TomN

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gardening on board

July 25th 2007 18:53

Gardening on board.
Some time ago I bought a small mushroom farm. It came in a brown cardboard box and after several weeks of keeping it in a cupboard, well watered, it started to produce mushrooms. Great In omelettes, stews and stir fries. With the cost of mushrooms at over nine bucks a kilo this was value and I had them on hand when I wanted them. As the first farm started to run down its production it was time to get another under way. Now I was left with a bunch of great mushroom compost. What to do with this? Well a couple of coconuts cut in half and scooped free of meat and hung from the rigging was the answer. Filled with compost and planted out with herbs, a silver beet, here and there and even mini tomatoes soon had a small green grocery happening. Of course nothing like being self sufficient in vegetables and salads but good fun and it makes exciting choices available for meal times.

Another idea for live-aboards is fresh eggs. Instead of keeping a cocky in a cage consider a couple of chooks hanging off the back of the boom in a cage. They are possible to domesticate and when you are ashore in some anchorages they are happy to forage and will return to their cage with the promise of a handful of wheat. Go for the small hens like Chinese Silkys or Bantams. Sooner or later you will need to send them to heaven or the stock pot and they do make a grand feast.

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coolgardie fridge?

July 24th 2007 18:50

Not everyone who lives on board their boat can afford the power to run a fridge so the idea of the old Australian coolgardie or Cillgardie meat safe is starting to catch on. This was a meat safe used by bushies in the old days. The meat safe was a fly proof box that hung in the shade of a gum tree with the wind blowing across it to keep it cool. A burlap cover with water dripping from a tray on the top into a small gutter at the floor kept the bag constantly wet. The breeze blowing across this is enough to keep butter from melting on a hot day and guys swear it puts beads of chill on a bottle of beer. I have yet to build one but I like the idea. What a great way to enjoy your time on board. Make and drink your own beer, then chill it and serve it out of a cooler that uses no energy except what comes free! Cheers.

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Slake a thirst on board

July 23rd 2007 18:47

Slake a thirst on board.
I have spent some time telling people how to cook on pot meals on board to make life simple and avoid a lot of hassle and washing up. It is a great way to give yourself time to do the important things in life like sit back with a fishing rod or grab a sanding block and get some more wood ready to varnish. (ha, ha.) Well one of my friends who has lived on board his yacht for over thirty years reckons what he like to do best is sit back after a hard day of deciding what to do with his spare time and drink a cold beer. However he likes his beer a lot and doesnt have a lot of money so he makes his own. Yes on board and he chills it as well without a fridge.

What my mate does is to make up forty litres of home made beer at a time in a forty litre drum. He then decants into soft drink bottles. He uses one point five litre plastic screw top bottles as they are just the right size. One after lunch and one after dinner seems to be just enough to satisfy him. Now he has a fairly long but skinny timber boat in which he keeps all three of his model planes with wings spans of two metres or more so imagine that he doesnt have a lot of room for a brewery. By just making forty litres at a time he keeps well within the space available on board and that way he makes enough to drink and keep on hand for guests. He ends up with two dozen bottles which is enough to last him half a month and as he finishes one batch his next batch is ready for drinking.

The bottles dont weigh a lot being plastic so they stack easily under the floor boards in the cool bilge. To chill, he just wraps a bottle in a very wet towel and hangs it in the shade of the boom tent in the wind. Dont think you are going to chill your beer by hanging it in the water, not in Australia. If the water temperature gets cold enough to chill beer the outside temperature will be enough to chill it anyway. I remember when my mate offered me the first taste of his beer. I had just anchored a boat I was delivering to Sydney in the bay at Middle Percy Island. I rowed ashore with my crew hoping to bum a few litres of fuel off the yachties gathered for after fives on the beach. Nobody was prepared to sell or swap fuel but out of the crowd on the beach steps my mate and he offers me a cold frosty homemade beer to drink out a Vegemite jar! A frothing schooner on the verandah of a country pub couldnt have tasted better or have been more welcome.

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Another morning in paradise

July 22nd 2007 18:43

[[COLOR=Teal]SIZE=4]Another beautiful morning in Paradise:
I woke this morning to a knocking on my door, come I called from the comfort of my bed. I find the big blonde barmaid from last night had become a receptionist dressed in a suit that still could not hide her endowment. She had come to see if I required breakfast. My only requirement was to get a good handful of this lady but as I said earlier, a gentleman never tells.

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Morning after the night before

July 21st 2007 18:38

The morning after the night before:
Its dawned a brilliant morning with the sun glistening out through my window on the Tasman Sea or is it already the Southern Ocean in this latitude? Any how it is a great day to be alive and I have plans to cross the interior of the island via Lake Leike where it is supposed to sleet even on a warm summer day. BRRRRR but I will be dressed for it. In case you are hanging out about my success last night I have to say a successful lover should never kiss and tell but I do have a story, however brief to commit to these pages.

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A pub crawl without beer

July 20th 2007 18:36

A pub-crawl without beer!
This weekend I was to take a bunch of fellow students on a pub-crawl of historic Tassie pubs, by mini bus. I was the designated driver and would stay dry till we got to Bicheno and parked the bus. Then I would hit the slops big time. The bus was booked and deposited and the drinkers were eagerly looking forward to a debauched weekend of alcohol cigarettes and probably pools of vomit. A surprise exam on Monday took the wind out of everyones sails. Better to stay home and study rather than face an exam with a beer induced hangover.

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Heroic resue details

July 18th 2007 18:35

.Tuesday, July 17, 2007

With 30-ft. swells in fierce seas and with 40 mile an hour winds buffeting their efforts, the M/V Horizon Falcon crew performed a rescue of two Chinese seafarers 375 miles northwest of Guam, Horizon Lines Inc. reported following a review of the Falcon's Master's Log. The rescue effort took place over a 24 hour period on July 12 and 13. The Horizon Falcon, a newly-constructed 2,824 TEU containership in the Horizon Lines fleet, responded to a request by the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Guam to divert for a distress call from a log carrier, HAI TONG No. 7. The 420-ft. Panamanian-flagged ship had 22 Chinese crewmembers on board. It sank after encountering rough seas due to a typhoon in the area. Survivors were in the water for two days when the Horizon Falcon arrived at the scene before noon on July 12.
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Heroic resue details

July 18th 2007 18:34

Your text goes hereYour text goes hereHorizon Vessel Aids in Rescue
Tuesday, July 17, 2007

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Lundyn Parker #2 24/5

June 19th 2007 08:54

Lundyn and Ann watched from their ship. As soon as the water was released it had gained height and from a new position, three hundred metres in the air they watch fascinated as the RIB headed toward the mouth of a small creek on the mainland. At top speed it ploughed across a small sand bar and came to a halt. The engines were whining as at full speed they tried to push the RIB. But without any water the RIB was motionless. The engines roared and started to cough as they gathered rough sand in through their water intake. Smoke curled from the exhausts as they slowly heated up and then died as the metal overheated and the pistons jammed in their sleeves. A rough hissing woke Ramid. It was the noise of the exhausted engines, metal twisting and cooling. He looked around and saw land just a short swim away. He also noted the dirigible just out of gunfire reach. He grabbed a couple of water bottles and both his carbines. He made for the water, he would fight to the end, but now he could still escape.

Lundyn and Ann were astounded when suddenly with a huge eruption of sand and water a creature whose ancestry went back three million years emerged from the flurry. It had gripped Ramid around the lower half of his body. Engulfed by the jaws of a huge saltwater crocodile Ramid could feel himself being dragged into the water. The foul breath of the creature filled his nostrils as fear gripped his heart. His bowels opened and his member came rigid unwillingly as he was dragged to his doom. He fired off a full magazine into the back of his captor but to no avail. The armour of the crocs skin was hardly dented. As the crocodile reached deeper water it began its death roll. Rolling over and over with its prey till it was finally subdued, drowned it meal. Not having a good chewing action with its mouth this was how it killed its prey. Once dead the prey was pushed into an underwater larder where it softened with the water over a period of weeks so the croc could come back and rip off pieces of the carcass at leisure.
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Lundyn Parker's greatest adventures

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Lundyn Parker #2 24/4

June 18th 2007 08:54

Lundyn surfaced as the RIB started to gain full speed. He had only been seconds falling from the ladder, the impact of the bullets on his body armour causing him to loose his grip. He though he had managed to get off a couple of rounds as he was falling but doubted if he had done any damage. A small pink stream ran from a slight wound in his shoulder and apart from feeling like someone had taken to his upper body with a baseball bat, he felt ok. He looked up to Mother Belle and saw that Ann was swinging the ladder his way. He grabbed for it and let himself be wound up. His energy levels were down! His adrenalin was however pumping. As he pulled himself aboard, Ann was swinging herself out on another ladder. We took a couple of hits from his machine gun. I have deployed a net around the envelope and I can climb over to where the holes are and tape them over. We are not loosing much gas but it is an opportunity to do the repair now. Lundyn nodded and as he ducked his head into the ship she called out. Get to the controls and follow that bastard. Now I want to catch him for what he has done to my ship!
Lundyn grinned to himself despite his pain. A woman on a revenge high he thought.

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Comment by TomN
on Super-sized hosties

June 7th 2007 09:31

I sure liked your blog about the "heifers" I have to confess that I am now a rather Hefty "bull" myself after many years of grazing in the top paddock. Great entertainment
Cheers
TomN

Comment by TomN
on Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

January 10th 2007 05:09

Hi Cibbuano,
funny thing I used to drink rum and bitter lemon before I learnt to drink beer. Lovely refreshing drink. I still like some lemon flavour added to my rum even just plain old pub squash will do.
Cheers

Comment by TomN
on Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

January 10th 2007 05:04

Hi Ash
I don't know about getting the skin on my elbow like a babies bottom but I had lemons on my prawns last night and no scurvy this morning! Scurvy is a skin disease I believe so maybe skin and anti wrinkle????
Cheers

Comment by TomN
on Believe it or not?

December 26th 2006 19:30

Question Judy? You may even find enough to make a post of this. In my days of being a high flyer and managing to travel around a fair bit at someone elses expense, (pre becoming a Bohemian writer,) I took a keen interest in the hosties on different airlines I travelled with. Lets face it the eye candy was more entertaining than the decor or movies or magazines. I was allways pleased to jump on a Quantas flight and hear our home accent. But was it my imagination or did QF in the eighties, start to hire some big heifers? Perhaps it was the fact that they were holding on to well trained girls and these in turn due to good living became too wide for the aisles of the aircraft. Parhaps it was me balooning out? Asian girls are all slim and svelt like, most European (and I include British in that) are easy on the eye and can walk past without bumping you.
Because I am a big bloke I try for the aisle seat and notice this more and more. Being banged by a hip every time I take a cup or glass to my lips is not fun. I could understand if I had made some offensive comment but maybe there was a code that the girls had. "Get this bugger in row 16"?
Are you on holiday at the moment? I am looking forward to your next post.

Comment by TomN
on A Question for any Homosexual readers out there. (You others can check it out, too)

December 26th 2006 10:29

Yes,
you are getting into an area I don't know much about here. Like the monkeys on one island learn a trick and within weeks, without any contact whats-o-ever monkeys on neighbouring islands have learned the same trick?
Any how poofs give me the shits and I frankly don't care a rat's arse about them unless they are good mates of mine. I don't have many mates and I guess that could be the reason.

Comment by TomN
on Do you want to clean up Orble, rid it of filth, depravity and profanity? - I do

December 26th 2006 10:06

I understand where you are coming from and though I don't look at every site on Orble those people that write like that have either dropped in ratings or some have picked up. whenever lundyn or any of his mates has any kind of sexual encounter on my site my hit rate is up and so is the voting.
Whenever I write about or praise women on my boating site my site is in comparison inundated.
Does this mean to be successful I should just spend my time writing about women being a success?
I think one guy in particular is having sex for the first time in ages and is just mad about it and that is that. As for witing hard or soft porn I have a goal to be Australia's best erotic writer. many people still think that erotic has to be some kind of porn. No!
Cheers
TomN

Comment by TomN
on A Question for any Homosexual readers out there. (You others can check it out, too)

December 13th 2006 09:16

Hmm? I wonder often about people coming out. Some do it purely for the attention seeking. Maybe this is the case but I do know some fat out of fashion poofs.

Why "sucks" these days as a term? Poofs suck and girls suck. I was just on the phone to an ex girlfriend who told me that because of the way I treated her when we broke up she would never suck off another man again! shit was I supposed to be worried or what. As barely eighteen I don't want you to act as an agony aunt for a sixty year old, but I do find some modern/current/fashionable things almost out of date.
Cheers mate keep up the good work.

Comment by TomN
on Are you lonely on a beach?

December 12th 2006 20:39

Once you get up north in the real outback you have to realise one of the reasons why the beaches are bare is because crocs live there. An unfortunate thing in Oz that we have the odd bitey and it gets to live pretty well wherever it likes.

Comment by TomN
on Are you lonely on a beach?

December 12th 2006 03:37

Thanks for the comment Nina, not only does it relieve stress but it is just the best place to hide without having to get under a rock!

Comment by TomN
on Are you lonely on a beach?

December 12th 2006 03:34