridgy mess.

The picture is of skiffs on the Thames, taken at the Traditional Boat Show a few years back. Just to remind you what boats designed for pleasure rather than business look like.

Why sliding seat boats should be long

Phil Meakins, organiser of last week's row up the Hamble, has kindly sent me some more pictures. Here is one of me putting a bit of pressure on in Snarleyow. I hadn't realised how much the boat pitches when the rower moves - it really looks as if it is about to take off. The motion must waste a lot of energy. Longer is definitely better (up to a point, of course).