Aug 23rd 2016 - Mauritius - day 7

So I skipped a day writing, but I rationalized it with the fact that I sorted and resized some pictures taken in Bali and posted them to my blog.  So time was in fact spent benefiting my blog, and hence benefitting my writing.

One thing to note is that I am writing the blog on one day and then posting it the next,  after reading it again in the morning.  This hopefully helps minimize the need to edit my posts later for grammar mistakes.

That being said, today I spent several hours making King Coconut Wine from a recipe I found on the web originating in Sri Lanka.

Above our house is a coconut tree full of ripe coconuts.  I got on top of the roof and cut down a good 20 or more coconuts.  Then using s serrated knife a opened them (with much work) and drained the coconut water out of them.  After collecting a fair amount…probably 2 gallons or so, I took it in the house, strained off any particulate, and boiled it.  Then I added quite a bit of sugar, let it cool down, and then with Avy’s help added yeast.

We bottled it into several water bottles, and put a balloon with a small hole pricked in the top over the ends of the bottles.  From what I read in roughly 14 days I will have drinkable coconut wine, but like all wine, to some extent the longer it sits the better it may taste. If it tastes bad, I have been advised by my friend Hans in Boracay to make coconut vinegar out of it.

Here are some pictures or the process.

Earlier this week the landlord told me that it is possible to catch shrimp by hand in the tide pools across the street. He said they are the best bait for fishing. I figured that he was talking about ghost shrimp (sand shrimp). I just walked across the street about 20 minutes ago and caught a shrimp with my bare hands using the light from the headlamp I was wearing...and it wasn't sand shrimp.. it was a normal shrimp.

I then brought it back to the house and showed the ladies.  Both were surrised because it took me literally 2 minutes to catch it.  

Then after show and tell I threw it in a frying pan, fried it up and ate it for Avy on the spot. She seemed a bit confused as to the whole process and as to why I ate it. I guess besides using them for fishing I am going to have to go and collect a whole bunch of them one of these nights for a shrimp stir fry.

Aug 21st 2016 - Mauritius - day 5 (Bali pic review)

So I have been sticking to my goals.  Exercise, music, and writing for three days in a row.  So far so good.  Yesterday I also made some art for three songs that I just recently finished, one if them with my buddy, Chuck, aka Bounty Hunter.  Here are the pieces of artwork for the two Theory releases.

On that note, I have posted several new psybass tracks to Soundcloud in the last two months.  Have a listen if you are interested.  I also did the artwork for each of them as well.









Also yesterday, the landlord stopped by and brought us some cooking essentials and also let us know a water cooler is on order for us.  That will be nice so we can start getting the big blue bottles instead of buying water by the liter at the corner store down the street.

Him and I also chatted about fishing here in front of our house.  He is going to bring me a fishing pole as well as a hand-line setup.  He told me how to catch sand shrimp at night along the shoreline with my headlamp, and said that when he was living here they ate fish nightly.  He said when the freezer was empty he would fish for a couple hours at night and catch 10-15 kilos of fish each time.  So I am looking forward to that.  Hopefully I will be successful. The fish vendor down the street always has fish for sail.  It varies in price. Squid was about $5 USD per pound, fish was about 1/2 that.  Not too bad, but free would be better.

We also learned how to recharge our phone and wifi with data when we run out, as well as check the balance.

One other cool thing was that in the evening I noticed some movement towards the ceiling in our kitchen. Upon closer evaluation I realized it was the most vibrant gecko I had ever seen.  I snapped a picture with my zoom lens.  He is a welcome housemate and hopefully will keep the bug levels low in the house.

OK. Now for a look at some past experience.  I didn’t blog in Bali, so I thought I would show a few selected pictures.  We met some cool people, went on several cool adventures to the volcano, water falls, the monkey jungle, and overall had a really awesome time.  I am only going to post a few of my favorite pictures, as our data here in Mauritius is pretty limited.  There is a place with free wifi, so maybe I can get a bit more posting of pictures in while going there for a bite and some food.  We will see.

Moon pic by Becky Curtright

Until then, enjoy.