Boat-Pooling

I’ve gone fishing!

Do you want to buy a boat with us? This was a question asked last week by two couples. We hesitated… how often will we use it, was our main concern.

I’m so glad we said ‘yes, let’s do it’. Now we are the proud one-third owner of Rockin’ Rosie, a fifty year old boat, and I’ve already fallen in love with it. Can you see why?

It makes so much sense to share things like this. How many people own a boat and it is sitting idle at home for at least 90% of the year? I guess you need trust and communication skills to co-own something of value. But I love the learning and sense of community that comes with it.
Many years ago, I introduced the concept of cow-pooling… someone with a piece of land buys a house-cow and gets one or two other families to buy into it and share the milking. The possibilities are endless!

Back to the boat… I’ve gone out twice already and experienced wonderful fishing, a sunbath on the beach, jumping off the boat and swimming to the shore (so glad for my daily cold showers – means I have much more resilience in the water these days) and the dreaming-up of many more trips into Abel Tasman.

To food now… when you catch whole fish and fillet them, you end up with frames that make wonderful, nutritious fish stock. Here is a recipe. Mine is less fancy… I boil fish frames with water overnight in a slow-cooker, then sieve it.

For lunch today, I fried onions, garlic, carrots, oyster mushrooms, fish chunks and basil.