Crooked Island, Bahamas

Wind: SE 10 knots, rain and thunder all day

Nappy set us up with one of his friend’s places on the water, so we have a place to stay now that we’ve left Secret to her own devices. We would have stayed at the boat longer if we had known that Frenchie would be leaving today. It’s absurd to think that we could have been in the States tonight, probably high-tailing to Chattanooga in an expensive rental car, but I suppose it’s for the best that we’ve ended up here instead. We didn’t have anyone to meet us in Fort Pierce, and we weren’t exactly sure what we were going to do when we got there. This way we can take a nice commercial flight from Nassau to Boston and end up exactly where we need to go for less money.

We’re trying to be extremely low-impact where we’re staying though--we, after all, are Leave No Trace campers, or “LNT” as it’s known in hiking circles. If we had a tent with mosquito netting, we’d probably be happier actually camping, and we offered to lay out our sleeping bags in Nappy’s half-built duplex, but he tends to think that we’re a little less hardy than we actually are. But we’re not paying anything to stay here, and we want it to look exactly like it did when we arrived. The hard part, really, is food. The propane isn’t hooked up, and to preserve the budget we’re trying to live entirely off the stuff (not much) that we brought from the boat.

The ghetto egg sandwich has become our dietary staple. We eat about two a day. For the uninitiated, the ghetto egg sandwich is when one takes a single egg and cracks it into a microwave-safe bowl, then gently whips it with a fork. (In our case, plastic.) The egg is then placed in the microwave for between thirty seconds and two minutes, depending on the strength of the microwave. A layer of cheese is added, and the dish is returned to the microwave just long enough to melt the cheese. (To be truly a ghetto egg sandwich, the cheese must be a processed American slice, but we are taking advantage of the delicious and cheap New Zealand cheddar that is readily available.) The concoction is scooped from the bowl and placed on a bed of bread, decorated with your choice of condiments (typically mayonnaise), and consumed. If you wish to further lift the ghetto egg sandwich from its ghetto roots, you can add things like sliced tomato, mustard, or hot sauce. Unfortunately, we no longer possess any of those things, so it’s just egg, cheese, and bread for us.

The things are getting a little tough to choke down. They were a staple while we were working on the house, too, and with a generous slice of tomato, they are moist and delicious and meet one’s nutritional needs to a large degree. These days, eating about two a day, I’m beginning to feel my arteries clog. But what else can one cook in the microwave? Liptons, we’ve discovered, but we’ve long run out of those--Karl insists that macaroni and cheese works, but we haven’t given that a go, and of course, the old staple for feral children, ramen noodles. Tonight, dinner was a delectable tuna fish soup, with diced acorn squash and potatoes and a hot-and-sour soup packet. It was actually far better than it sounds. What are we going to do for tomorrow? I’m not sure. Probably egg sandwiches, and noodles with whatever else we have left.