After four months of having people around us and sailing around the Mediterranean on our 56’ Oyster yacht, my husband, Simon, my daughter, Sienna (Age 4 – pictured in the middle of the girls above), and I finally found ourselves alone.
At first things felt exciting, scary and just downright weird
Up until that moment we had various friends and family join us on the journey. For the first time EVER we were all alone. How would we cope? What would we do with ourselves?
As fate would have it, the day after all our guests left us, we received an email from a sailboat, named ‘Why Knot.’ We met them not long ago – a wonderful family from South Africa. At the time the family had 2 other awesome guests with them – Paul and Dale.
Apparently, sailboat ‘Why Knot’ looked at our locator on our website and noticed that we were in the same area – they asked if we wanted to meet up.
Of course we wanted to meet up! We didn’t know how to be alone!
After one day of just the three of us, we headed over to Turkey to meet up with the awesome crew of ‘Why Knot.’ When we met, the crew consisted of Captain Garth, First Mate Elaine and two deck hands named Tanna (age 11) and Sienna (age 9). The Sienna from ‘Why Knot’ was aptly renamed, ‘Older Sienna’ and our Sienna was called ‘Little Sienna.’
The friends they had aboard previously, Paul and Dale, were back in South Africa and the crew were now expecting new friends to fly in.
As expected, we had a great time and decided to stick together for a while
As Garth and Elaine were expecting new guests, we offered to take ‘Older Sienna’ and Tanna with us overnight, making it easier to collect the new arrivals. One thing led to another and before we knew it, our family of three grew by two!
We left Garth and Elaine in Turkey to pick up their friends and the girls went with us back to Greece to settle in a quiet picturesque bay. When it came to making dinner, we needed to find something that would be liked by all. Hmmmm, what do a bunch of girls like?
Simon asked ‘Older Sienna’ and Tanna, ‘Do you two like spaghetti Carbonara?’ They responded, ‘What’s that?’
After a bit of discussion and explaining, the girls agreed that it would be something they’d like to try. ‘Older Sienna’ offered to help Simon in the galley and of course, ‘Little Sienna’ wanted to be with ‘Older Sienna.’
I yelled out, do you mind if I video you guys cooking? And Simon reluctantly agreed to do it! (Better him than me…but don’t tell him I said that.)
So…here is our special evening where we had Tanna and Sienna Zoutendyk from sailboat ‘Why Knot’ with us. The girls had so much fun together and the fun carried on – every night for 5 nights we had one or both of the girls sleep over. We’ve been so blessed to have met the Zoutendyk family and their friends. Having them moored up near us has made our travels through Greece not only fun but memorable too. I hope they’ll be friends for life!
And what about the Spaghetti Carbonara? Well…the girls from ‘Why Knot’ had two helpings!
As a side note…we’ve been able to find Philadelphia Cream Cheese everywhere in the Med, however bacon is impossible to find in Sicily. If you can’t find bacon, sometimes you can find something called ‘Lardons’ or bacon chunks. If all else fails, you can use ham!
[gmc_recipe 2143]
Hi Kim. What size are the tubs of cream cheese you use? Would it be about 1/2 cup or 1 cup (250 ml)? Simon shows 2 tubs in the video, but they look small. Thanks. Verona
Hey Verona! I think the original recipe called for 3/4 of a 300ml tub but we use the whole thing. I suppose it depends on how cheesy you want it. Also – I’ve noticed in Europe you can often find Philadelphia Cream Cheese for Carbonara. I think it has bacon and onions already in the cream cheese, but of course, we still add our own. So..with one package of pasta we use 300ml of cream cheese. When you try it out, let me know what you think. We haven’t found anyone that hasn’t liked it yet! And it’s so easy!!!!