Going Off the Grid - Part 2 Guilty Pleasures: Nuts! (Cruising Provisioning)

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.

We do eat some healthy food underway, especially

• 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

The BAHAMAS fare was not that exciting from a culinary perspective.  The Galley Wench is curious to explore exotic new edibles; 

It will interesting to see what we encounter provisioning in Panama, in preparation for our month-long sail between landfall.  We're looking forward to French Polynesia, reuniting with our old gourmet friends Carrefour and Leader Price.  Rumor has it the produce through much our our route is plentiful.  We're also gearing up to catch more fish -- wish us luck on that please!  

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.

Meanwhile, we're stocking up on gluten-free ingredients and nuts and Fritos.  Our bag of nuts runneth over -- literally - the bottom burst out of our stash bag.  We just need to continue to squirrel more away for provisioning and not eat into our supply before we go (we lacked sufficient restraint in that department last year).

What would you want to make sure you bring along if it wasn't available or too hideously expensive for two years?

Location Location

Temporarily land bound in Jacksonville, FL, USA.  Journey’s on the hard in Green Cove Springs (N29.58.9 W81.38.8) until hurricane season ends in November.  Then we'll finish up our pre-cruising provisioning, boat maintenance, repairs and upgrades and set sail for the South Pacific, through the Panama Canal.  Target date to set sail?  December "something" 2014.