We made this in short order for a party on another boat over the weekend and it was a hit!

Quinoa Lime Biryani

Ingredients:

2 limes

1 cup quinoa (or cous cous)

1 1/4 cups water

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/4 teaspoons curry

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 (10 ounce) packages shredded carrots

1 cup chickpeas

1 1/2 cups sliced scallions

1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted

1/4 cup currants or 1/4 cup raisins

3/8 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

1. Zest lime to produce 1 1/2 tsp zest and then juice both limes.

2. In a saucepan combine 3 tablespoons lime juice, quinoa, water, 1 tablespoon olive oil, curry and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 – 20 min until quinoa turns transparent and liquid is absorbed. Cool and place in large bowl.

3. Add carrots, chickpeas, scallions, almonds and raisins. Toss.

4. In a small bowl combine 3 Tablespoons lime juice, zest, 2 tablespoons oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 3/8 teaspoon pepper. Whisk until blended and pour over quinoa. Toss.

Courtesy of www.food.com

Do you have cool shots from your cruising adventures? Send them to us at cruisingcompass@bwsailing.com

Conversation Planning

One of my favorite things about living aboard a sailboat is the socializing. And a funny part of that is, when entertaining aboard you can pretty much map out how your conversations are going to go based on the sailing experience of your guests. Complete newbies, usually friends who have never stepped foot on a sailboat before, are typically astonished by the amount of living space, or lack there of; marvel at the “ingenious” ways that things are stored; and are quite curious about the lack of modern conveniences, i.e. washing machine, microwave and television. These conversations are amusing and often end with them saying, “Wow, I want to live on a boat.”

On the other hand, conversations with experienced sailors still tend to be about the boat, but the focus is completely different. With sailors, you are very likely to talk about your diesel engine, which may lead to a showing where you’ll explain how easy or hard it is to change the oil. From there, the topic of maintenance is in full swing and a veritable tennis match of projects will get volleyed back and forth. The thing about entertaining both parties though, is that they leave knowing where you’re coming from; the newbies now know what the inside of a sailboat looks like and the sailors go back to their boats with a list of comparisons.

Enjoy this week’s edition.

Fearing a possible collision with oil and gas installations off eastern Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard acted quickly and managed to secure her to the anchor handling ship Atlantic Hawk on the 31st of January, however after deeming the vessel posed no further threat to these assets, Transport Canada eventually cut her loose.

Citing safety concerns  in their reason to not pursue a salvage operation to retrieve the ship, a Transport Canada spokesman said, “The Lyubov Orlova no longer poses a threat to the safety of offshore oil installations, their personnel or the marine environment. The vessel has drifted into international waters and given current patterns and predominant winds, it is very unlikely that the vessel will re-enter waters under Canadian jurisdiction,”

Canada did not wash their hands of the vessel entirely however. In a statement, the department acknowledged the risk that an abandoned vessel such as the Lyubov Orlova posed to trans-Atlantic shipping, and promised to monitor the Lyubov Orlova’s location and warn any ships transiting nearby.

CBC Canada followed up on the story and learned that Transport Canada lost contact with the ship and has not received any reported sightings of the MV Lyubov Orlova since early March. Only one question now remains. Is she still a floating hazard to navigation or is she now resting at the bottom of the ocean, leaking toxic waste?

According to the Ireland, it’s likely that she sunk.

On February 14th, a signal from the Russian’ vessel’s emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) confirmed that it was 700 nautical miles off the Kerry coast and, according to a report in the Irish Examiner, Irish Coastguard officials moved to investigate.

“The EPIRB only signals when it hits the water. It normally acts as a distress signal (so) a satellite was sent over the location of the last signal from the Lyubov Orlova’s EPIRB but there was no sign of the ship.” said a spokeswoman for the Irish Coastguard.

The Irish air corp is will continue to monitor the region for signs of the ghost ship and they ask they ask mariners to notify the Coast Guard if she is spotted.

Courtesy of gcaptain.com

Provo Turtle Divers, who first reported the damage, said the crew from the yacht was warned of possible damage to the reef, but they choose to ignore the warnings.

He said: “They were contacted and the response was, I have a cruising licence and I can do what I want to do.”

“He even stayed another day and damaged the reef even more; he knew what he was doing.”

“I can tell you that the anchor chain decimated a large part of the reef. Imagine a road grader just cleaning off an entire stretch of marine park…it is like a moonscape, it is flat, where it was beautiful before….it’s all gone, thousands of years of growth gone by one vessel.”

Volkert stated that it was heart breaking to see the level of destruction caused by one motor yacht.

His colleague, Art Pickering, who was the one that reported the damage to DEMA, also spoke of the incident.

He said: “What we saw was 220feet motor yacht sitting off the drop off and anchored….the wind was blowing very hard that day and the vessel was sailing back and forth with the wind and that caused the chain to damage the reef.”

“It will take years to re-grow. What we can do is preserve what is left and rebuild…it will take years to get this back.”

According to him, dive operators are, for the large part, the ones on the water regularly and there is need for more patrolling of the marine park.

“We pay a yearly premium to use these parks and protect them…we are the ones who are normally calling in the incidents,” Pickering said.

The matter was first heard in Providenciales Magistrate’s Court and a case has been brought against the yacht captain.

The Governor had this to say: “I sincerely thank the captains of the passing dive boats who reported this incident to the Department of Environment and Maritime Affairs DEMA.”

“Each and every one of us must play our part, as they did, in ensuring that we keep these islands beautiful by nature for future generations.”

“Dealing with this incident has been a real collective effort by a team of volunteers from the community, assisted by resident marine biologist Marsha Pardee, who secured the damaged soft and hard corals to prevent further damage and losses.”

“Assistance too has been provided by the reef’s neighbor, the Amanyara Resort, and the TCI Cabinet, who approved emergency funding to allow this work to be carried out promptly.”

The case against the yacht’s French captain, Benjamin Cameron, 39, is ongoing.

On the trial’s first day, nine witnesses with compelling testimonies took the stand, and reiterated three main points.

They said the Captain disregarded warnings that his vessel was wrongly anchored; his claim of engine problems may not be completely true; and most importantly, the vessel did not have an anchorage permit as previously claimed by Cameron.

Courtesy of  Sail-World Cruising Round-up

The operator of the 42-foot sailboat, Affinity, notified watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay that they had run aground near the Cape May Ferry Terminal and that his passenger, a 57-year-old female, suffered a rib injury after falling into the boat’s railing.

A response boat was launched and crew members arrived on scene to help the woman who was experiencing chest pain, back pain and difficulty breathing.

The woman was removed from the sailboat and taken ashore, where she was transferred to personnel from the Cape May Fire Department.

There were no further details on her condition.

Courtesy of philadelphia.cbslocal.com

In the 24 hours after starting off Ambrose Light on Tuesday, Joyon covered just shy of 500 miles. He has taken quite a southerly route and is already some 140 miles south of the course Coville took in 2009.

Joyon wants this record back. It belonged to him between 2005 and 2008 when he set a time of 6 days 4 hours in his earlier trimaran, the 90ft IDEC. That record was shadowed by disaster.

After crossing the finish line off the Lizard, Joyon decided to continue alone to France. Exhausted, he fell asleep and IDEC ran up on Pointe de Penmarc’h and was wrecked. Joyon was fortunate to escape unscathed.

Afterwards he built his current multihull, the Nigel Irens-designed 97ft maxi trimaran IDEC 2, and in 2008 went on to sail non-stop round the world in 57 days. He still holds this record and it could stand for a long time to come.

So, given Joyon’s amazing track record, this attempt is one to watch in every way. No sailor is more interesting or enigmatic than Francis Joyon, who wastes no time on media guff and tends to do things in silent mode with no view to profile or fuss.

When he set another record last year, covering 666 miles in 24 hours, he scarcely mentioned it and the feat went almost completely under the radar. After spending that whole time on deck as the boat careered on the edge of control his short and laconic comment was: “It was extremely dangerous.”

Typically, he operates without the normal entourage of preparateurs and PRs. That means that his approach is a little eccentric by normal standards.

Joyon admitted that the go-ahead from weather forecaster Jean-Yves Bernot caught him on the hop and he didn’t have all his stores ready. “I didn’t have time to take care of all the supplies. I asked a guy on the pontoon to help me. He was Russian and he gave me some food from home, so it looks like it’s going to be Russian food this week.”

If you don’t know much about Francis Joyon, all I can say is he’s a remarkable one-off. Take a look at this profile I wrote on him after his round the world record.

Courtesy of Elaine Bunting/yachtingworld.com

Phillip Tuttle was home Monday afternoon recovering from cuts and scrapes suffered in the ordeal, according to his daughter-in-law Verian Tuttle.

“He’s a pretty stubborn, feisty Mainer,” she said Monday.

Tuttle left his home late Friday afternoon after leaving his wife a note that he was heading out to check a trap and would be right back, Verian Tuttle said. But when he didn’t return in time for dinner, they knew something was wrong.

Tuttle’s 26-foot-lobster boat, Queen Tut, had run aground off Gun Point sometime between 6:30 and 6:45 p.m., according to Jeff Nichols of the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

“He’s very sharp — he really is — and he definitely was trying to find something to float on,” his daughter-in-law said. “He climbed out onto the ledge he hit, the tide was coming in now, so he knew he had to get to shore, and he had to swim about 30 yards. He’s a pretty good swimmer, or was in his day, and he made it ashore. He said he would crawl on the rocks a few inches at a time.”

In the meantime, Tuttle’s family headed down to the shore to look for him. After one son, Brooks Tuttle, took a skiff to search of the Queen Tut, another son, Stewart, and Tuttle’s son-in-law Michael Innis saw the boat’s muffler sticking out of the sea.

“My husband [Stewart Tuttle] spotted his dad on the shore and figured he had to get out to him,” Verian Tuttle said. The two men borrowed a boat from a neighbor and brought Phillip Tuttle back to shore, where he was met by local rescue personnel.

“By the time he came to the dock he was still coherent, but he couldn’t have lasted much longer,” Verian Tuttle said. “He was hypothermic. They peeled off his socks and gloves. The rescue crew was fabulous.”

Tuttle was taken to Parkview Adventist Medical Center, but wouldn’t stay long. He was released about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, his daughter-in-law said.

On Sunday, the Tuttle family gathered at his home to help salvage items from the boat, which was refloated and towed to shore by SeaTow, she said.

On Monday, Phillip Tuttle was sitting up, and his only complaints were “a lot of soreness, and scrapes and bumps and things like that on his legs and elbows,” Verian Tuttle said.

“We all feel very fortunate,” she said.

Courtesy of www.sunjournal.com

Such giant structures such as these, as well as the more common wind turbines, are said to be hazards for leisure sailors for those who have demonstrated against them in the past.
The Belfast Telegraph reported in April that the turbine, which is bolted to the bed of Strangford Lough, would run continuously through the summer so the operators could see what happens when seals and porpoises swim close to the blades. However, they didn’t count on yachts running into them in broad daylight.

The vessel hit the SeaGen turbine at around 11am, and another boat, seeing their plight, sailed quickly to the rescue and plucked the three unlucky sailors from the water. They were not hurt badly, but the child was taken to hospital to be assessed for exposure to cold water.

However, the yacht was no so lucky – the mast was torn from the boat in the collision. The damaged yacht was not holed, enabling a Portaferry lifeboat, which went to the scene, to tow away it away. Local Councillor Gareth Sharvin was at the scene when the yacht was being recovered.

He said, “After the yacht highlighted issues to the coastguard, we witnessed a quick manner in which the coastguard went about in protecting and securing the yacht and the three individuals on board.”

The SeaGen turbine, the world’s first commercial-scale tidal turbine, was installed in May 2008.

Northern Ireland Environment Agency, a division of the Department of the Environment, has now granted SeaGen a license that protects it from prosecution if the turbine operation disturbs harbour seals. Because harbour seals are a protected species, it is an offence to disturb them, unless a licence is granted by NIEA.

Members heard that between 1993 and 2007, harbour seal populations in Strangford Lough were declining by an average of 3% a year, but between 2007 and 2012 numbers increased by 10% on average, as revealed by monthly seal counts carried out by NIEA and the National Trust.
Courtesy of Sail-World Cruising Round-up