The Provisioning Puzzle

I first started to write this post almost two years ago, shortly after Tom did his first long passage with friends from Neah Bay to San Francisco. But now that I have provisioned for countless passages (including a 3-week ocean passage), a journey through remote south Pacific Islands, and a pandemic, I’m a lot better placed to to write about how we did it and what we’ve learned. Here’s our take on short and long passage provisioning, deep provisioning, and pandemic provisioning, including some tips for shopping in Mexico and a few links to gurus who have more experience than we do.

Passage Provisioning

My first attempt at planning the the food for a long passage scared into me into hyper-organized maniac mode. Our kids’ voracious appetites were already draining our galley stores every few days even with periodic access to groceries, so the prospect of meal planning for five tall men on a potentially ten-day passage from Neah Bay to San Francisco was daunting. But you have to start somewhere, and Tom and I started on a pine-shaded beach just outside of Winter Harbour on the west coast of Vancouver Island, brainstorming ideas and jotting down notes on a little pad of butterfly-shaped paper while the kids played tag with the surf.

I then dug into my boating cookbooks for any tips and tricks that might be useful, such as: people drink more pop and eat more snacks on passages, prepare simple ready-to-go meals for the first few days as people get their sea legs, and make sure everyone knows what’s available for each meal so that one person doesn’t help themselves to all of the next week’s dinner ingredients. I tapped into to a lesson I gleaned from Nancy Erley during my instructional week on Tethys (http://tethysoffshore.com/): start the planning with each dinner’s protein, and then you can mix and match with your vegetables and preferred starch. I also asked my friend Thomas, who had sailed to Hawaii and back a few years ago, what he had craved and eaten on voyage: “Meat,” he said, “and we really enjoyed our Yellow Food Night of mac n cheese, creamed corn, and banana pudding.”

Holding back a little gag, Tom said he would forgo the yellow food, but he really liked Thomas’ insight that they craved meat. When we looked down at our brainstorming list, 90% of the meals included beef. Hmm. Because we didn’t want a boat full of constipated men, we changed our tack, took Nancy’s advice, and honed in on the protein for each dinner. What we ended up was an excellent list of meals that could either be heated straight out of the freezer, compiled from easy-to-reach ingredients, and – importantly – contained a variety of proteins and fiber. I put together a menu of what they had available along with instructions on what to add. Freezer space was at a premium, so some of the meals included only the cooked meat and sauce, but required a can of beans, tomatoes, and/or some broth be added upon heating, thereby allowing more pre-prepared meals to fit into our tiny freezer. Importantly, I also included a document mapping out where everything could be found!

But before the food could be eaten, ingredients had to be bought and prepared. A big task, but a fun one. A couple big shopping trips and a few hours in a (very fragrant) kitchen got it all done. The next task was to fit it all on the boat. Also a big task, but not nearly as fun. It did make it more fun to think of it like a complex puzzle, figuring out what shapes fit most efficiently where. I even moved most of my spices into containers that fit upright in one of our galley drawers and then labeled the tops. This makes me sound like an uber-organized freak, but one of the keys to provisioning is to use space as efficiently as possible. It should also be noted that we lived aboard for years and had most of our spices willy-nilly in either huge bins or random baggies, so this hyper-organized state was not exactly natural for us.

The results: nobody starved. So, success. Maybe too much success. On day one, as they nibbled at their first meal, probably still getting their sea-legs and sea-stomachs, Mike said something along the lines of, “Jesus, Tom, tell your wife that we’re definitely not going to go hungry on this trip!” But by day two, their appetites were building, and by the end of the passage, the men were wolfing down everything and scraping every last bit meat and sauce out of their bowls. And they all thought they’d be losing weight and getting scurvy. Ha!

On the many shorter passages we took (2-3 days) down the coast of Baja and in the Sea of Cortez, we found that we weren’t overly hungry in those first few days and found ourselves nibbling more. We would eat something comforting for breakfast, crackers, salami, cheese, and fruit for lunches and snacks, and something warm and EASY for dinner.

I followed a similar plan in prepping for the 3-4 week passage from Mexico to French Polynesia, but it did require more careful planning when it came to the fresh provisions and the storage of protein. I planned the meals, calculated how much would be needed of various vegetables and fruits and how long they would last, and prepared documents of the “menu” and the meals available. After shopping, cooking, and freezing, a few (3) pre-prepared meals went into the freezer, along with a bag of pre-cooked chicken, carne asada, ground beef, frozen peas, and some breakfast sandwiches.

The fresh stuff was a careful calculus, based on buying the freshest and longest-lasting foods and then storing at least some of them in the fridge. Here’s the fresh stuff I sent for three men on a 3-week passage: 20 oranges, 20 apples, 20 Roma tomatoes, 20 limes, 15 bananas, 11 sweet peppers, 10 potatoes, 10 carrots, 10 avocados, 10 cucumbers, 3 heads of romaine lettuce, 2 heads of cabbage, 2 sweet potatoes, 1 bunch of celery, 2 heads of garlic, 3 bunches of scallions, and 2 bunches of cilantro. They also had alfalfa seeds for sprouting and about 50 eggs. The lettuce, scallions, cilantro, and half the avocados and apples went into the fridge, along with all the cheese and lunch meat. (BTW, I was horrified when I discovered that the cucumbers never made it onto the boat, and I ended up eating and giving away a lot of cucumbers over the next three weeks in La Cruz.)

Brian took over the galley, and the success of the provisioning for this trip was due in no small part to his unspoken mantra that “dinner will be made from whatever is about to go off.” Not only did very little go off, but they didn’t even open a can until about two days out of Nuku Hiva. And Roberto said that I even managed to put enough ingredients on board to satisfy his Mexican food cravings. I call that success.

Provisioning for the unexpected journey from French Polynesia to Hawaii was not as easy for Tom. He was only granted permission for a short stay in Nuku Hiva, was allowed only one visit to shore per week, and many groceries were very expensive ($125 for a paper bag that was 3/4 full!). Luckily, the boat was well stocked with everything except fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables, so, he stocked up to the extent possible on those items and got under way. Fresh fruit at the markets was quite inexpensive and relied on that heavily. They also planned on diving into the canned meat stores on the boat as we couldn’t afford much fresh meat ($100 for very modest sized frozen steaks). They did get a little tired of pasta along the way, not feeling up to digging into the couscous, quinoa, and Bulgar wheat that stood ignored in the cabinets. Apparently, Jake made some pretzels and fresh bread with the last of the flour, which were a huge hit. One of the highlights of this particular passage was using the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book, which made it very easy to bake interesting breads every day. A serving of fresh bread became a huge morale boost. They would drink the dregs of the shitty beer (thanks to being brewed in 95 degree heat) and eat the fresh, fragrant bread, a simple but enjoyable event to look forward to on a difficult passage when the world was closing down around them.

In sum, here are a few important tips for passage provisioning:

• Start planning with each dinner’s protein
• Plan easy to prepare, gentle meals for those first few queasy days
• Hunger will increase over time
• Plan a variety of meals and ingredients available, so that meals can be changed up depending on conditions
• Have a detailed list of what is available for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and for new crew, a list of where everything is)
• Have a bin of snacks and drinks that can be accessed at any time
• Buy the freshest and longest-lasting fruits and vegetables possible and store them properly (get more details on that on the Boat Galley blog. Here is one article by Lin Pardey about storing fruits and veggies, who also happened to write a book on this topic called The Care and Feeding of Sailing Crew)
• Examine your provisions daily to check what needs to be eaten, and turn the eggs over every few days. We loved our awesome egg containers, but in the tropics, they began to mold, so be sure to poke holes in the containers to allow air circulation.
• Pro-tip that I didn’t learn about until later: Identify a special meal or dessert that can be something that the crew look forward to for a passage.
• Another pro-tip: Have a few things to look forward to for milestone points. I put away a bottle of champagne and some good smoked salmon for the Equator Crossing, but a lot of people get even more elaborate than that.

Deep Provisioning

Deep provisioning is trickier than passage provisioning, as you’re having to think much longer term about what how much you will consume and what you will need. I deep-provisioned for a 7-month jaunt across the South Pacific, knowing that many groceries were very expensive and many items that we were used to having simply wouldn’t be available (except, perhaps, in Tahiti or Fiji). Unfortunately, Covid-19 halted our South Pacific plans, but the provisioning for the passage did happen. Here are a few important points I learned along the way:

• Most importantly: DO THE MATH on how much you will consume. Make a spreadsheet and calculate what you will need based on your consumption rate and length of time you need provisions for. A pitfall to avoid is that of looking at the piles of stuff you have and saying “well, that’s gotta be enough, right?” Wrong. Do the math. When I calculated we would need 10 jars and peanut butter and 7 jars of jam over 7-month period, it seemed ludicrous, but we consume it at a high rate and didn’t expect to come across affordable peanut butter until we hit New Zealand.
• Check ALL your provisions, not just your “food.” I took stock of all our spices, baking supplies, vinegars, oils, hot sauces, and so on, and stocked up on those things I didn’t think would be easy to find (wasabi, anyone?).
• Check blogs and websites for information about what you can and can’t get in your destinations, such as Terrapin’s about provisioning for the South Pacific. I learned that condiments and alcohol are extremely expensive in the South Pacific, so I made sure to stock up on things like ketchup, relish, mayo, and so on. Unfortunately, I also learned that flour and rice are plentiful, so I didn’t stock up, and guess what Tom and the boys ran out of on their passage to Hawaii (which was an unplanned passage)?
• Another pitfall: make a complete list of where everything is. Though I made a summary list for the guys’ passage, I neglected to make it as complete as it should have been, so they had trouble finding some things that had been buried deeper (chicken bouillon, extra sushi rice, popcorn kernels, and the wasabi paste that I had been so careful to buy but forgot where I put it).

Pandemic Provisioning

It turns out that our deep provisioning I did in Mexico set the boat up to be able to weather a pandemic pretty well. Though the boys ran out of most fresh stuff on their passage north to Hawaii, they were under no threat at all of hunger or starvation. And when the kids and I came to Hawaii to reunite with Tom, I only had to plan out what fresh things (and booze!) we would need to weather our quarantine, as the boat was already full stocked with almost everything else, thanks to careful deep provisioning that was expected to last several months.

We watched over Facebook as our friends in Mexico and other locations prepared for the lockdown there. And they did it following the same principles that we all follow for passage and deep provisioning. Our friends on Totem wrote a great post on this topic:

https://www.sailingtotem.com/2020/03/provisioning-for-a-pandemic.html

Most importantly, remember that food isn’t something that you consume to survive. Food is soulful. It is pleasure. Be sure to provision for the things you’ll want and not just those things you’ll need, whether that be Nutella, hot sauce, a special fish rub, and so on.

Be prepared for the Unexpected. The Unexpected happened, and we weathered it very well due to careful and planned deep provisioning. One of the things Tom was grateful for – when he had so many new things to worry about – is that he didn’t have to worry about food. He had to worry about diesel, boat parts, getting to a safe harbor, etc, but not about food. We set ourselves up for flexibility with deep provisioning, and it gave us options. For example, Tom could have sailed straight to Hawaii instead of stopping in Nuku Hiva, and nobody would have starved. One of our mantras in this uncertain time has become “Make choices that increase your options, not decrease them.” In this uncertain time, provisioning is not unlike preparing for an emergency. Careful provisioning, along with other preparations and maintenance, have helped us weather this emergency and new world.

Addendum for those provisioning in Mexico

We’ve had numerous people ask us about the food options in Mexico, so as a short addendum to the provisioning information, here’s a summary of our findings:

• In major cities, you can find absolutely everything you want or need, sometimes more. One grocery store in San Jose del Cabo dropped our jaws with its selection: a massive cheese section, an organic vegetable section larger than our first house, and wines and beers and specialty foods from all over the world. At a price. La Paz also had a wide selection of good grocery stores. There was a Chedraui and a Soriana within a 20-minute walk of Marina de la Paz, though the Soriana Hiper out at Plaza de la Paz was superior and well-worth the Uber to get there.
• My favorite places to get vegetables and meats, though, in both La Paz and La Cruz were the local street markets and small neighborhood markets. In La Paz, Mercado Bravo offered the best fruits, vegetables, meats, and seafood we could find. In La Cruz, the Wednesday vegetable market was plentiful, and the local tiendas had almost everything you might need. For more exotic things or more choices, a 20-minute bus ride into Bucerias to the Mega, Chedraui, or the fancier La Comer was an easy trip.
• In tiny towns like San Evaristo and Agua Verde, we were able to get the basics like potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and sometimes fruit (plus an endless selection of packaged cookies and chips).
• All grocery stores had a selection of lactose free milk, UHT milk, and powdered milk, which made my digestive system very happy.
• I was disappointed with the selection of cheeses available, as most are soft and not to my liking. Sharp cheddar was hard to come by and became one of the things I missed most.