loaves and fishes

Summer continues here. It has been 30 degrees with high humidly for weeks now, but fear not, we have an air conditioner! Yes we broke down and bought an air conditioner after a few nights of troubled sleep and days in the boat reaching 36.8 degrees C! No that wasn’t fun, and necessitated a trip to some waterfalls. Normally we are blessed with constant trades, humidity below 60% and amicable temperatures. Normally people ask what do we do on the boat in terms of climate control and we say the breeze is sufficient, but Summer arrived and all that changed. We are lucky enough to have a neighbor who does plumbing and refrigeration. Until this heat wave began, he stood fast on the pretense that he installed and repaired the retched things and did not want the likes on his boat. He had to eat his words this month when the record heat descended upon us.

I am attributing the heat to it being a La Nina year, known for its increased sea and air temp, high humidity, and increased storm activity. All this equals a higher incidence of cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons. Whatever you call them, they are things I do not like. I like “cold” tropical waters. Not this year. The water in the north of the island is already hotter than it reached last year and it’s only January! Think cold thoughts for me. Maybe another iceberg can break off of Antarctic and make its way all the way up here this time.


Empire means different things throughout the world. For me the British Empire means roads and education systems and the French empire means their cuisine traveling the world. I think the British created colonies to improve its culinary pallet, while the French colonized for resources. Maybe that is why the British gave up its territories with greater ease, it already had the recipes and could return home to make better food. While the French needed to remain abroad for financial reasons (humor me with my brazen generalizations). From the above picture we are most certainly in a French territory. The bread is lovely to eat, but I think I enjoy smelling it even more when it is fresh and still warm. What is even better, it is a feast for the eyes. It is funny to walk into any gas station and see baguettes, but here is a photo from a local supermarket. What I like more than the bread is the French cheese. Oh, it is delicious all smelly, gooey, and whether subtle or pungent it adds something to any meal. We try to keep expanding our cheese palette. The other night was no exception. We had a Moulis and a Chevre sur Paillon. They are quite different with the Chevre having high sodium content and the Moulis being quite smooth with an earthier flavor.


Let us not forget that this is the South Pacific. This photo was taken next to the boat. It was taken right after a few days of rain and you can see the water quality is not good thanks to all the runoff. Look carefully and find the fish in the photo. There is a fish here, which defense mechanism is to camouflage itself as a leaf, pretty smart!


My classes have begun. The first few hours were a bit overwhelming to figure where I need to be checking, reading, posting, and downloading. One professor made a podcast with her reading her PowerPoint presentation notes for the first section. The discussions come by way of message boards where the professor poses a question and the students respond to the question and each other. In a traditional classroom setting students speak extemporaneously. On the internet one has time to compile and research ones thoughts and opinions raising the caliber of discussion. It should be interesting. I have a text book per course and am taking two courses. I one book is read and the other I am about 1/3 through, so the text reading is not an issue at the moment, but there will be a lot of time searching the internet. Google here I come.