By Richard Hicks, from Cardiff, CA
Let’s say you’ve talked a half-dozen friends into
joining you for a weeklong charter in one of those tropical
paradises that we’ve all dreamed about sailing in—the
Caribbean, the South Pacific, the Sea of Cortez. Now you’re
into planning the trip and you realize that at least three times
a day, you’re also going to have to feed them. How are you
going to do that? For most of us who have chartered sailboats,
the meals on board are an important part of the experience. For
some people, food may be right up there with cracking nine knots
on a beam reach from St. Barts to St. Kitts, snorkeling with sea
lions in the islands off La Paz, or skinny dipping off the boat
on a full-moon night in the lagoon at Bora Bora (to name a few
of my favorite things.)
Just as it takes careful planning to make the sailing experience
safe and fun, you need to spend time in advance of your charter,
planning your meals, preparing a shopping list, locating local
markets , and assigning galley duties for your crew. I’ve
been bareboat chartering in tropical waters for the last eighteen
years, and with each trip the time spent in buying food and cooking
decreased, the work was more evenly distributed among the crew,
and the meals were better—tastier and healthier. The key
is planning. But before you decide to provision your own boat,
you should at least consider one alternative.
Letting The Charter Company Provision Your Boat
And why not? It’s certainly easier than doing it yourself.
Most charter companies offer to provision your boat for a fee.
Some offer a variety of plans: Full provisioning, where they will
stock the boat with all the food you need for every meal on every
day. Or “split” provisioning, where they will provide
breakfasts and lunches, but only two or three dinners, so you can
sample the local cuisine at restaurants along the way.
In my early
days of chartering, you had to take whatever food the charter company
provided. But as people have become more health conscious and demanding,
the charter companies have become more flexible. Some now provide “healthy” alternative
or “personalized” provisioning where you are given
a list of food items from which to select the food you’d
like on board. If the charter company provisions your boat, they
will deliver all the food to your boat, and will often have the
galley, including the refrigerator and freezer, fully stocked so
that all you have to do is check over what they have provided,
and sail away.
If this is your first bareboat charter, it may very
well be a good idea to have the charter company provision your
boat. The first day of your charter is going to be very busy. You’ll
have to attend a chart briefing, and a boat briefing, which can
take several hours. And, lest we forget, this is your first bareboat
charter for a week or more on a boat you’ve never sailed
in a location you may never have sailed in. You’re more than
a little preoccupied—and, let’s admit it, you’re
nervous. About navigation. About anchoring. About your ability
to handle the boat. You need to give your crew a safety briefing
and explain to the newcomers how to use a marine head without blocking
it up, (because you are not going to unblock it, and it will cost
$100 if the charter company fixes the problem.) Given all you have
to do and think about, do you really want to provision your own
boat?
Another factor to consider, whether this is your first charter
or not, is the availability of provisions. If you’re sailing
out of the U.S. or British Virgin Islands, you can fully provision
your boat from markets near the marina that will remind you of
the supermarkets you shop at in your home town (except for the
prices, of course – island food is never as cheap as mainland
food.)
On the other hand, if you’re sailing in a remote location
(Belize, Tonga and Tahiti come to mind; but there are other islands
in the Caribbean that have limited shopping opportunities), getting
all the food you need (much less what you want), may prove challenging.
In Tonga there was no “food” market. We purchased vegetables
from an open farmers’ market, bread from a bakery, and wandered
around town looking for fish (the fish store didn’t have
any). Having your charter company provision your boat in these
remote locations is a good idea, unless you really like the challenge
and, have brought some food with you.
Provisioning Your Boat Yourself
There are basically two reasons to provision your own boat: (1)
you can select exactly the food you want, and (2) it’s cheaper.
Let’s take a look at costs first. Depending on your charter
destination, a charter company will usually charge anywhere from
$25 to $45 a day per person to provision your boat. From my experience
in provisioning my own boats, I can usually bring down the cost
to under $15.00 a day. This, of course, does not count the cost
of booze. While saving $70.00 or more, per person, for a one-week
charter may not seem that great a savings , it can make a big difference
for those on a tight budget. Hey, it will buy a couple of dinners
on shore, or a case or two of beer (in some places).
Frankly, the
cost factor, while important, is not the reason why I have gone
exclusively to provisioning my own boats. In fact, the first time
my sailing buddy suggested it, I was opposed to the idea—it
just seemed like too much work. But after one trip, I was a convert.
I found I really valued the ability to plan my menus ahead of time,
with input from my crew as to their food preferences. As I said,
the key to making it work is planning.
Research Local Restaurants and Markets
Before you can create a provisioning plan you’ll need to
know what food markets are available near the marina and if there
will be restaurants available along the way. In some remote locations
you may not have many opportunities to eat ashore. On a recent
week-long charter out of La Paz in Baja California there were no
restaurants or markets available for the entire week; we ate what
we had on board. In other locations, eating ashore is part of the
experience, and in some you can eat at a different restaurant every
night. They have great French food in Martinique, St. Martin, and
Tahiti, and you’d certainly want to sample the roti or conch
fritters in the Caribbean.
If you are the charter captain, you
should have prepared a tentative sail plan long in advance of your
charter. With the aid of a good cruising guide (or the help of
your charter company) you can determine in advance the dining possibilities
at each of your projected anchorages. Of course your sail plan
may change based on weather, emergencies, a busted boat or the
whim of the captain, but your food plan will be flexible enough
to deal with these contingencies.
Let’s say you’ve
decided to eat three dinners ashore, and the rest of your meals
on board. Before you actually prepare your menu, you should investigate
what food shopping possibilities exist near your charter base.
Are there markets? Are there specialty stores, such as bakeries,
fish markets, farmers’ markets, beverage stores, etc? And
most importantly, how far are they from the marina?
Where can you
find this information? Your cruising guide may contain a list of
markets or even advertisements that have phone, fax and internet
contact information. Or, you may be able to locate markets by an
internet search. Sometimes you won’t find a food market,
but you may find a local business. They have to eat, so contact
them and find out where they do their shopping. In a small community,
they’ll probably be able to put you in contact with the store
manager or supply you with the local phone number.
I usually try
and call a store manager in advance, tell him my plans, and ask
if their market can supply the basic foods I’ll
be purchasing: dairy, meat, fruits, vegetables and staples. He
may tell you he needs a week lead-time to make sure he has those
rib eye steaks you’re going to want. What are the markets
hours of operation, and are they even open on the day you intend
to do your shopping? (Don’t plan on doing any shopping on
Sunday in Tonga!
There are some locations, like the U.S. and British Virgin
Islands, where pleasure boating is so much a part of the economy,
that the
local markets will offer their
own provisioning plans, or have designated one person to be in charge of provisioning
yachts. You can download their lists of food (which include quantities and prices),
make your selection, and email or fax a provisioning list to them. And, they
may even offer you a discount— particularly if you’re organizing
a flotilla of boats (i.e. more then one boat).
On a recent trip to the BVI I
prepared a detailed shopping list (with some explicit instructions and comments
on what I wanted in terms of quantities, brands, quality, etc.) and faxed it
to a local market, with a request that they let me know if there were items
they didn’t think they could supply. I got a prompt response back, and made
arrangements for delivery to my boat at no extra charge. The food arrived on
time, they took my credit card for payment, and after checking the inventory
and storing the food aboard, I was ready to go.
You’re not going to have
this experience in many locations. So you will have to actually visit the markets
you’ve located and make your own selections, then arrange to have the food
brought (sometimes by taxi, sometimes by truck, sometimes in a market basket)
to your boat. Since the captain and first mate are usually busy on the morning
of your first charter day, I usually delegate the actual shopping to crew members.
To simplify their job I prepare a detailed shopping list organized by category
(dairy, meat, etc.). I cut the list into manageable sections, so that crew members
can divide the list among themselves, thus minimizing the shopping time in the
market. This takes some trust on your part, and if you’re unwilling to
let go of this responsibility, you’ll undoubtedly spend more time at the
dock, when you should be out sailing. It’s an adventure, right? So be a
little adventurous.
Preparing a Menu
After you’ve scoped out markets and restaurants, you will
need to prepare a menu — breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks—and
indicate which meals on each day of your charter (based on your
sail plan) you think you’ll be eating ashore. In preparing
a menu the food should be good tasting and plentiful, reasonably
healthy, available and easy to find, easy to keep fresh in the
boat’s refrigeration system, and—most importantly—simple
and easy to prepare. If you should be so lucky as to have a gourmet
cook on board who wants to slave over fancy meals in a tight cooking
environment, with limited utensils, well, let them go for the Beef
Wellington or coq a vin. Personally, I’m happy to have a
good steak or piece of fish grilled on the barbecue, with potatoes
or rice, green salad, and frozen strawberry cheesecake.
It’s
important to send the proposed menu to your crew and get their
input. In most cases you’ll get back a cryptic response:
"Sounds great. Can’t wait to go sailing?" But there
may be people who have dietary restrictions, (diabetics or lactose
intolerant,
for example), and you want to know that so you can accommodate
their special needs. I encourage my crew to let me know their preferences.
Would they prefer light breakfasts—cereal or yogurt—rather
then pancakes, French toast, or egg burritos? The bottom line is
that food is one of those very personal and subjective choices,
and you’ll need to take that into account in arriving at
a menu that will serve your boat and the people on it. And that,
of course, is a principal advantage of doing your own provisioning.
Bringing Food From Home
The key to keeping down the cost of your food and having what
you want, is to bring some of the non-perishable items from home.
We typically fill two large boxes. (I use the heavy-duty Rubbermaid
boxes that can be locked, available in many sporting good stores.)
Of course, you have to meet the airline size and weight allowances,
and may have to distribute the boxes among crew members for your
flight. So don’t buy heavy items that you can probably find
in a local market, like bottles of pasta sauce or canned vegetables.
On the other hand, you may want to bring that bottle of Greek olives,
or “real maple syrup,” that you’re not going
to find in a fishing village in Belize.
If you do bring food from
home it’s important to prepare an inventory of each box you’ll
be checking in at the airport. I usually put one list inside the
box, to assist the airport inspectors. And I keep one with me so
I can show it to customs officers, if requested, or even, more
importantly, use to repurchase food if the box is permanently lost
by the airlines. (It happens, right?)
Storage Suggestions
Depending on what boat you’ve chartered—catamarans
offer more space than monohulls — you won’t have a
lot of cupboards in which to store your food. Find a place on board — in
a lazarette or under a seat—to store bottled water, drinks
and the canned and packaged items you’ll only need to get
to occasionally. And keep the items you use frequently—coffee,
sugar, spices, condiments—in one of the small
cupboards in the galley.
Perishables will present the biggest challenge.
You’re going to find that your freezer and refrigerator are
probably too small for all the items you might store in them at
home. So look for ways to minimize what you have to refrigerate.
For example, buy milk that doesn’t have to be refrigerated
until it’s opened. Buy canned (not frozen or refrigerated)
fruit juices, and only refrigerate what you need each day. If you
can buy eggs that haven’t already been refrigerated, they
will keep without refrigeration for at least a week—just
turn the cartons over each day. Many hard fruits (apples and oranges)
and vegetables (potatoes and onions) don’t need to be refrigerated.
Another problem is that once you load your perishable food into
the black hole of your freezer or refrigerator, you’ll have
difficulty finding anything. To solve this problem, I buy white
net bags used for washing lingerie in washing machines, which have
zippers. I put all my deli meats in one, all my cheese and butter,
or yogurt in another, all my tomatoes, lettuce, etc. in their own
bags. It’s a lot easier to pull two or three bags out of
the refrigerator until you find the right one, and you’ll
keep down the frustration level of your galley workers.
Supervising the Galley
Before each trip I prepare a list of galley assignments for each
day: Cook, cooks helper and two people for cleanup. I send it to
my crew and tell them they can swap jobs if they are not comfortable,
for example, in acting as the dinner cook. Even though the galley
jobs may be spread around, either you or someone on your boat needs
to supervise and oversee the galley at all times. This means offering
help to inexperienced cooks or, in some cases, taking on the preparation
of the more difficult meals, and monitoring the refrigerator and
freezer to make sure that they are doing the job.
If all of this
sounds like too much work, and money is no object, you can always
take the easy way out and hire a cook! Yes, for a fee ($150 to
$200 a day), your charter company will put a cook on board your
boat. You can focus on the important stuff: navigation, anchoring,
snorkeling, kayaking, and mixing the perfect rum punch at the
end of the day.
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