Thursday, September 16, 2010

The Village Dinner Party

We had been buddy boating with SV Sea Bear and SV Marionette on and off during the month Sept.  On one of our trips over to La Gringa we relocated a very large amount of steamer clams into my collection bag.  All of the clams ended up on our boat and a big meal was in order.  The only problem was Sea Bear had left to go to another anchorage to install internet on a gringo house and Bruce needed to leave to head back to San Francisquito to pick up his wife Katherine.  Will had found bunk space on board SV Blue Goose.  I had met Marco from Blue Goose in Guaymas so I invited the folks from Blue Goose and another SV Zeppelin over for a dinner of linguine and clams.  This evening unfolded in true mudd daubber style. 
Dinner for 7, no problem!  First I had way too many clams for the pot.   I didn’t want to cook two batches so I just tried to figure it out.  I literally had a sink full of clams.  I precooked the pasta, all I had on board.  I set out all the plates, real wine glasses, extra pans etc., that I would need and set the pot up to cook the clams. 
The folks from SV Zeppelin (Canada) came over, on time, with their side dish and we were just waiting on the folks from Blue Goose (France/UK/USA) to arrive.  They use a newly acquired sailing dinghy for transportation.  I asked Doug if we should offer to go over and get them but he said no they will be just fine.  I kept fretting because it was getting late and I had a lot of work to do in the galley.  I started chatting with the folks from Zeppelin and noticed that indeed the sailing dinghy was headed our way.  But, at first not in the right direction.  Then they jibbed and then they disappeared!  All except for the sail.  Doug and I jumped into our dinghy leaving the folks from Zeppelin alone on our boat with a barking dog.  When we reached the sailing dingy it was completely submerged but not sunk and all the contents were floating off in different directions including the passengers.  We did our best to save the rum bottle, the dinghy, the sandals, the appetizer, Amelia and Will taking them back to the Blue Goose.  We then went out after Marco who was looking for his one and only hand held “floating” VHF radio.  I’m not really sure how long we were gone and I had quite honestly forgot we had people waiting for us on our boat.  What an evening.  I was pretty embarrassed cause I don’t know how long we were gone for, we just lost track of time.  Anyway, we all came back and I started the clam pot and had an amazing dinner.  We emptied the clam pot, ate all the linguine and drank all the rum.  At the end of the meal Amelia accidentally tossed her dinner plate over board.  Marco dove in to retrieve it and came up saying “Wow, it’s really shallow here, I could have broke my neck”.  That was the first sign.
The second was about 2:00 am when all the dirty dishes from the amazing dinner suddenly all slid off the table onto the floor.  We were high and dry!  We’ve bin stuck in the mud at odd angles before but this was an all time record.  I was beside myself and Doug just slid down into Tuckers spot at then end of the bunk and slept like a baby.  Tucker was clinging to the top of the bunk.  I stayed up all night listening to unusual noises the boat was making.  I only lost one wine glass.  The tide came in late morning and floated the boat and we re-anchored.

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