Happy Birthday, Captain Dirk - March 22, 2020

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Today is Dirk’s Bday. The night before, we had a small pre-birthday eve party aboard for us and our boat friends (5 total unless Fabiola and Nim can come, in which case it will be 7), featuring guacamole and chips, smoked pulled pork quesadillas, and key lime pie for dessert. Of course this will be accompanied by Captain Dirk’s margaritas. Shangri La’s crew will bring a game, which I am very excited about…

This morning we took the day off. We have planned to take weekends “off” from email and other work-related stuff for now, and spent a leisurely morning and then went for a hike on St John, this time to the Annaberg Sugar Mill ruin. I ran part of the way, which felt very good. We were joined by Bernd, Daniella, Lena, and the crew from Lucky Me, Mike and Jes.

Jes pointed out some of the wild-growing edible plants on the island and harvested a ripe papaya with the aid of a long stick that we squirreled away for future harvests. I am going to find a recipe for the papaya as I am not crazy about raw papaya… Maybe if we cook it, it will taste better. More on that later.

Dirk also kiteboarded to celebrate his bday though the wind was a little bit flukey.

He requested Lobster Thermidor for dinner, so I made that and served it alongside brown butter sage rice and sautéed snow peas. For birthday cake, we had molten chocolate mousse cake topped with a swirl of coffee and Vanilla ice cream as well as Hot Buttered Rum Salted Caramel sauce.

BVI Port closure started today, Sunday, March 22, 2020.