So tonight was our first overnight passage.   We left the ICW around 3pm, crossed under a busy bridge at San Carlos Bay and officially entered the Gulf of Mexico. We could finally set the autopilot as we had entered big water and no longer had to navigate buoys and markers. 
I went to bed shortly after supper,  around 7pm and I fell asleep to the sound of Richard washing dishes.  Ahhhh music to my ears.  I woke up around ten pm,  kind of nervous about how things were going with him.   He was sound asleep on deck, wrapped up in a beach blanket with his cell phone alarm set for regular wake ups to check our course,  make any changes and consult the charts or maps.  His alarm went off and I waited for him to wake up, but he didn’t so I nudged him awake.  He startled, thinking something was wrong, but all was well.
Well,  I knew I wasn’t going to sleep anymore for a while, so I sent Richard down below after a quick autopilot lesson and then thought, what should I do to pass the time?  I know,  I’ll bake something! It will keep me busy and I can go up on deck to check things out while items are in the oven.  Well,  success!  It was kind of slim pickings for muffin fixing as we are out of bananas, and I didn’t buy whole wheat flour or bran and ground flax seed like I normally do, so I just used a basic muffin recipe, added some applesauce walnuts and of course, a few chocolate chips and they turned out fantastic!  I had to try one while it was still warm.  Mmmmmm.  Good.

My galley. Sink, fridge, countertop, that’s it.

Mixing up muffins

We’ll,  it was only 12:30 so I thought, what else?  The boys have been eating us out of house and boat!  Matthew usually has two breakfast servings,  this morning he had two bowls of raisin bran, half an hour apart and then Ethan had cereal and a sandwich.  Then there is morning snack time, lunch, afternoon snack and the boys are starving by the time supper rolls around.  We need quick and easy snacks!  My offerings of dry cereal mixed with nuts was running dry and getting boring.
Anyways, enough of the late night, early morning ramblings.  I also made protein balls with peanut butter,  honey and oatmeal with a few crushed up M&M’s.  So good.  I hope the boys like them.

Yum, the whole boat smelled delicious when I was done!

Well,  it is almost 2:30 and I need to stop this and get a few hours of sleep before the boys are up. I think I’ll make Richard some tea and a muffin for a little middle of the night snack.

Good night!
L