The Art of Provisioning
Provisioning: The art of identifying everything one needs to take aboard one’s boat when embarking on a trip across the seas where restocking or replacing is assumed to be nigh on impossible. This is a task of balance and compromise. One carefully considers everything one thinks one might need against the limited storage space one has aboard one’s boat. There is nothing haphazard about provisioning for a blue water cruise to remote places. For both The Captain and The First Mate, this provisioning began many months ago, long before our arrival in Puerto Vallarta this February. In many ways, the last 4 years of sailing from San Diego north to Alaska and then south to Mexico have been training for this voyage. So much of what we have done and learned, changed and re-changed, has been done with setting across the Pacific in the back of our minds. In the process, lists have been made. As our departure date approaches, every possible contingency we can think of has been ruminated upon with frequent changes being made to those lists.
The Captain has created a number of spreadsheets to analyze the amount of fuel we use to both motor the boat and to generate the electricity we need to run our self-contained world. Avante only carries 95 gallons of fuel in her two main tanks. This will not be enough. We have added 6 large 50-litre plastic containers for extra fuel, 2 of which will wedge snugly in the cockpit once out to sea. The remaining 4 will be stored in the lazarettes. For the 3,000 nautical mile crossing from Galapagos to the Marquesas, most of our fuel will go to power the generator whose prime job is to charge the batteries for our electrical needs. Not only does electricity supply power for the autopilot and navigation equipment, it feeds a very hungry freezer and refrigeration system and does such simple things as flush our vacu-flush toilets, keep our fans rotating and lights shining. The Captain decides to base his computations on a possible lengthy 25-day crossing. After allocating the amount of fuel required by the generator to charge up our batteries for this time, we will only have enough fuel remaining to run the engine about 70 hours or a mere 500 miles of this 3,000-mile trip. Obviously, power for the batteries is far more important than power to motor across the waters. We plan to sail with the trade winds and refuse to think of drifting aimlessly if the winds don’t blow. This is a sail boat on a sailing venture after all!
We arrive in Puerto Vallarta with a little more than 3 weeks in which to do the final preparations. We feel we have allowed enough time, but have we? The First Mate spends the first week buying and storing as many of the non-perishable items as possible, but it seems to her that her lists keep growing, rather than diminishing. We must provision for more than just the first leg of the trip from Mexico to the Galapagos. Word filters down to us that the more remote Pacific islands are experiencing a reduced number of supply ships this year. Cruisers should not count on any major provisioning stops until Tahiti and are told that purchasing goods in a small island store is not helping the economy as we had thought. In truth, it is limiting the supplies that the islanders themselves have. Thus, instead of a mere 5 – 6 weeks of food on board, she is looking at 10 or more weeks of grub for herself and the 2 other souls who will be looking to her for sustenance. This adds a whole new dimension to “menu planning”!
Added to all these calculations is the possibility that the refrigeration system could fail at some point on this passage. Granted it is a remote possibility, but she has to plan for it. She decides that a 2-week supply of dried and canned foods should be enough to sustain us until we get to a port with some kind of food.
She invites Cindy Everett from Salacia and their crew member, Dian Jones, to join her on a trip to Costco. Yes, there is a Costco in Puerto Vallarta, but there is no Costco in Australia from whence Cindy and Dian hail. Salacia is another J/160 that will be following our same route to the Pacific and on to its new home in Australia. Their departure date is approximately 3 weeks after ours. Thus, they, too, need to get into the “art of provisioning”.
We walk into a typical cavernous Costco warehouse of a store. Cindy and Dian stop and stare. They have never seen anything like this! The First Mate grabs a Costco cart, one big enough to wheel a small elephant, and tells them to do the same. At first they decline and say they will just walk around with her, but she stresses their need for a cart. Okay, they will share a cart on their stroll through Costco. “Follow me!” The First Mate says, and off we go! At first they stay by her side as she puts item after item into her cart, methodically crossing each added item off her list. Then something catches their attention, and they detour down an aisle. Figuring that they might feel freer on their own, she continues on her own crusade down a different aisle. About half an hour later we meet up. Their cart is piled high! Is any Costco shopper out there surprised? Enthusiastically, she us told what a fantastic place this Costco is!
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As we head to the cashiers, Cindy remembers something else she had seen. The First Mate suggests that she take another cart back into the bowels of the store while Dian waits with the 2 carts. This time one is grabbed with alacrity. Dian stays behind, while we head back down the rows. A half full cart later, we are in the cashier line. On the way out, we look at our carts and remember the compact car in which we arrived. Squeezing everything into the car looks daunting at first, but “where there’s a will, there’s a way”, and where there’s a woman (3 in this case), it will get done!
All is not work aboard Avante. With Steven and Cindy Everett on their J/160 Salacia preparing for the same exciting passage, there is a lot of exchanges of information and questions going back and forth. Cindy, a consummate sailor, has been a source of invaluable knowledge to The First Mate. How she wishes we were all going to be traveling these seas together, but our schedules do not mesh. With their crew, Dian and Ross Jones and Ron Pilgrim, we share dinners and fun times in between all the work. It is an exciting time for all of us as we plan this voyage across the great Pacific Ocean.
The second week after our arrival is occupied with visits from sons, David and Eric. We use this breather from shopping to sail and test the systems on Avante. While we all have a wonderful time together sailing (the prime objective), we are pleased that all systems are “go” on Avante. Sadly, we see our boys off wishing they could join us on this journey, but not many 30+ year-olds can just take a year or so off to sail the world no matter how much they might wish to do so.
The final week before departure: We hoped to have everything under control enough to head up into the mountains for a relaxed bit of touring. No such touring happens, for we are still into shopping and preparing food for passage. Perishable goods are now brought on board. Vacu-sealed, frozen meat from a wonderful store called Carne del Mundo is sequestered in the freezer. A further trip to Costco adds more. The First Mate makes and freezes basil and cilantro pesto for that almost-fresh taste when the fresh herbs are no longer available. She experiments with freezing par-boiled carrots and string beans. She makes barbecued ribs and a few other sundry items.
Every item brought on the boat is added onto her spreadsheets. As she squirrels away more and more in the many hidey-holes in the boat, she realizes that she must make separate lists of what is in the more unreachable nooks. It’s one thing to pull out and access these difficult storage areas to retrieve an item. It is another thing all together to go through that effort in hopes that the item is there. Finding that the item is not where one hopes entails further searching of more inaccessible areas. All of which can result in hair-pulling, tearful frustration. More lists are made. This provisioning has taken on a life of its own!
The Captain swings into gear with his final provisioning of liquor, wine and other stuff. The First Mate discovers an unused, empty lower cabinet. Unbelieveable! Ten bottles of wine go in there. The port aft cabin is going to be used for light-weight bulky storage. A cello-wrapped container of 32 rolls of toilet paper gets wedged in there. Next, a 10-roll package of blue shop towels from Costco is squeezed. Somewhere room for a styrofoam cooler is found.
Little things are thought of which necessitate another store trip which unfailingly brings on more items. This takes time as a one-stop shopping trip in Mexico is something not to even be considered. Just because you saw a certain item in a certain store last week does not mean that it will be there today. A simple trip to the store for a few items often turns into a frustrating search of three or more stores. As carloads of items disappear into the boat, we seem to have more room than we thought. More is brought on. Additional bottles of wine are bought, wrapped and stowed. Another 10 rolls of towels, more toilet paper. Do we have a “bathroom” problem? No, not that! Our problem is that we have allowed ourselves too much time to provision. The Captain defines provisioning as running from store to store until either the store shelves are empty, one is out of money, or the boat has settled a foot deeper into the water. We need to get out of here before we sink the ship!
How many remember back to the 1950’s in the US when people were building and stocking their own private bomb shelters? Well, that’s what’s going on aboard Avante, but somehow our methodical, reasoned, researched system of “prepare for the worst and pragmatically stock” has run amuck and gone into over-drive. We are stocked to the gunnels; yet one or both of us keeps coming up with one little item more. It will fit. If he can’t find a spot, she will. What a team!
We now have enough stuff to sail all the way to New Zealand and beyond! Forecasting every possible contingency, The First Mate has everything imaginable, she hopes. If the refrigeration fails or the voyage takes double the estimated time due to lack of wind, there’s freeze-dried peas and corn and REI back-packers meals. There’s even a packet of texturized soy protein. That this packet of scrunched up styrofoam could possibly be food is beyond her understanding, but she does have directions for its preparation. Since dried peas and texturized soy protein are items The First Mate would never use except in dire circumstances, several packages of duck confit and a can of escargots are tucked away for special times. We run the gamut on Avante, but WE ARE PREPARED!
Thursday, March 18th – Jim Knutson, our sailing friend and crew member, arrives little suspecting the frenzied activity he has missed.
Friday, March 19th – The Captain goes through the Mexican bureaucratic intricacies of obtaining the ZARPE, a document necessary for entry into the next country, for it shows that we have legally left the previous country with no debt, scandal or licentiousness and with all pages of our passports, blank or otherwise, dutifully copied for them.
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Saturday, March 20th – We sail out of Paradise Village Marina with the rising tide. We swing into La Cruz Marina for fuel which allows The First Mate to run ashore to the local fish market for a final (honest!) provisioning. A kilo of shrimp and 3 Sea Bass for our trip south to Manzanillo are pushed into the refrigerator. We are off — at last!
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Avante is full of diesel, water, propane, spare parts and food. The Captain had the boat bottom cleaned the day before our departure, and to our delight, Avante races across the bay, slicing through the water like an arrow, totally unaware of the fact that her owners have her stuffed like a pig — but then look how fast a whale can go. Maybe that is why they accompany us on our last trip out of Banderas Bay.