THE ART OF PROVISIONING
Traveling for over 8 weeks in the Bahamas with limited storage is sometimes a challenge. Know your space, have a list that you don't deviate from, and give yourself enough time prior to your departure. Some people feel that beer and soda is a must have on their list, but the real must have in the Islands is WATER!!!! It's expensive and is something you should have stocked up on anyway. Some boats have awesome water makers with good filters, but if you don't, bring as much water as you can. Of course, the Captain and crew do need a hefty stash of American beer and rum, so this is what the rest of the boat is filled with. Once down in the Bahamas, especially the Out Islands, stores are hard to come by. A case of Kalik will run you $54 and a case of water is $20, so once again, bring as much as you can. As for food, we opted to bring a bulk supply of Mary Janes Farm Organic dehydrated food. Eggs, Mashed potatoes, fiesta rice, black beans and rice are all awesome with the fish you catch and the eggs don't take up needed refrigerator space. These don't take up very much room, last a while and taste great. You will have to order Mary Jane's online, as buying them in the store will only have single servings and can be very costly in their Outpost packaging. I do recommend the Outpost packages for backpacking, canoe, and camping trips. You don't need plates, just add hot water. You can burn in the rest in the fire or the packaging can easily be packed out.
Produce...this is hard to come by on some islands as well. The islands are barren and most of them don't have fresh water, the water is saltwater with desalinization, so growing is sometimes a challenge. Our fridge starts out being filled with produce and milk. Frozen veggies are the way to go and fruit if you are making smoothies. We freeze our meats we would like to bring as well. Pre-made breakfast burritos and lunch sandwiches are a really nice treat to have when you are under way and the seas aren't so calm. We freeze these and bring them out as needed.
Besides food and beverages, the most important part of provisioning is boat PARTS!!! Seasoned boaters who have been left sitting on an island waiting for their part to maybe show up know this. It only takes one time of going through this experience to start this habit, but for those of you who have not had this happen, do yourself a favor and bring all the extra parts you can possibly think of. All generator parts and housings, extra impellers, switches, fuses, oil, etc...I do recommend having all manuals on board since downloading these may be difficult and you are way out in some marina. On top of that, the one Bahamian who can assist you also works on five other islands and may not be there the day you need the help, so get to know your boat and manual as well. A good mechanic will also teach you these things at home, but unfortunately you have to go through four bad ones to find the good one. Sorry to all of you anti-manual hoarders out there, this is one place you need all of them saved since you may be the only mechanic out there to troubleshoot.
Tackle...we'll have to get to that one later. That's a whole other giant list to discuss. This is my experience with provisioning and I can write for days...years...about it. I would like to get a list of everyone's provisions. I know there are some great hacks out there, so message me and let me know your favorites. Back to the beginning...GIVE YOURSELF ENOUGH TIME and BRING THE DAMN PARTS!!!
