Leaving the boats

Well it all came to an end today and i finished working on boats forever! Well i suppose you never say never but if the business goes well the next time i'll be on a yacht is hopefully as an owner and not cooking for others!

I woke up early this morning and went to the airport in St Thomas in the US virgin island to get my flight to puerto rico. I looked at my boarding card and knew it wasn't a good sign when under my "seat number" was written.....co pilot, no jokinh i swear! Basically it turned out to be a 6 seater plane and there i was literally sitting with my face pushed up against the windscreen!

At one stage my knee actually bumped into one of the leavers and the captain got a bit ratty with me! Anyway i survived and got to Puerto Rico and caught my conecting flight to NY!

I've just come back from a quick walk around times square, Maddison Square garden and a bot of shopping! Stumbled upon a little traditional Irish Pub in the middle of all the madnes here and got a great pint of guinness and a roast turkey dinner! There are hundreds of wonderful places to eat and i end up in a pub! I guess i am jut fed up of cooking fancy food for the past 6 months and wanted something traditional!

So i'm off to get a good night sleep as tomorrow i'm going to try and see as much of this great city as possible!

Sad to have left yachts but looking forward to the future! Filming starts in 6 days!

Whats going on???

Well firstly i need to apologise for a serious lack of posts over the last week. This has to be put down to having guests on board and working very long hours! We are still in the British Virgin islands and i only have 5 more days of being a superyacht chef! I have to say it is tough working on the yacht and trying to get iFoods set up at the same time! There is just so much to do!

Filming starts on the 7th May at castle Leslie in Ireland and the good news is that this blog will continue to follow what i am up to from day to day! There should be lots going on as we will be promoting it and travelling around a lot! I can promise that it will be just as exciting as usual the only thing that will be changing are the locations!

Also as far as the charity work is going the good news is that the total is slowly creeping up and there that means that there is something for me to take to the orphans in Zimbabwe. The other good news is that now that i am back on terra firma i will be organsing some big cooking events to raise even more money! we should see the total really moving soon, but in the mean time please please keep saving lives and donate!

So to sum up there are lots of exciting things happening and i hope you make the transition from Sea back to land with me!!

Virgin islands video

Well we are still in the Virgin Islands and having a great time! I only have 15 days before i step on the plane and go back to Ireland to start the new business! So it's time to do as much as possible with the time that i do have left and enjoy the incredible views, a few last cocktails and the islands in general!

we are off to Peter island in the morning which is good as it is more isolated and we can practice our diving so as i can get the courage to finally dive head first from the roof! Not leaving this boat without doing that!

Well i hope you are all well in your different parts of the world.

British Virgin islands

Well we finally left St maarten and have now arrived in the BVI's, which really are wonderful islands! We had an 8 hour trip today and for the second trip in a row were lucky enough to see whales! They were breaching and basically playing around but i was n such a rush to get the camera for you my loyal readers that i missed nearly all of it and ended up with no footage!! We are here now for about 3 weeks and indeed i will be getting off the boat here to go back to Ireland and start the business! Starting to get a bit sad about leaving the boat's and the wonderful lifestyle that i have but i guess it had to all come to an end sometime! At least i don't have to go back and work for somebody else which is one positive!

Below is the video i made today with my brand new video camera, gone is the shaky little hand held one! I have also had a bit of a chance to surf around in the last couple of weeks and i found a couple of great sites. Blogging is a wonderful thing and i've made plenty of friends through it. My new favourite site is msglazewhich tells the story of a cool American chick cooking in a three star restaurant in France! There are some cool video recipes on there as well and it's well worth a read!

Video of st Maarten

Well folks it's easter weekend and i am sure you are all enjoying yourselves with lots of good food and drink wherever you all are. It's one bad thing about doing my job, is that you don't get to spend much time with friends and family, however on the flipside i am lucky enough to be in the beautiful sun drenched caribbean. Today i am still in St Maarten and i take the camera up to the roof of the boat for a good look around. This is as close as we can call home as all the big boats are here and it's a chance to catch up with all our friends! No doubt we'll be out tonight enjoying a few beers and telling tall tales about being at sea since we last met. Tomorrow it's off to another paradise location, the BVI's or British Virgin Islands as they are better known! Happy easter

Whale watching, Antigua and St Maarten

Well after a few days in Antigua watching cricket and having a good time it was time to head 8 hours north to the little island of St Maarten. It's pretty much the centre for big yachts in the caribbean and we all love coming here as we get to hang out with all our other "yachtie" friends from all the other boats! On the way up we saw a couple of cool things, one man made, one natural. The pod of whales we saw took the breath away but i wasn't really fast enough with the camera and then seeing the biggest yacht in the world, the Maltese Falcon took the breath away again, really stunning! We tied up here in St maarten and are all heading out for some well deserved beers now!!

England world cup cricket Video

Another day in the caribbean and another cricket match. Once again we happen to be at and England match and have another wondeful chance to wind their fans up! This time we are slightly out numbered and it is me against about 300 of their fans! A great day out with lots of beers had and a wonderful atmosphere! They stole my hat, we wound them up but it all ended in smiles and we all shared a beer together afterwards!!

Freak Rogue wave

We spend a lot of time in beautiful spots of the world watching idyllic sunsets and drinking cocktails on these superyachts we work on but every once in a while we have to enter big seas and get slammed by massive waves. These superyachts cross oceans and sometimes there really is nowhere to hide. You have to remember that although big some yachts are only 1/50th the size of an oil tanker. When the weather gets bad everybody goes to bed except for the captain and officers driving the boat and rides it out but sometimes something needs fixing urgently outside like a loose hatch or banging door. These guys are in just that position on a superyacht, the video is slightly long and not much hapens but the anticipation is key, you will literally not believe this!!Totally and utterly crazy!!!

The end of Superyacht Chef

You may want to read my new blog here

Well folks it's a sad day as i have to announce my retirement from the world of yachting. After three years and travel to all corners of the world i am finally calling it quits! Nothing to do with the job but more to do with what is happening over at my other blog iFoods .I started it just over a month ago with all the best video recipe i have and it has turned into a bigger success story than even i could ever have imagined! So now myself and a group of investors have deceided to make it into a professional company and produce over 500 video demonstrations with proper camera men and a full production company. We will be filming in Ireland in May and launching at the start of June. We are looking to bring large partners into our operation and have some intersting options already, we never could have imagined the interest there was out there for this sort of stuff.

So where does this blog go from here? I guess it continues following me around and i take the camera with me but instead of exotic locations and superyachts you will get an insight into the world of starting a company and rapidly expanding a golbal brand and a whole new way of cooking! The most important thing for me is the fundraising and i hope to continue that and indeed think i will be in an even better position not that i will be able to leverage my higher profile to make more money for the cause! For those of you interested in cooking, just go to iFoods . I also have connections in the yachting world an will continue to write and post videos about superyachts.

Don't worry we still have a month of travelling around the caribbean and exotic places before i go into filming Ifoods. The onlt thing that worries me is going back to rainy Ireland, how will i ever cope???

You may want to read my new blog here

Crisis in Zimbabwe

You may want to read my new blog about social media here

All is still well folks and i am in St Lucia today enjoying some down time. It's off to another cricket world cup game tomorrow and to see the English take on Kenya. The good news is that we have passed the $1000 mark with the fundraising and i thought we could celebrate that by showing you a couple of videos of what life is like in Zimbabwe. The first a beautiful montage with some incredible music, every time i hear it it makes me so happy, this is how i remember the Zimbabwean people, the happiest most content people in the world. Unfortunately things are a lot different today and the second video shows what it is like today.

Just imagine what it would be like in your country if the opposition leader had his skull fractured by the main parties thugs??This is not acceptable and we cannot just sit and watch this happen. Getting to $1000 has been a great achievment but we need to push on. I still intend to go to Zim in June and our money will make a difference.
Thanks for your help and please please keep donating.

Amazing dolphins

I now write about Social media and online PR here


Well firstly I would like to apologize for the lact of posts over the last week but unfortunately in this modern world we can sometimes be at the mercy of technology! Especially if you happen to be working on a boat! We lost a part of our satellite system and lost all internet which felt pretty similar to what it must be like to lose your heartbeat! I felt like what an addict must feel like when they are coming off crack, it just feels like your whole world is empty! Anyway the good news is that my camera was still working and I got plenty of good footage and have heaps of stuff to update you all with! After such a lengthy absence I thought I’d better start you off with something good and here it is.. we were sailing up the Grenadian coast when we came upon a huge group of dolphins, luckily I had the camera with me and managed to catch them putting on a bit of a show for us!! Check it out!

Video Demo for TV

Well there is good news and bad news. First the good...I spent the day at one of the nicest beaches in the caribbean playing frisbie, snorkling and eating nice food. The bad news is i took the camera to get great footage but it ran out 1 minute after getting there, so no video to make you all jealous today!

What i do have is a funny video of me cooking! In the last week I've been asked by a couople of different production companies to provide a sample tape of me cooking to be pitched at TV execs for possible cooking shows. Now I thought to myself that instead of doing something fancy and trying to impress them with my cooking ability i'd make a plain old cheese sandwich! My warped logic behind this was if i could make a cheese snadwich sound interesting then maybe i could make anything sound interesting! Then again maybe they are laughing at me this second saying "what sort of a nutball have we got here?"

Let me know what you think of the video, remember it's all very tongue in cheek and i really don't expect you to make it at home!!
If you want to see my real recipes on video pop over to iFoods my other site

Video recipe(The perfect steak)

Well a lot of people have tried to cook the perfect steak but i've never really seen it done properly so for your own benefit i've deceided to do it here. I had to look after the boat on my own today so i thought i'd let you share my dinner and see this beautiful ribeye being cooked to perfection!!

Ingredients
1 Ribeye steak
Olive oil
salt and pepper
Splash of good balsamic vinegar

Australia v. England(St Vincent)World Cup

We were up at 5.30 this morning and off to St Vincent by plane to go and watch the start of the cricket world cup and the eagerly awaited match between England and Australia. We just about made the flight in the morning and arrived at the ground in good time. Most of you probably hate cricket and think it's boring, but all i'll say was if you were here in the caribbean at the moment listening to the steel bands and drinking rum you'd see it a lot differently. See cricket is more about the day out and the carnival aspect than the sport itself. The locals here in the caribbean have been crying out for something like this for some time now and even though the stadiums may not be 100% finished they will more than make up for it with their passion and friendly spirit.

If you're watching the video there is bad language from Will my drunken Aussie mate who can best be described as overjoyed by beating the English!

We got to speak to all the players afterwards and watch them in the nets which for cricket fans was a great bonus! A really fantasic day out.

7 Magical waterfalls

Well folks i told you things were a bit quiet for the last couple of days but after a day off today there is plenty to report! We were up and about early and made our way up through the haert of grenada to a magical place called the 7 Falls. Once there we hired a guide who took us on a magical 4 hours trek through the rainforest down to seven waterfalls, guess you never saw that coming! The walk was tough work but getting to the falls was so so special. Grenada is very untouched by tourism and the whole couple of hors that we were there we had the place to ourselves! The water was ice cold and we had to jump from all sorts of different places sometimes into a space of water only a couple of feet wide from a tree 30 feet up with about 5 foot of water. The guide kept telling me to land softly but all i could think as i was hanging off the tree waiting to jump was "how the f#ck do you land softly when coming down from 30 feet???"


Well in the end we all made it and it was one of the best days i've ever had in the caribbean! we trekked back up the hill, past our guides hidden marjuina plants and had a few beers at the top and talked about what daredevils we all were!

I'm in bed early tonight getting ready for a 5.30 a.m start as we have to catch a couple of flights up to St Vincent to watch the cricket world cup! It's Australiaia v. Enland tomorrow so a day of drinking and abusing English players awaits us. Lots of red stripes will be involved so tomorrow's post could be pretty interesting!!

Working hard in Grenada

Well folks i've been working hard cooking for heaps of guests so not that much to fill you in on. What i can say is that the response to Donating has been incredible. The blog has only been running for over 3 months and already we are very close to breaking through the 1000 dollar mark! As i said the trip to Zimbabuwe is in June to hand over the first funds. I'll be spending a week there filming and helping to put the money to good use. In the meantime i have plenty of fundraising ideas so keep reading!

I have also been busy cooking recipes over on iFoods so hope you are all cooking away!

A new feature that i am ading to the site that you will find on the right hand side of the page is a feature that allows you to submit your recipe of choice to be cooked by me. It will cost $19.99(all to the zimbabuwian cause of course) and i will do one of my usual productions. I'll credit you with the recipe and give a bit of it's background! It'll be a pretty neat way to have your favourite recipe produced and be able to show it off to your friends!!

Bouncing around

Well folks the good news today is that after yesterday's appealwe have started to raise quite a bit of money and the total is climbing nicely. The bad news is that i am stuck at sea and getting thrown around by the rough weather so making a video would be tough, as it happens even writing this is tough. I do get seasick quite a bit(great idea to work on a boat)so keep having to abandon the laptop and run out for fresh air! Luckily i posted a couple of recipes over on iFoodsbefore we set off today so that should keep you all cooking and amused!

Well i've just been outside again and the good news is that i can see Grenada and the end of the rough weather is in sight!

I have another favour to ask all you loyal readers! I need some ideas for fundraising. I basically need to raise as much cash as possible before i go to the orphanage in June. I'd love to come up with something interesting that would keep all you readers involved as well. Maybe sponsoring me to do something, a big raffle. I was thinking i could organise a raffle with 10 dollar tickets and the winner gets me to cook ameal for 4 for them? Let me know what you all think and get your thinking caps on for the sake of the African kids!!

First pictures from Africa

These are the very kids that your money will be helping

Well it's taken a while but i have the first pictures from the orphanage in Africa where i am trying to help all the kids. My Uncle and grandmother visited last week and after a week of grappling with the computer(he is not a tech wiz by any stretch of the imagination)the pictures have arrived via my uncle.

The work being done at the Orphanage is incredible but they are very low on funds and do not have enough money to both feed the Orphans they have or to continue the building work required to house them. As you can see from the photos conditions are very cramped and the children although very well cared for are living the most basic of lives. They could fill the orphanage many times over but are struggling with what they already have and survive on the small amount of donations they recieve from the church. We NEED TO GET MONEY THERE IMMEDIATELY!!
The kids were happy to see my grandmother and uncle, although my grandmother told me"she was shook up"afterwards.

Having the conditions described to me first hand by my uncle has really invigorated my appetite for fundraising. I will be making my first trip there in June and hope to deliver the first money at that stage. The aim is for this blog to start supporting the orphanage and building additional facilities within the year. It is not good enough to just support them financially, we need to develop a support structure for the place and give these kids and future generations of kids a chance. This will only happen with YOUR support, i hate to harp on but please please donate a small amount, it will help saves lives. I love doing this blog as i find it fun but i would also like to see it start making a differnece in Africa which is what i started it for. Thanks for your ongoing support and it'll be back to fun stuff tomorrow, we just can't lose sight of the goal!

Sailing through the Grenadines

We have made our way along the chain of islands that are the grenadines for the last few days. They really are one of the most beautiful chain of islands with turquoise water, reefs and caribbean charm everywhere. It reminds me a lot of Tahiti. I jumped into the water yesterday and was in it for over an hour, i literally had to be dragged out to start cooking dinner for the crew!

Shopping here is like nothing you would ever experience. When we come around the corner a fleet of little boats with locals clutching everything from lobsters to dolphin fish to baguettes(where they get those i have no idea). The lobster here is the best i have ever tasted. You place your order with the local and he speeds off in his boat, 20 minutes later he's back with 2 beauties just pulled out of his trap and still full of life! This really is the way to cook! staright from the Ocean to the plate, couldn't be any fresher.

Hope you are all enjoying my recipes over at ifoods

Srawberry muffins

Well i like to give you a breakfast recipe every Saturday morning so as those of you with a clear head from Friday night can have a bash at it. Today it's strawberry muffins and i hate saying this but a fool could make these they are that easy! You really will struggle to go wrong!