Provision Planning

It took five days to shop and stock up all the packaged, canned, and dried food on the boat. In order to keep track of the provision list, I created a Microsoft Access database. At first, I thought about using Microsoft Excel but I realized Access database is much better to get queries. I love Microsoft Office Products, they are so versatile.

There are more than 100 food related items and about 50 little storage locations on the boat. Knowing what food is where and getting out an item, can be sometimes a suicidal task, especially when the ocean is not calm. My shopping list includes 30 pounds of dry cat food and 200 pounds of cat litter. Our three cats eat about 10 pounds of cat food and use about 25 pounds of cat litter per month. Ironically, cat litter doesn’t exist on some of the Islands. Or, we have to hunt for the cat litter (sand doesn’t work for us as it will scratch up the varnished teak and holly cabin floor!). Our next big shopping location will be Puerto Rico (Rich Port).

The main reason for all this provisioning is to enjoy not only surviving but also eating economically and nutritionally. In my experiences, grocery prices in the US is the best. In addition, where else can I get ‘Cranberry Sauce’ (for Thanksgiving) and ‘Sauerkraut’ (my favorite instead of Kimchee) on the islands? John kept saying that he would be happy just eating canned tuna, canned chicken, canned Hearty soup COLD. We got lots of those also.

While shopping, re-labeling each (in case cans get rusty), and stocking them on the boat, I kept thinking… ‘People on the islands eat TOO!!!