Cooking at Sea

I came off watch at 17:00 and started to cook.

We had bought an onion and a garlic bulb on St. Agnes and new potatoes and asparagus in Padstow, so we had the makings of a fine meal.

Down below, the sea state was enough to dislodge everything just left around. I sliced the onion and chopped several cloves of garlic and cut the potatoes to an even size and broke the hard stalks off the asparagus. I put the stove on its gimbals and put the potatoes to boil – I figured I could prep the fish in time to cook the asparagus with the potatoes.

Wrong.

I hadn’t figured in that the fish would need either scaling or skinning. I cut the fish in two, the back half will make another good meal. I worked around the head, pulling the skin towards the head and gently cut off the gill bone (which must have a name!) and head, leaving a piece I could fillet the spine out of to leave two nice steaks,

So I dusted the fish with flour and left them on the chopping board on the port bench while I put the heat under the frying pan with the onion, garlic, butter, olive oil and black pepper. A wave took the fish and shoved it on the floor, but no harm done.

Then it got difficult.

The potatoes were cooked. I moved them to a plate and put the asparagus in the pan, but I wanted to keep the potatoes hot on top of the frying pan so now I had to hold the frying pan and the potato plate (with another plate  on top to keep the potatoes warm) and Robinetta was jumping all over the place.

I managed to get the fish into the frying pan and juggle things but I was getting too hot so now I had to take off some layers while juggling pans!

I swore a lot.

I had proposed that we heave-to to eat. Next time I will insist that we heave-to to cook!
Once heaved to it became peaceful and I could serve up and we could eat in comfort.

WOW!

The fish was excellent and despite the juggling I managed to get the asparagus right too.

After the stress of cooking I felt a little queasy so I came on deck for a bit and Alison made a cup of tea before we got under way again.

I got my head down until my next watch at 20:00, and Alison let me sleep until 20 past. I was very worried when I took over that I wouldn’t be able to steer for a 3 hour watch – I was very tired. But the sea state calmed down almost immediately and although there was still plenty of wind the sea was smooth enough for George the tiller pilot to take over. This made the watch really easy! At 22:30 the wind began failing, and at 22:42 I put the engine on and furled the jib. Alison came on watch at 23:00, and I went below.