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| We’re squirreling away nuts from the commissary already for our provisioning. |
Nuts!
Cruising provisioning confession time.
Yeah yeah, I wasn’t going to be one of those cruisers who complained about not being to eat the same stuff I ate in the United States. But last year, cruising the BAHAMAS, we whined about paying $6-8 for bags of Fritos when we paid $3 for the same thing in the U.S.
And nuts. We bought whole lotta nuts in the U.S. before we left; for the most part at very reasonable prices at JAX NAS — a huge naval commissary. We ran out a couple months before our cruising ended. We alternately lamented over their untimely absence opened our wallets twice as wide as we normally would for, ironically, peanuts.
Part of our over-reliance on Fritos and nuts are because thanks to our need to stick to a gluten free diet, much of the native fare was off limits, especially when it comes to crunchy food.
As far as we’re concerned, the basic cruiser food groups consist of
- salty/crunchy
- chocolately
- bready and
- boozy
Okay, it’s not really that bad, but….
- In hot climates we are thirsty a lot and plain water gets kinda boring. Beer, for the uninitiated to gluten-free food, is off limits.
- While we’re getting rocked sailing, the ease of hand-food is preferred, as opposed to eating two-handed with silverware off a sliding plate. PBJ (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches), our old cruising standby, isn’t the same on gluten-free rice crackers, flax seed or corn tortilla rollups.
- If we’re a ways between landfall and grocery stores or open air markets. we rely more on non-perishable food.
- When it’s humid and in the mid 80s or 90s, it’s better not to heat the boat up to cook.
- hummus — sometimes even home-made from dried chick peas, using veggies for dipping
- tuna salad
- fresh veg and fruit whenever we can
- lots of water
- and… nuts
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| Panama to Marquesas is over 3,000 nautical miles – about a month of open water sailing. Careful cruising provisioning is key. Image courtesy of www.svquest.com/ChartsAndMaps.htm. |
We left the west coast of Mexico in 2011 and have covered over 20.000 miles since then spending close to a year in Fiji and now close to a year in Malaysia(just outside of Singapore). Lots of ups and downs but lots of fun. Get an address book and write down all the friends name you meet and it will make it easier when you run into them again and again. We met a couple in Nanaimo Harbor up in Canada and saw them over and over as we made our way across the Pacific.
Thanks, Zephyr for the hi-howareya and the suggestions. Great idea on the address book – mostly we do it with boat cards — added a decent photo of us on ours for that reason. Hope we meet – we are headed your way and seems your cruising timeline is longer than ours so we may well catch up! That would be cool!
The only thing I can think of right now is what I just posted over at Sundowner. Meclizine 25mg for sea sickness (really nothing more than motion sickness). You can buy as Bonine and get like 8 tabs for ten dollars. Instead just talk to your local PharmD. I got a bottle of 100 generic for about 7 or 8 dollars. Won't cause as much drowsiness as some of the other medications. It works well.
I always forget to add Ken and Debra.
Thanks Ken & Debra. I've had mixed results with Bonine, maybe I just wait too long to take it. FYI – trying out an iPhone app, Nevasic this time out. It's music that supposedly reprograms the area of the brain that is responsible for seasickness. BTW – where are you two now?
We are currently living in the northern Texas hill country. Due to health reasons we are planning to re-locate to eastern Oklahoma to be closer to family. I have end stage heart disease and have……some limitations. Ken
Ken
Very sorry to hear about your health though glad to hear you'll be closer to family. I hope you'll fare as well as my now 90 year old dad who's be steadily regaining even though his heart's in poor shape and he has diabetes, too. Regardless, take care.
Two nuts left a bar. One was a salted.
Sorry, had to be said
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-TCvaNuKNQ
Thanks Paul! Great guffaws over that classic YouTube clip. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that on the post?