Departure minus 18 days

Okay, here I go. I'm dipping my toes into the proverbial pool of online blogging. Damn, it's COLD. And I feel a bit unprepared, but live on the edge, sister...live on the edge. Not only have I signed on to chef for the boat pictured above, teach some cooking classes to the 20 boats on this tour, but I've taken on all of you as my travel partners. Sure, you don't have to keep reading...but aren't you in the slightest bit curious to see if I end up hurling the better contents of my gourmet meals over the side of the boat? I'm thinking the pounds of pharmaceuticals I've supplied myself with might do the trick...but ya never can know.

My roommate and fellow crewmate on this adventure, we'll call her Max, has warned me that she's a snorer. We're tucked in like two bugs in a rug, in what I hear, are pretty generous crew quarters. I'm a boating newbie and also of mildly Amazonian proportions, so as I bent over and crawled up to my top bunk, knocking my head on the ceiling, I was silently cursing Max's tiny stature. Being tall in the world has served me well. Until now.

Max has devised a theoretical fix for my woes. We haven't named it yet, but it's a foam helmet to protect me from the menacing beams, ceilings and other dastardly obstacles meant to give me fits. As value-added features, it sports a chef pez dispenser that doles out my sleeping pills and anti-nausea meds. It has a nifty eye covering made of the finest silk. It attaches to a beer-bong-like catheter that meets up with Max's down below and takes it directly to the "head". That's boat-speak for the loo. See, I'm learnin'! Finally, my addition....it has a secret button that, Rube Goldberg like, flips Max over in her sleep to cut off the snoring.

So stay tuned...look in this space for updates on my preparations, mental, culinary and otherwise. It's going to be a really big show, ladies and gentlemen, a really big show.