It was March, and I’d survived another winter in Maine. Since the fall, I’d been following Richard Thomas, a fellow Mainer, on Facebook. He’d been sailing his Reliance 44 cutter Strider to Bermuda and then to the Caribbean. By late March, he was holed up at Bequia. 

“Got a spare bunk aboard that boat of yours?” I wrote. “I have a need to go sailing.”

I’d met Richard, a building contractor, two years earlier in Antigua’s English Harbour. I was there to cover the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, and he’d just arrived on Strider from the Bahamas. We’d been sharing notes ever since. 

Our plan from Bequia was to sail down to Grenada for two days, and then island-hop back up the chain, anchoring in a cove or harbor every night. Eventually, we’d visit eight islands—Union Island, Carriacou, Grenada, St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Les Saintes and Guadeloupe—but first, we’d spend a week on Bequia, prepping the boat, provisioning and spending a little time enjoying the tourist life.

I booked a mid-March flight to St. Vincent, and 20 fellow travelers and I caught the last ferry to Bequia. The hour-long ride got us into Port Elizabeth by 9 that night, and I was aboard Strider with a rum in my hand by 9:30.

Richard had assigned me a bunk in a small cabin aft, near the companionway. It was tight, and with no overhead hatch to scoop in a cooling night breeze. I began looking at the cockpit. It also was a bit tight, but the seats were long and wide enough to stretch out. Nights are warm enough, so only a sheet is needed. I’d brought my own. 

An Old Friend

The next morning, Richard and I headed into town. As we approached the dinghy dock, I saw that Bequia hadn’t changed much in 15 years. My family and I had spent part of a season here in 2010, boat-schooling our kids on Searcher, our Bowman 57 ketch. 

It was good to be back. The dinghy dock was crowded with another dozen RIBs. Since it was a cruise-ship day, dozens of tourists struggled out of a launch and then lined up dutifully, led like sheep to a half dozen open-air buses bound for a two-hour tour. I knew they’d only scratch the surface. Bequia is one of the smallest inhabited islands in the Eastern Caribbean, but it has a huge reputation in the cruising community. The 5,000 residents are welcoming, and Admiralty Bay is an open anchorage with enough space for 100 yachts, and a cruise ship or two.

This island has no mass-market resort chains. There are a few small, luxury hotels, including Bequia Plantation Hotel, Bequia Beach Hotel and The Liming Hotel, along with B&Bs and rental spots scattered about the hillsides. In season, though, the anchorage may have more bunks afloat than are available ashore, with most of the boats carrying a well-worn copy of the Sailor’s Guide to the Windward Islands by Chris Doyle.

Richard and I shouldered our shopping bags, dodged the tourists and made our way to the Bank of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which houses the island’s sole ATM. If there’s a cruise ship in the harbor, the machine will be out of cash by noon. A handful of small grocery stores is also here, but you have to visit them all, as not one has everything. You can stop along the way at an open-air bar for a bottle of Sparrow’s rum, made on St. Vincent.

Shopping for food is a challenge. You don’t go in with a list; you see what’s available and then decide what’s for dinner. “It’s the availability of meat and poultry,” Richard said, pawing through a chest freezer. “That’s the challenge. There’s never any steak, hardly any hamburger, occasionally some pork, but lots of chicken parts, mostly legs, rarely any breast meat.”

All of the food on Bequia comes from St. Vincent on ferries. Fruit and vegetables are available at open-air fruit and vegetable stands, some no larger than a card table. The covered market was abuzz 15 years ago, full of stalls bursting with fresh food, but as I walked through in March, only two stalls were open. The local entrepreneurs must have discovered that they could simply set up shop on the street and not pay the market rent. Doris’ Fresh Food and Yacht Provisioning is an upscale, air-conditioned store with everything that wealthy expats and visiting sailors desire, from Swiss chocolate to exotic coffees and wine. Doris also has a large frozen meat and poultry section, at a price. 

The entrepreneurial spirit is alive on Bequia. The center of Port Arthur is busy with vendors hawking their wares and pushcarts overflowing with produce and other stuff. Customs and immigration is here, in the post office. An outdoor mall is nearby with tables of produce and fruit, crafts and handmade jewelry. At one of the cafes, you can grab a few hours of Wi-Fi for the price of an iced tea or lunch.

Marine chandleries, sailmakers, a canvas shop, freelance mechanics, carpenters, electricians and people who can fix anything are all on the backstreets. There is fuel and water at the yacht club. Daffodil Marine Services has a fuel and water delivery barge, and does laundry, can provide ice, and has a dockside restaurant and guest house. A second fuel barge also makes the rounds in the anchorage.

There’s good snorkeling a dinghy ride away, and two dive shops have tours and services. Lower Bay Beach is great for body surfing if there’s a northerly swell running. Hiking trails lead up and over the hills to more beaches. You could spend a month here, as Richard has done.

Years ago, Bequia was known for its Scottish shipwrights, who crafted schooners for the island trade. Some boats hunted whales. After the war, boatbuilding petered out, so the locals turned to building model boats to sell to visiting yachtsmen. Locals still hunt whales today, under an international license. They can kill no more than four in a year. To learn more about the island’s traditions, take the $2 bus ride from town to the Bequia Boat Museum. Outside, under a roof, is a collection of original wooden whale boats, each 30 feet long and built on the island. 

On our way back to the bus stop, we had lunch at the Good Mood Cafe. It’s owned by John and Donna Fisher, an English couple who have been here for 15 years. John was an electrical and plumbing engineer back in the UK. He could fix anything. Now, he has more work than he can cope with, fixing washing machines, dryers, stoves and other appliances. Sitting on their second-story porch for a lunch of freshly made English sausage rolls, it was hard to visualize a nicer spot. A jungle of greenery surrounded us.

Boat Work to Do

Richard and Strider had been anchored in Admiralty Bay for a month, and the prop and hull were becoming a marine garden. They needed scraping. The same was true for the dinghy’s bottom, which we did on the beach. These tasks took up a day or so.

A few days before Easter, we’d re-anchored closer to shore, on the north side of the bay, to get out of a pesky swell. That first night, the band at a nearby bar kept us up until midnight. It wasn’t that they were loud; it’s that they were really bad. When that band folded up, another band just down the beach kept going, until 3. 

“I’m not putting up with this,” Richard told me the next morning. “This is Easter weekend. This place is going to be hopping. Let’s get out of here and head south. We can get to Union Island in half a day.”

And that’s what we did.

The post Why Boaters Love Bequia appeared first on Cruising World.

If you decide to self-provision before a bareboat charter, figuring out exactly what you need for a week on board, usually for multiple crewmembers with different food likes and dislikes, can be daunting. As a crewed-charter cook, I’ve provisioned for between four and seven guests every week during the sailing season for the past 20 years. Early on, I learned that for all to go smoothly, not cost a fortune and to avoid waste, I needed to plan daily meals in advance, then shop accordingly. Here are some tips. (For more general hints on provisioning for charters, see “Provisioning Made Easy”.

If you’re sailing with family, this is a job for the family cook. If you’re sailing with friends, choose one person to organize the menu and food-shopping list—you can easily share the actual shopping and meal prep once you’re all at your destination and aboard. In general, keep meals (and recipes) simple, using ingredients that can be found almost anywhere. For breakfast, remember that everyone will be eager to get sailing, and sumptuous cooked breakfasts take time. (Plus, not everyone will rise at the same hour—you’re on vacation!—and there’s nothing worse than cold scrambled eggs.) Continental “buffet” breakfasts are the way to go: fruit, granola, yogurt, muffins or sweetbread (store-bought are fine), even bread and butter with jam—plus a pot or two of coffee—and you’re good to go.

On charters in Greece, we follow local tradition and eat a light cooked lunch with salad most days; this is often easier than making sandwiches for a crowd. On rough days, ­pre-made sandwiches do fit the bill—use whatever’s available locally. Tortilla wraps can easily be made in advance, and when individually wrapped in wax paper or plastic wrap, they will store well in the fridge until lunchtime. In the evening, we generally head ashore to a local island taverna for a meal, but whenever we do eat dinner aboard, to avoid heating up the boat with the stovetop or oven, generally we turn to the trusty transom barbecue: grilled fish, chicken, steaks or burgers with a small appetizer, fresh bread, and a big salad or two.

Ready to get started? Here are a few of my tips:

Gather food preferences. Unless you’re sailing with family and you know everyone’s likes and dislikes, not to mention appetites, email your crew a few quick, simple “food-preference” questions. Include basic questions such as appetite level (small, medium or large), food allergies and items anyone hates or will not eat. Do people want tea or coffee? What kind? Decaf or regular? Then ask specifics about what kind and how many drinks people want aboard (water, soda, beer, wine, booze, mixers). Include snack preferences: chips, nuts, crackers, cheese. And so on. Ask them to take five minutes to fill it out, save it (or snap a photo) and email it back to you. Remember: A major reason for food waste is buying items your crew either doesn’t like or won’t eat.

Plan the week’s menu: breakfast, lunch, dinner (or whichever daily meals you’ll eat on board). Once you have your mates’ preferences in hand, plan a menu for the week: breakfast, lunch and/or dinner for each day. If you’re chartering for a week, estimate how many days you’ll actually eat every meal on board, and how many days you’ll head ashore for dinner. Keep in mind that the first and/or last days of your charter might not require all meals aboard, depending on where you sail. Keep meals—even cooked ones—uncomplicated and easy to prepare on board. Next, on a blank piece of paper, make a simple grid, as shown in the photo on page 80. To keep it simple, do it by hand. Write in the days of your trip (Saturday through Friday, for example). Fill in daily breakfast buffet items at the top. Then, for each day, on the left, fill in your menu for lunch and/or dinner. Leave the last full day of the charter blank. On the right, list all the ingredients you need to buy for each day’s meals—all ingredients, right down to the condiments you’ll need if sandwiches are on the lunch menu. For dinners or cooked lunches, it helps to have your recipes in front of you while you do this, unless you know them by heart.

Of course, once you’re there, you can mix up the order of meals, but this ensures you have all the ingredients you need on board. Store your recipes on your phone or tablet or print them out and bring them with you—that way people can take turns cooking. If you need herbs or spices, to save money and avoid waste, either bring your own (there are travel spice kits available online) or buy fresh, if available. (This is my ­preference. I always include fresh parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme and oregano.) Depending on the boat, you might even need to add salt and pepper to your spice list. Now you’re halfway there.

Make your master grocery list. This is easier to do on a laptop, which makes it simple to add, delete, cut, copy and paste. Impulse shopping with a bare-bones list or no list at all is the biggest reason for wasted food at the end of a charter (not to mention added expense). Use your menu plus your crew’s food preferences to make your master list. Finally, add basic staples such as napkins, paper towels, facial tissue, toilet paper and cleaning supplies (such as dishwashing liquid, sponges and all-purpose spray cleaner). It’s helpful to categorize the list (meat/seafood, produce, drinks, dry goods, dairy, cleaning supplies), which will save you lots of time at the grocery store.

You’re almost ready to go sailing! Once you’ve arrived at your destination, your list will make provisioning quick and hassle-free. If you do run out of something as you go, most charter destinations have either large or small markets in various ports, making topping up odds and ends (or sampling local delicacies) easy and fun. In Greece, even tiny islands have a local bakery—fresh bread and/or pastry on demand!

At charter’s end, get creative. Mealwise, I call the last full day of a charter a “Joker Day”—short for: “Let’s use up everything we have left.” On the last day, usually I serve impromptu meals using odds and ends still left in the fridge or storage lockers. Sailors are a resourceful lot; you’d be surprised by the delicious meals you can make by amassing and assessing all the stray items lingering at the end of a charter week.

Got leftover bread, milk and a few eggs? Splurge and make a big breakfast on your last day. French toast is an easy option, or make a bread-crusted quiche: Oil an ovenproof dish, tear bread into small pieces, and press to the bottom. Drizzle generously with melted butter. Beat eggs with a dash of milk or cream, add salt and pepper, then stir and pour over bread to cover. Top with grated cheese, if you have it. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until eggs are set. No bread? No problem. Skip it, and just make baked eggs—like a crustless quiche.

If you have a few stray pieces of fruit still lingering —grapes, melon, bananas, pineapples, berries, kiwi—slice or chop and toss together to make a simple fruit salad; any combination will do. If you have lemons or limes, squeeze juice over fruit, add a drizzle of honey, and stir to combine; otherwise, just slice and serve.

Leftover pasta? Cook it up and make pasta salad. You can add chopped bits of stray onions, celery, tomatoes, green peppers; just about any kind of cheese; sliced turkey or ham—even items like that half-jar of pickles or olives in the fridge. Add some mayo, bottled vinaigrette or just oil and wine vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, then stir, and you’re good to go.

If you’ve got canned or jarred treats lingering—such as marinated artichoke hearts, asparagus spears, roasted peppers or olives—arrange them on small individual plates, ­garnish with whatever herbs you have left, and enjoy with fresh bread (if available) as a last-day lunch. In Greece, this variety of small plates are called mezedes, otherwise known as tapas. If you have eggs, add these: Just hard-boil, peel, slice into quarters, and arrange on a small plate. Add salt, pepper, a splash of red wine vinegar and a bit of oil, stray capers if you have them, and you’ve got another plate. Ditto with stray bits of cheese, salami, tomatoes or cucumbers: Cut, slice, and make a plate. Fresh veggies—such as carrots, peppers, zucchini, eggplant or mushrooms—can be sliced or julienned and ­marinated for a few hours in bottled or homemade ­vinaigrette to make a marinated-­veggie platter. Alternatively, toss with oil, salt and pepper, and roast for 20-25 minutes at 390 degrees F, and you have delicious roasted vegetables. Raw carrots or zucchini, cut into sticks, can make a small raw-veggie platter. For dips: If you have a bit of mayo left, add a squeeze of lemon or lime. If your spice kit includes curry powder, mix mayo with a shake of curry, and stir for a dip with zing. You can even mix leftover ketchup and mayo for a simple thousand-island dip.

The possibilities are endless, and will differ in every sailing location. The trick is to evaluate what you have, then get creative. Besides, there are few foods that aren’t satisfying when consumed while swinging on the hook in a stunning harbor in your chosen vacation paradise.

That’s it! All it takes for easy, stress-free culinary success on charters—with no leftovers—is a little preplanning with a dash of creativity.

Lynda Morris Childress and her husband, Kostas Ghiokas, have sailed and chartered their Atlantic 70 cutter, Stressbuster, in the Greek Islands since 2003.

The post Provision Planning for a Sailboat Charter Vacation appeared first on Cruising World.

As you think about your dream charter, what do you envision? There’s sailing, swimming, snorkeling, walking the beach, and great meals in the cockpit with a gorgeous view.

Those delicious meals and laugh-filled happy hours are some of my favorite memories. So let’s talk about how to provision for a charter trip, with some special notes on provisioning in the COVID-19 era.

Depending on the charter base, the typical provisioning options include:

• Provisioning through the charter company, either with preplanned-meal options or a grocery list. Groceries are delivered right to your boat.
• Using a provisioning company or provisioning service at a grocery store. Order online and your supplies will be delivered to your charter base. Some charter companies, such as the Moorings and Sunsail, are now requiring companies to drop off deliveries at the office to limit the number of people on the docks. Staff then deliver the supplies to your boat.
• Going to local grocery stores in person, shopping and transporting it back to your boat. This is generally the least convenient, taking up a day of your trip, and is subject to any local COVID-19 regulations.

Bareboat chartering is a great way to get away while still staying reasonably safe from COVID-19, and provisioning through your charter company provides an extra measure of safety as well as convenience.

The Moorings and Sunsail have implemented measures to ensure that provisioning is as contactless as possible. “First, staff responsible for provisioning our yachts will undergo daily temperature checks and will be wearing proper personal protective equipment to limit contact as much as possible,” said Ian Pedersen, senior marketing manager for the two ­companies. “Once groceries are selected, they will be put into a sealed, disinfected container, and labeled with the date and time it was sealed. This ensures that from the time the items are taken from the shelves to when they are unloaded on the yacht, the only person who touches these items is the guest.”

If you want something not offered by the charter ­company, using a provisioning service to fill in items works well.

The good news is that there aren’t any major supply issues due to COVID-19 according to Dan Lockyer, vice president of global tourism for Dream Yacht Charters. Yes, toilet paper is readily available! However, it’s a fact of life on islands that something might be sold out on a given day. Always keep a copy of your provisioning list and check off items as you unpack the delivery.

It’s better to know something is missing while you’re still at the dock, when you can hopefully find an alternate source or a substitute. If not, you can at least plan for it.

Should you plan on eating some meals out? Check with your charter company to see if local restaurants are open and if there are any COVID-19 restrictions. If available, I’d opt for a couple of dinners or happy hours out. Most tropical destinations have wonderful outdoor restaurants, which considerably lessens the risk of dining in public.

In the past, some charter and provisioning companies would allow you to return unused items at the end of your trip for a partial refund. Most are not allowing it now as part of their COVID-19 restrictions. This can make it a little trickier to plan the “just right” amount for everything. For anything you’d really hate to run out of (yes, toilet paper, I’m looking at you again), I suggest buying a little more than you think you’ll need and give it to the charter-base workers at the end of the trip if it’s left over when you get back to the dock.

As you unpack your provisions, it’s helpful to label what meal each item is intended for. I also create a snack bin that is available to everyone whenever they want. This will help prevent unwelcome surprises such as discovering that all the cashews were eaten as snacks when you intended part of them for cashew chicken. I also wash all the produce and cut into pieces any that are intended to be snacks. Anything else that takes prep work I try to do also.

While it’s extra work while at the dock, this simplifies meal prep once underway. And that’s when I want to put together delicious meals quickly—there’s just too much other fun to be had!

Carolyn Shearlock is the author of The Boat Galley Cookbook, and the founder of theboatgalley.com. She and her husband, Dave, are currently in the Florida Keys aboard their Gemini catamaran, Barefoot Gal. Through the years, they’ve chartered in the BVI, USVI, Turkey and Alaska.

Make A Plan

Consider planning each meal and making a list of all ingredient amounts needed to reduce waste at the end of your trip. Most provisioning companies aren’t currently allowing returns.

The post Charter Provisioning in the Covid-19 Era appeared first on Cruising World.

Plans are swirling: Only a few days since I speculated about impact to our routing for the South Pacific, stringent regulations are being implemented across island nations. Our plans remain uncertain, but are taking shape. We have time to wait and watch, then make an informed decision instead of a hasty one.

Whether we sail thousands of miles to the South Pacific or remain in Mexico to self-isolate in the Sea of Cortez, it’s time to deeply provision Totem. It turns out that provisioning for the passage is much the same as provisioning for the pandemic: We must be self-sufficient with what we have on board for an extended period of time. Our process is highly transferable, and can be used by land-based folks planning to sequester for a while.

I didn’t expect to do our provisioning for the South Pacific for another week. This changed the way I prepared, as it was a very last-minute effort; probably much the same as people on land who are suddenly faced with the prospect of stocking up on short notice. While the mood here is mellow, I expect that to change and wanted to get all my provisioning done before the panic-buying we’ve seen happen elsewhere starts locally.

Instead of working through a detailed spreadsheet that calculated out my anticipated needs for a range of staples, I followed my basic plan for passages:

1. Make a meal list: breakfasts, lunches, dinners (add one for snacks, too)
2. Create a shopping list based on ingredients for those meals
3. Increase quantities to accommodate months instead of weeks of stock on hand
4. Go shopping!

It is deceptively simple, yet very effective. It works whether you are heading to distant islands on your boat, or stocking up at home to minimize exposure and help flatten the curve of the virus’ impact. As long as you cook at least sometimes, it is pretty easy to do in a quick brainstorm vs needing an extended planning process.

One key twist for my quickie COVID-19 provisioning: I used pantry meals as the basis for planning. What’s a pantry meal? It’s what you can cook from shelf-stable or long-term stores, vs relying on fresh ingredients. Cook today, tomorrow or next month; all the same! Freshies are great, but have an obvious time limit; we’re anticipating self-sufficiency for months instead of weeks.

Below is precisely the list of meals (followed by shopping list) I used as the basis for my planning, with a few notes added to help. The shopping list is cumulative: for example, if I listed tortillas in our breakfast section’s shopping list, I didn’t add it again under the lunch list.

Breakfast

• Pancakes (maple syrup is one of the deep stash items we hoard! Delicious local honey with lemon juice squeezed in a nice alternative)
• Oatmeal with raisins (easy single-serving: pour ½ c boiling water over ¼ cup oats in a mug; cover to ‘cook’ for five minutes)
• Breakfast pudding: mix chia seeds, oats, and thinned yogurt or coconut milk; this sets in the fridge overnight. Add spices, dried fruit as desired, drizzle honey on top.
• Eggs and toast or skillet biscuits (1 c flour / 1 Tbsp baking powder / water to make a stiff batter)
• Frittata: if no fresh veg to add, try preserved options like sun dried tomatoes
• Granola and milk/yogurt
• Pan fried cornbread (half the reason I make cornbread for dinner is to fry it for breakfast!)
• Muffins: when feeling ambitious enough to bake
• Breakfast burritos: eggs, salsa, onions, cheese in a tortilla
• Chilaquiles: plain tortilla chips stir-fried with a can of enchilada sauce, topped with an egg

Shopping list:

• Flour
• Cornmeal
• Baking powder, soda
• Chocolate chips (for the pancakes OF COURSE)
• Yogurt for starter (we’ll make our own continuously from a starter)
• Rolled oats
• Chia seeds
• Dried fruit
• Walnuts, almonds
• Honey and sugar
• Granola
• UHT milk, powdered milk
• UHT media crema (half cream) or cream
• Tortillas
• Enchilada sauce
• Spice rack staples: cinnamon, cloves, cumin, chili powder
• Maple syrup (or, honey + lemon)
• Pantry staples: sun dried tomatoes, pickled onions, artichoke hearts, olives
• Long-life freshies: eggs, butter. We’ll by multiple flats of 30, we’ve kept eggs 6+ weeks unrefrigerated without issue; just flip over the container every few days.

Lunch

• Hearty chip & dip: One jar each of black beans, corn and salsa; season with some cumin and salt, eat with totopos (tortilla chips) or tostadas
• Tuna sandwiches: we actually make these vegetarian style with garbanzo beans instead! Extra good on fresh bread
• Sandwiches with salami and cheese (shelf-stable sausage, cheese always a top priority for us)
• Corn fritters (can of corn, flour, egg plus whatever random veg is left and seasoning – liquid if needed to make a drop-biscuit consistency), fried in a skillet
• Fresh focaccia bread (basic bread recipe; smear with tomato sauce or thinned tomato paste; bury olives or sundried tomatoes on top).
• No-lettuce salads: add a grain to any of these, like quinoa or couscous or wheat berries, to make it extra hearty.
• garbanzos/tomato/onion/herb in cumin-scented vinaigrette
• marinated beets (canned) /minced onion/feta with Dijon/garlic vinaigrette
• shredded carrots and cabbage (the last two veggies standing after multi-weeks away from stores) with Asian style peanut dressing (we always have peanut butter). Crumble in ramen noodles.
• The “Farmer’s plate” is a family favorite, spreading finger-food out for sharing: cured meat, cheese, dolmas (rice wrapped in grape leaves; canned), tear of hunks of fresh bread and dip in seasoned olive oil
• Soup (packaged, or make your own from veggies still in the fridge) & salad

Shopping list:

• Black beans (dried or canned)
• Corn (canned)
• Salsa (Herdez cans in Mexico are good)
• Refried beans (prepared, shelf stable)
• Bouillon
• Garbanzo beans (dried or canned)
• Pickles
• Salami / summer sausage
• Mayonnaise (favored on Totem: Mexican chipotle (smoked chili) mayo!)
• Peanut butter
• Soy sauce
• Sesame oil
• Tabasco / Valentina / Cholula / hot sauce of choice
• Quinoa
• Couscous
• Wheat berries
• Dried mint
• Roasted peanuts
• Ramen
• Tomato paste
• Pickled beets
• Dolma tins
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Dijon
• Crackers
• Long-life freshies: cheddar cheese (prioritized in fridge!), feta, cabbage, onions, oranges, limes.

Dinner

• Dal bhat – lentil stew and rice. A jar of chutney makes it more interesting!
• Simple curry: jars of prepared curry sauces like Patak’s go a long way; you can add chick peas to them, or canned chicken… thin them out with coconut milk or a can of diced tomatoes, depending on the type and your taste… serve with rice or couscous.
• Colcannon: one-pot potato / cabbage goodness. Good with gravy on top (instant mushroom gravy makes it easy); we keep instant mashed potatoes on hand for passages and meals like this, but potatoes are easy too and store for ages.
• Pasta (if passage making: pre-cook pasta, add some oil to prevent sticking and save in fridge in Ziploc – or save for calm days) with…
• Jar of pesto, bonus if you have parm for the top.
• Puttanesca sauce (all ingredients are pantry items: anchovies, olives, capers, etc.)
• Chick peas, garlic, olive oil, cracked pepper
• Can of artichoke hearts, plus parm, butter or olive oil, use a can of evap milk if you want a creamy sauce
• fresh garlic bread (warm, fragrant bread totally wins over a hangry family)
• spaghetti alla carbonara (eggs last ages; bags of shelf-stable bacon from Costco make this an anytime treat)
• One-pot pressure cooker pasta (throw ingredients in, bring up to pressure, done)
• Veggie burgers (our recipe is based on oats and walnuts – pantry friendly!)
• Moroccan style chick peas over couscous. Couscous is a dream in the tropics because, just add boiling water (less heat in galley).
• Enchiladas stuffed with rice, beans and cheese; add any veg left standing, even if it’s just grilled onions. Packaged tortillas keep for a scary long time, have I mentioned that?
• Canned chicken (get at Costco) isn’t bad, and is the ‘meat fix’ the Totem carnivores often need. Can add into so many things, from pasta dishes to enchiladas, or just serve over instant mashed potatoes.

Shopping list:

• Lentils (red or green)
• Instant gravy
• Instant mashed potatoes
• Pasta varieties
• Vacu-packed bacon
• Anchovy tins or anchovy paste
• Capers
• Parmesan cheese
• Canned chicken (I can my own, not hard and it’s much tastier)
• Canned tomatoes
• Coconut milk
• Curry sauce base
• Chutney
• Canned pork
• Rice
• Monterey jack cheese
• Long-life freshies: potatoes, garlic, ginger tomatoes (yes, really, see below)

How do you know much should you buy? After writing out the shopping list, go back and put a tick next to each item based on how many meals you expect to use it in. Take your family’s typical meal quantity, multiply by ticks, and BAM! You have your quantities.

Ours and yours

Of course, this is uniquely our family’s list, and reflects our limitations. For example, I don’t count on freezer space; we have one, but it’s tiny. I’ve been canning meat to make up for our inability to store fresh meat for my crew of carnivores, and have jars set aside with pork, chicken, and beef to add to everything from pasta sauce to enchiladas. But those aren’t even mentioned above, as they’re optional; these meals are overwhelmingly based on items on a shelf or in a locker that don’t require Super Prepper Skills like home canning! And yes, we may supplement with fishing – in fact, we really hope to (see: capers, butter, and citrus in the list), but I’m not counting on it.

I’ll top this off with a round of “normal” shopping, so we’ll have lots of fresh fruit and vegetables on hand that get us started. As cruisers, we’ve had the chance to build skills over time that help us handle this with relative ease, and lower stress – and hopefully, those skills can now help our friends more accustomed to convenience. And so in the spirit of the cruising community, we offer from what we have – and our hope that this time can be in our collective rearview mirror soon, and that we each help as we can along the way to that eventuality.

Further resources

My good friends Nica Waters and Carolyn Shearlock, bloggers and podcasters, have relevant resources to help.

1. Eating Well with a Tiny Fridge: this book was written for RVers and boaters, but the tips are good for everyone! Carolyn’s offering this at a special, pay-what-you-want scale to help people self-isolate – or, free! Details at the link. Want to know how to have fresh tomatoes for a month? You need this book.
2. Provisioning course: free! Nica has rejiggered her provisioning course to help land and boat based humans prepare. Her approach is VERY much like mine – in fact, this post is almost like a real-world illustration of the methodology! She’s currently offering it for free. See: Stocking up Sanely.

Hopefully this offer idea starters for your own planning: whether you’re preparing to self-isolate for a while, to quarantine at home, or sail across an ocean.

The post Sailing Totem: Provisioning for a pandemic appeared first on Cruising World.

When the Vendee Globe sailors plan their meals, they need to eat more to compensate for the energy they require, which is much more than someone sitting in an office, and even more than the average sailor. It is thought that the daily energy requirements of a Vendée Globe sailor is around 4000 calories on average, and can even get up to 5000 calories or more .

Freeze-dried food and ready meals

Plan for more? It’s not as simple as that. They want to have just the right amount, as they have to pay attention to the weight taken aboard, as this can seriously affect performance. The weight of the food is far from being unimportant: 120 to 180 kilos of supplies (with the cleaning and personal hygiene products). When they calculate the ideal amount, the favourites work on the basis of 80 to 85 days of food, with the others taking more with them. We must not forget the timing either. We don’t have the same needs or desires in the tropical heat as in the wilderness of the Southern Ocean. That is why some skippers only trust themselves when preparing their supplies. In any case, they always want to keep a close watch on what is going aboard. If they get someone else to do the job for them, it’s usually someone very close to them, who knows them well, or a dietician. Morgan Lagravière explains, “It’s essential to eat well. It’s one of the pleasurable moments, as well as being our fuel, as it gives us energy. I haven’t handed this task over to someone else entirely, as I believe it is important for me to be involved in selecting the food and how I stow it on board.” Fabrice Amedeo has been working with a sports nutritionist, Virginie Auffret. She explains, “To understand what Fabrice needs, we examined his eating habits ashore and during races. That enabled me to draw up menus to suit his needs. The aim is to avoid excessive weight loss, while allowing him to enjoy the food, by studying the quality of the dishes and what they bring him.”

We should not forget that food has an influence too on our sleep. The nutritionist, Eve Tiollier, who works with Jean-Pierre Dick, explains, “alongside the bags of food offering the recommended daily intake, Jean-Pierre has an additional bag, in which he has sweet food or protein-rich food, which encourage him to sleep or on the contrary, stay awake.”

One bag a day

While some, like Arnaud Boissières only take aboard freeze-dried food, for many skippers, the supplies include 40 to 50% vacuum packed meals and 50-60% freeze-dried. Even if the latter has made considerable progress ove the past ten years in terms of variety and taste, they tend to be less appreciated by the skippers than the ready prepared meals. They do however offer a number of advantages: they don’t take up much space, they are very light and fulfil the nutritional requirements… particularly as the fresh water that is used to prepare them is supplied by the desalinator. They just have to heat it up on the ring (camping stove), stir in the sachet and it’s ready. Erwan Steff, director of Yann Eliès’s Quéguiner-Leucémie Espoir team explains, “The supplies are divided up into seven watertight bags weighing a total of 175 kilos. The date is marked on them for Yann, remembering that he will eat different ly depending on the conditions and the temperature. Inside there are little zip bags corresponding to the day’s meal.” Of course, all that has to be stacked depending on which tack the boat is on to balance the boat, just as they do with the sails. Jérémie Beyou, Vincent Riou and many others use a similar approach in organising their food. Sébastien Josse has been spoilt, as he is taking on board meals prepared by Julien Gatillon, Michelin starred chef of the 1920 restaurant in Megève. “What he cooks is really delicious,” Sébastien told us before giving us another anecdote, which tells us a lot about the psychological importance of food on board: “Once, I managed to keep an orange until I got to New Zealand. You protect it like a valuable item, and when you bite into it, it’s magic!”

A few necessary goodies

Then there is another important aspect to consider with the food. The question of pleasure. This is in fact vital, as it affects the mood and therefore the performance of the skipper. Alex Thomson has already calculated with his coach, Lawrence Knott, that he may lose around twelve kilos during the race and has therefore adapted his supplied accordingly. But he has not forgotten peanuts, as “when the going gets tough, the simple pleasure of opening a packet of peanuts can be the highlight of the day!” Some take sweets, chocolate, jelly babies, fruit pastilles, hazelnuts… in other words something to nibble. Others like Vincent Riou take on board vacuum packed cold meats, which is their little pleasure for the day, while others go for cod liver, sardines in oil or tins of pâté. And we must not forget the foie gras for Christmas, the special bread from Les Abers or la Trinité, which can be kept for the first fortnight of racing.

To conclude this subject, while what is available has come a long way – you can find practically every dish possible freeze-dried and their taste has vastly improved. There has also been scientific progress. Kito de Pavant will be monitored during the race to analyse his nutritional situation. Professor Patrice Darmon, Head of Endocronology, specialising in the metabolism and food at the Hospital in Marseille, explains that this study is not only useful for drawing up diets for skippers to improve their physical performance and mood, but also this will be a way to find better solutions for feeding people in extreme conditions, who undergo repeated stress and/or people with irregular work hours.”

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For vacationers who love good food, exploring local markets in far-flung locales is an adventure that’s part of the chartering experience. If you’re one of those sailors, these tips for self-­provisioning will make it both cost-­effective and fun. Even if you elect to have your charter company provide full or partial provisioning, you can use these tips to decide on your food selections — and make life easier once you’re aboard.

Before Your Charter

1. As part of your pre-trip planning, the designated cook should do some food research. In foreign or far-flung destinations, don’t count on finding all the familiar grocery items you’d find in your own local supermarket. Unlike in the U.S., in many parts of the world, markets sell only produce that is either locally grown or in season at the time, and many convenience foods we take for granted in U.S. stores simply aren’t available. Search online for foods and recipes indigenous to your charter area; this will give you a good idea of the items that will be on local market shelves. To take it further, have a look at provisioning lists from bareboat companies based in the area. Most companies post these shopping lists online for people who elect to have the company provision the yacht for them. It’s likely that area markets will stock the foods that are on those lists.
2. If you’re sailing with people whose food preferences you don’t know, ask your crewmates some basic questions before you do anything else, such as: Is there anything you absolutely hate or cannot eat? Are you a vegetarian? Do you eat red meat, or prefer only fish and chicken? Which soft drinks, beers and wines do you prefer? Do you drink coffee or tea?
3. Once you know the foods that are readily available in your charter area and the preferences of your crew, create a daily menu plan for breakfast, lunch, and the number of dinners you plan to eat on board. Make your menu using recipes native to the area you’ll be visiting. It’s fun and will enhance your appreciation of both the cuisine and the location. Find local recipes online, or invest in a cookbook featuring local delicacies and recipes particular to the area. Be sure to bring the recipes with you when you sail.
4. Using your menu and compiled recipes, make a detailed shopping list. Having your recipes in hand (rather than in your head) ensures you won’t forget to list key ingredients.It’s helpful to organize the list according to the standard sections in most super­markets: dairy, meat and seafood; frozen food; produce; dry stores; and so forth.
5. Be sure to include staples on your list. In terms of provisions, most bareboats are exactly that. You will likely need to buy paper towels, toilet tissue, cleaning supplies, dish soap and the like. Keep in mind that bareboats rarely even keep staples such as spices on board — sometimes not even salt and pepper. Your charter company should be able to tell you what items, if any, will be on the boat when you arrive.

When You Arrive at Your Boat

1. Designate one or two crewmembers — preferably the cook — to do the shopping for the group. If an entire boatload of charterers trek to market, utter chaos usually ensues. Markets at charter hubs are generally very crowded on departure days, so the fewer bodies, the better. If the market doesn’t offer delivery to yachts (many do), put the other crewmembers on standby to help carry the provisions back to the boat when the shopping is done.
2. Stow wisely. Again, categorizing like items is helpful, especially if several people will be helping themselves to what’s in the fridge or food lockers. Most bareboats have freezers; stack the meat or seafood you want to freeze in the order you plan to use it, putting in last what you’ll use first. In the fridge, store cheeses, cold cuts and snack items near one another. Keep yogurt and milk together, as well as fruits and veggies that need refrigeration.
3. For unrefrigerated snack foods, consider setting up snack stations: one or two places where the entire crew can easily access between-meal bites such as nuts, chips, cookies and fruit. Baskets or hanging nets work well for this because they avoid excessive opening of the fridge or having to dig through a pile of goods deep in a locker.
4. If your menu includes continental-type breakfasts and sandwich-style lunches, the crew can share the meal-making responsibilities. For cooked lunches or dinners, anyone can use the printed recipes the cook brought along to share in the meal prep. Using these simple tricks will not only make provisioning — and eating meals aboard — easier and more fun, but it will also save money and avoid unused food and drink. At the end of almost all bareboat charters, there’s plentiful food left behind — and you can’t take it with you.
5. Finally, take the money you saved by avoiding unnecessary food items and enjoy spending it elsewhere on your vacation. Suggestion: Treat the cook and the whole crew to a lavish dinner or two ashore!

CW contributing editor Lynda Morris Childress has provisioned for charters and extended cruises at ports around the world. She spends each sailing season chartering in Greece as first mate and chef (and provisioner) on her Atlantic 70 cutter, Stressbuster.

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When planning their journeys, all three families kept open minds regarding expenses. For the Smiths, the upfront costs of Rebecca’s renovation lead to a near-zero expense for their maintenance over six months. However, as they were originally planning a 3-year journey, they did not make a short-term budget. In the end, their expenses were close to what the Gonsalveses spent aboard Meridian. All were surprised by the extra expense of travel (not listed in the accompanying sidebars) to and from the islands when they stepped off for work or flew in family members.

The Gonsalveses were the most fastidious in documenting their expenses. They amassed unaccounted and unexpected expenses for phones and communications, gifts and souvenirs, and travel when the owners came to use their boat.

Fabuloso: Budget and Actual Expenses for Six-Month Sabbatical

Meridian: Actual Expenses for Six-Month Sabbatical

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Several factors will contribute to your provisioning decisions, including the length of the cruise, number of crew, refrigerator and freezer capacity, space available in other lockers, budget, and personal preferences of crewmembers. When you can, meet with all crew before shopping to find out what they’re really good at preparing or especially fond of eating at sea. It will boost morale and their appreciation of the whole experience. Check ahead of time about each crew’s religious or medical diet restrictions to save awkwardness later.

Plan to provision for a trip about 50 percent longer than the voyage is expected to take, to cover trip delays due to adverse weather, mechanical or rig breakdown, or other unforeseen circumstances. The last third of the provisions can be considered “emergency supplies,” and consist heavily of dry and canned goods — generally things that will keep a long time and still be useful past the end of the journey.

In recent years, camping-supply outlets like REI, Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s have become good sources of tasty freeze-dried foods that are light, stow compactly and cook quickly. Some of the canned goods that work well as emergency rations — such as beef stew and hash — may also work well in really sloppy weather, when even heating something up is an accomplishment.

A good way to start the provisioning process (and shopping list) is to list main dinner dishes for the length of the anticipated cruise, and project from that. How much pasta will you need for two meals? How much hamburger will be required to add some to spaghetti sauce one night, have hamburgers another night, and make chili a third? How many nights do you want to have black beans, rice and sausage? You get the idea. Remember, it’s rare that everyone on the boat will appreciate really spicy food. Compromise. Breakfasts and lunches can be simple and repetitive, just as they are at home. Cereal, eggs, pancakes (buy the complete mixes that only need water), sandwiches and hot dogs are all fairly easy to prepare.

The time required for a recipe and the complexity of preparation are good attributes to remember when creating your meal plan. Generally, simpler and quicker is better, especially in challenging conditions. More elaborate meals are always appreciated when it’s calm. Soda, especially ginger ale, is often soothing to upset stomachs. Coke, 7UP and so forth also are enjoyed by most crews, with a mix of about one-third diet soda. Plan for about one can per day per person. You will also need milk for cereal and coffee. Fresh milk works well for the start of the trip, and UHT milk, which does not need refrigeration, will work for the remainder.

Fresh fruits and vegetables usually won’t last more than a week, although apples keep better than most fruit (especially when stored in a paper bag somewhere dark). When buying meat — hamburger, for example — get it wrapped in 1-pound packages, so only the amount you plan to cook needs to be taken out of the freezer to thaw.

When purchasing supplies, try to avoid glass containers: They’re a hazard and a mess if they break, and after the 2012 MARPOL updates, they are no longer legal to throw overboard (even ­offshore). Plastic wrappers and containers work well, but also cannot be disposed of overboard anywhere in the ocean, and become a burden in carried  trash.

Keep in mind that boiling and frying are inherently dangerous at sea, with risks of scalds, burns and grease fires. They are best saved for settled weather if you have other options. If you wind up doing them in rough weather anyway, having the cook wear foul-weather bottoms reduces risk. While I am in the pro-galley-strap camp, this is a hotly contested issue, so you should do your own research to make an informed decision on whether to use one.

Many cruisers have found that using a pressure cooker (they raise the boiling temperature, and thereby cook things faster) saves on fuel and time, and has the added advantage of keeping food that’s cooking securely covered. In a seaway, that can help to prevent both messes and burns.

Stowage on boats is limited, so ensure that spaces are available for ship supplies, spares, tools, crew belongings and food. On offshore voyages, the forward head is often uncomfortable, and therefore better used for stowage than for elimination. Food is best stowed in main cabin spaces beneath and behind settees. Be sure to keep a list of what is put where, as nothing is more aggravating to ­off-watch, sleeping crew than people rummaging under them for things that are actually stowed somewhere else. Dry goods (cereal, pasta, cookies) should be stashed in higher, drier spaces. Canned goods can go in the lower, more-likely-to-get-damp spaces, and never on top of soft goods like bread. Open packages and snack items (hot chocolate, cereal, cookies, candy, nuts) ought to be where crew can get to them without disturbing others, especially at night. A cabinet near the stove works well.

Before leaving port, know that even people who have sailed inland waters for many years without getting seasick may succumb in open-ocean waves, where the motion of the boat can be very ­different. The sickness will pass, but medications can help to prevent or minimize it. Whatever you take (and that begs a whole different article) will work best if it’s in your system 12 or more hours before you get to open water.

If the very thought of eating is upsetting, know that fasting for a few days won’t hurt you, but becoming dehydrated will. Keep drinking water or Gatorade to stay healthy. Gatorade and other sports drinks are good for replacing salt lost to perspiration in warm weather, and especially effective for actively seasick crew, whose electrolyte balances can get out of whack. I usually buy enough of the powdered version (cheaper, and stows easier) to prepare at least a half-gallon per day for the boat. Don’t expect to get it all right. Depending on how the crew handle the weather (seasick crew don’t eat much), what their tastes and appetites are, how many fish you catch and eat, and whether the trip goes slower or faster than expected, you’re going to get some of the quantities wrong. In general, it’s better to have some food left over than to run out a few days before arriving, so you don’t make port looking and feeling like starving refugees.

Jack Morton’s sailing experience includes everything from cruising with his wife to skippering tall ships and research vessels. He teaches offshore voyaging for the Maryland School of Sailing on passages to and from Bermuda and the Caribbean. When not busy on teaching cruises, he does deliveries and paddles his kayak in Florida, where he lives with his family.

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Windtraveler- groceries

You might call me a “glutton for punishment.” Much like the time I schlepped 60 gallons of water to our boat manually, it is not unusual for me to take on semi-overwhelming tasks just for the sake of giving it a go. It is also not surprising that, most often, these undertakings occur while Scott’s away and I am in single-mom mode. It’s like I want to prove to myself that I can get by just fine on my own so I create these ridiculous challenges that make most people question my sanity. Like strapping my twenty-something pound baby on my front, heaving a sixty pound backpack of groceries on my back and jamming myself into a local bus, whose internal temperature is approximately 110°.

Grocery shopping, while always something of a “chore,” is significantly more of a chore to the live-aboard cruiser. First of all, none of us have cars and if there is one thing that make grocery shopping convenient (other than Peapod, of course) – it’s four wheels and a trunk. Not having a car leaves us a few options: 1) walk to grocery store (anywhere between one and five miles, typically) and cart groceries in a collapsible wagon or cart or 2) Take public transportation and lug around groceries the old fashioned way: in bags. Because I have a toddler in tow and therefore prefer to do things as quickly and efficiently as possible, I opt for number two.

I have written before about the public transportation system here in Grenada. It’s good. It’s privately run, therefore efficient, and super cheap. Can’t beat that. So I strapped Isla into the ERGO carrier, grabbed my giant Gill waterproof grocery backpack and headed for the bus. The busses (which are actually converted mini-vans) zoom up and down the streets, honking like mad with the “conductor” hanging out the window whistling and yelling to try and lure more passengers. They pack ’em in like sardines because – just like the busses I have experienced in every developing country I have ever been – there is always room for one more. Combine the sweating bodies of ten to fifteen people (half of which on our last bus were particularly overweight) in a vinyl seated bus during the midday sun and the only word to describe the smell would be “ripe”. I appreciate the drivers who make an effort and hang a little pine tree air freshener from the rear-view mirror to help stave off the stank, though it’s about as effective as fighting a forest fire with a squirt gun.

So Isla and I hop into the bus, which incidentally, she loves. She sits on my lap, silent and mesmerized, watching the passengers get on and off, listening to them chat exuberantly, eyeballing the world as it whizzes by while we zip and zoom around all the turns. I have often thought that on a fussy day, I might just hop on a bus and ride it for a few hours. That’s how rapt she is with these ‘excursions’.

But, like all public transportation systems, there is a catch. And here in Grenada, it’s the music. It’s horrible. Awful. Aggressive. Loud. It’s called “soca” and it is the music of the islands. Try as I might, I just cannot bring myself to enjoy or appreciate this noise (and just like that, I officially sound “old”). Every bus blasts it louder than necessary and it actually huts my ears. I would kill to hear some nice, gentle reggae – heck, I’d take Kenny G. over soca – but this is a futile battle. So I grit my teeth, plaster on a smile and bounce my knee to the awful beat, because if you can’t beat them, join them. But I digress…

So Isla and I are packed into the bus like pickles, heads pounding withe soca music, and when our stop comes, I knock on the bus wall to signal it to stop. It does so almost immediately and after I wiggle my way out between the fellow passengers, I drop my coins in the conductor’s hand and Isla and I are back in the fresh air and the welcome noises of car horns, barking dogs and yelling people. We walk the two blocks to the grocery store, chit-chatting the whole way about how nice it will be to get in the air conditioning.

The store here is an IGA, a Canadian chain, which means it carries food from the motherland which is why we sometimes make the extra effort to shop here as opposed to the local grocery chain, Food Land, across the street from the marina. I put Isla into the shopping cart (another activity she thoroughly enjoys), bust out my shopping list and hop to it. When we finish twenty minutes later, I have a semi-full cart and the creeping thought that maybe this wasn’t the best idea overall. But we’re here and this is happening.

“Are you sure you can carry all that and the baby?” the nice checkout lady asks me incredulously as she eyeballs the gargantuan backpack. The awesome bagging boy has managed to cram all our goodies into the one bag and for that I am grateful. It easily weighs sixty pounds. “I’ll manage” I reply with an unconvincing smile. I put Isla back into the carrier on my front, bag boy helps me heave the giant pack on my back and out the doors I walk with the legitimate thought “I’ll bet I shrink a quarter of an inch today”.

Of course on this day, I don’t see a bus right away which means I am forced to walk until one passes. Sure, I could stand around and wait for one to pass by me but I am, by nature, an incredibly impatient person and if I’m not making any forward momentum to wherever it is I am going, then I get all antsy and agitated. Best to keep moving. Because the pack is giant and overburdened, it bangs the back of my legs as I walk so Isla and I limp, Quasimodo style, down the road in the scalding hot sun until for about a quarter of a mile before I hear the welcome “beep, beep” of the #1 bus. We hop in, both of us sweaty messes, and for the rest of the ride home I play the “who or where IS that stench coming from?” game. (No, it was not me).

Our stop arrives. The conductor lobs the pack back onto my back and Isla and I walk the short distance back to the boat, where I get both her and the giant bag on board. The time that has passed is two hours exactly. I have just enough energy left to unpack before Isla and I both go down for a much needed nap.

So while I might be a glutton for punishment, I would not be above a service like “Peapod for Cruisers” should one surface. Just saying.

When two people, with the same life long dream of sailing around the world find each other, there’s only one thing to do… make it happen!
Scott and Brittany departed in 2010 with big plans to “see the world” from the deck of their sailboat. After sailing from Chicago to Trinidad via the “thorny path”, they are now back at it with their first baby and second boat. Check out all the juice at .

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I’d like to say that we’ve accomplished much in the week and a half since Ganymede relaunched and we returned to the marina—and we have, a truly heroic amount, really—but in light of everything we still need to do it seems less than it is. Our return was uneventful, except that the crucial engine shifter part hadn’t yet arrived, so I had to Ghetto shift by leaving the engine cowling off and reaching into it’s vital parts with an awl to get it from one gear to another. A little further to reach and harder to find than the normal shift lever, so I had to look sharp as we barreled around the corner toward our usual side-tie. I say barreled, because when freshly scraped, Ganymede is uncommon slippery, and taking the engine out of gear does little to slow her down. Fortunately our good neighbor Natalie was standing by to catch a line, and it only took a moment to heave one across the narrowing gap, locate my trusty awl, and fumble the engine into hard reverse. Natalie, who has grown up on boats and seen almost everything, recovered surprisingly quickly from thinking we were going to destroy both her and the pier and got the spring line made fast, though we didn’t need it after all as Ganymede came to a juddering halt and I scrambled to put the motor into neutral before she could start making sternway.

Now, finally, all the work we’d had to put off until “after the boatyard” could begin; most importantly, the lifeline stanchions and bulwarks. During the winter I’d unshipped the old Douglas fir ones, and made new stanchions out of Black Locust, a yellowish hardwood endemic to these parts. I hadn’t been able to install them yet, as I wanted to paint the sheer stripe at the boatyard before putting all sorts of bolts on. They went on beautifully, and so did the new bulwarks I made out of African mahogany. I’d gotten a bargain on a few pieces from a fellow I did some rigging for, and the local lumber store supplied the rest. It’s mill-finish 1X4, meant for decking, but perfect for this as well.

While I was happily engaged with screws and glue and all things manly, Danielle caught a ride with Natalie to BJ’s, a sort of Costco/Sam’s Club volume discount place. I had expected her to return loaded, sure, but even I was amazed at how much she managed to buy. Three giant dock cart loads of non-perishable food and dry goods were soon piled in the cockpit, on the pier, and on the decks. The next day, Saturday, was spent from breakfast to after dark stowing all those goodies, as well as our 120 gallons of water, in the big locker under the bed and the under-settee cupboards. We had so many cruising provisions that we had no room to cook or eat, so we munched handfuls of this and that all day as hunger came and went, but mostly came. It seems a miracle, but most of the stuff is stowed, thanks partly to our neighbor’s vacuum sealer, which can turn nice fat rolls of paper towels and toilet paper into tiny planks for storage.

I’ve been tempted to take a day off work to get my projects done, but this being our last week or so to make money, prefer to try and squeeze it all in after hours. So the bulwark is almost done, and then the engine can be looked at, and half-a-dozen little inside projects that require electricity will follow, and if I can get those finished before we have to move out of the marina and have no more electricity, I’ll be content to finish the last bits of rigging and stowing at anchor.

We are the Zartman family: Ben & Danielle, and our three girls, Antigone, Emily and Damaris. We created this blog to chronicle our sailing adventures on Ganymede, a home-finished 31-foot gaff-rigged cutter, which has been our home since 2009, when we sailed from San Francisco, California, to the Sea of Cortez, then down along the Central American coast. Currently in Newport, Rhode Island, we plan to sail to Canada, the U.K., and beyond this summer.

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