Preparing For The Exumas

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menzies

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Joined
May 11, 2014
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Vessel Name
SONAS
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Grand Alaskan 53
Written with friends and family in mind, so will be light on the saltiness!

First up, the missus getting her head around provisioning the galley for three months!

Preparing For The Exumas – Part 1 | AtAnchor.com

Next, me on safety preparations.
 
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This will be an enjoyable follow!! Sharing from the get go as you are will allow like minded forum members to have an invented wheel to mimic or build on. Great idea to share. Thank you Menzies

Al-Ketchikan
 
How exciting! Excellent trip! How much are the entrance fees now? Years ago it was about 150.00 and you could come and go for a year! I'm sure that has changed significantly.
 
300 for our boat, still 150 for boats under 35'.
 
Totally surprising that the fee has not gone up in 14 years. My boat size increased though! LOL! 300.00 still isn't bad.
 
If I remember correctly, the PR storm they received when they took that last, pretty big, increase, was substantial.I would imagine they will think twice about any future increases!
 
Menzies, don't forget to get enough variety in your diet. You can do this by a rotation system of cracked conch, conch salad, conch fritters, conch ceviche, conch omelettes and I'm sure you will figure out other ways to serve conch.

Have a great cruise on that beautiful boat.:thumb:
 
When we provisioned for 2-3 months in the Abacos some years ago, we made some good choices and some not so good choices:

Good
1. Filled the freezer with meat
2. Loaded up the bilge with rum punch mixers- the mixer was three times the price of the rum (<$10/bottle) in the Bahamas. If you are a beer drinker, Kalik is good, but a bit pricy.

Not so good
1. Canned stew, vegetibles, etc- never ate any. Threw it all away several years later.

David
 
We ate a lot of black beans with rice and fish. Down there called peas and rice. One time only caught some grunts. Grunts are awesome with beans and rice, just annoying little bones.

Plenty of time to cook stuff, take your time.
 
Our keys to provisioning for long cruises.

1. Have a long and detailed list of all items used on the boat. Otherwise, you overlook something small but really needed. You run out of salt or short on shampoo or find you have no Neosporin along the way. Don't overlook medical and first aid items.

2. Determine storage requirements for the various items, type of storage needed that is, and the ability to replenish along the way.

3. Minimize the space requirements of each item needed.

We vacuum seal all meats. Outside of fish we don't depend on purchasing meats anywhere out of the country. Meats are the freezer number one priority. Once beyond meats then you see what space for vegetables. I know the mention of canned vegetables brings many severe pain, but if all your frozen vegetables won't fit, then canned is the only choice.

Don't overlook any storage possibilities. The spaces least used and often overlooked are the key spaces for long cruises.

Figure out what items are available on the cruise and where and at what prices. You may even find it makes sense to fly certain items in, even though cost penalties to it.

For food, do menu planning, complete menus. Make sure you look at all meals. However, also recognize that whether you or others catch them, fresh fish can be found along the way and that you will eat out some. At first, that's one of the hardest things to judge, how many times will we actually eat on the boat.

Don't overlook snacks. Find snacks that can survive than length of time. Three months is a long time for many snack items.

Evaluate things that are especially space hogs. A huge one for us is ice cream. We can't take a gallon of every flavor we like. I can get about 10 vacuum sealed steaks in the freezer space, one half gallon of ice cream takes.

Don't overlook leftovers. Keep in mind that some of the "meals" will actually suffice for two meals or more, that when you cook this roast today, that takes care of 4 meals in total.

As posted on the OP's blog, no cardboard. Nothing that requires extra space.

Keep a list of what you take and where you put it all. Nothing worse than "I know I bought it and put it somewhere, but have no idea where it is." Cans of food fit in places that nothing else you have will fit, places not really good for normal storage. We use tons of suntan lotion. The tubes will fit most anywhere imaginable. We do put them in plastic storage bags though as accidents can be messy.

Use trays and plastic containers and other storage devices. Amazing how much will fit under a bathroom sink if it's packed several levels and fixed to prevent any of it rolling around.

Ultimately most boats have far more storage space than we think. The only issues we've ever had were with storage of perishables. Freezer space is the real issue.
 
Remember that Bahamamians eat to. :) Fresh stuff usually gets delivered weekly. Staniel Cay and Georgetown are pretty good with multiple choices. We tend to bring the comfort foods, frozen meat/chicken, beer/wine and toiletries. We don't really do cans at home and haven't found we've had to in the Bahamas. We've found our diet does change but it's all good. Remember, don't have too much fun. :thumb:
 
Kalik beer is pretty good over there. That's my only contribution !
[emoji23]
 
Take lots of paper products. Expensive there.
 
I drank so many I don't remember the price.

It was a little embarrassing carrying our supplies out to the charter boat-- a Great Harbour N37. I really didn't have the experience to charter the boat but kind of talked my way into it. Then the charter manager (Eric Craft) watched me carry case after case of beer to the boat, along with lots of rum, and I thought I had blown it. But he was cool-- had probably seen it hundreds of time.
 
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Vacuum seal everything and I mean every thing .Purchase frozen vegetables and re package in vacuum seal bag they take up 1/3 the space .Biscuits vacuum sealed take 1/3 the space and so on .Most grocery's are packaged so they look big just a marketing ploy. Wrapping fruit and vegetables in Aluminum foil this extends there life have no idea why but it dose .
 
Vacuum seal everything and I mean every thing .Purchase frozen vegetables and re package in vacuum seal bag they take up 1/3 the space .Biscuits vacuum sealed take 1/3 the space and so on .Most grocery's are packaged so they look big just a marketing ploy. Wrapping fruit and vegetables in Aluminum foil this extends there life have no idea why but it dose .

We vacuum seal all the foods you mentioned, we bag and seal extra toiletries so we can store them in strange ways or places, and we seal a lot of parts and accessories.

We also vacuum seal, in the large Ziploc bags using a vacuum, things like sweaters, blankets, and other extras that may not be needed so are stored. Items like sweaters will take less than half the space when vacuum sealed.
 
I have a sort of slightly off-topic question. The name...where does it come from, as it brings forth visions of folk digging up bodies buried in the sand...:eek::nonono:
 
The Exuma Guide by Stephen Pavlidis: "The Exumas have had many names. The first map of the new world, produced by Juan de la Casa in 1500, showed the Exumas with the name Yumey. The Turin map of of 1523, showed the Exuma Cays as little more than rocky blobs called Suma. These names were further corrupted to Xuma by 1741 and I Cumey by1804."
 
I love the Keys for spending time in the tropics. My idea of a tropical cruise does not include frozen meat and canned goods.
IMHO
 
I love the Keys for spending time in the tropics. My idea of a tropical cruise does not include frozen meat and canned goods.
IMHO

Then does it include restaurants or no meat other than fish or?

The Florida Keys are easy with groceries and restaurants. Other enjoyable places are not. The Exumas certainly aren't and I'd hate to miss out on them because I didn't like frozen meat. We've found that vacuum sealed meat will thaw and taste as fresh as it was when frozen. We're leaving the country tomorrow and returning February 28. We will about half our meals in restaurants and half on the boat. We will be able to replenish produce regularly along the way so it's no problem, but finding quality beef equal to that we'll take with us isn't something likely possible. In the Exumas where the OP is going it definitely isn't going to happen.
 

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