38 ALBACOHA 



The galley on the Explorer cannot possibly be mis- 

 taken for a Hollywood kitchen. It contains a small stove, 

 a small sink under a small porthole and a small icebox. 

 It is, let me emphasize, a small galley. From this room 

 a passageway leads into the head, and when the head 

 door is open it takes only one pitch of the boat to shift 

 you from kitchen to head. To get canned goods out of 

 the galley, you have to go down on your knees and open 

 a cabinet under the sink. Then, when the boat lurches to 

 starboard you probably bang your head against a pipe, 

 and as it lurches to port you fall backward into the 

 head, with nothing to protect you from the roll. It would 

 be wrong to imagine that the Explorer^s galley has no 

 compensations, though. Working in it is a constant chal- 

 lenge and cooking a meal there always produces an 

 irrepressible sensation of conquest. Steaks are a good 

 case in point. 



We use propane gas for the cooking, but somehow the 

 burners never seem to get quite hot enough to sear the 

 steaks properly. Part of the challenge of the Explorer 

 is in meeting situations like that, and the steaks really 

 posed no problem. I put them in a pan on the cool fires 

 and continually mop the pan with paper toweling. That 

 way the fat and juice that oozes out of the steaks is 

 mopped up and the steaks, flush against the hot metal 

 of the pan, cook a rich, even brown. It is not like cooking 

 over a charcoal fire — this business of lifting the steaks, 

 mopping the pan dry and then putting the steaks back 



