Provisioning Tricks and Tools

Provisioning for a longer trip is always an interesting task on a boat.  Having to plan what to cook for an extended period of time, how much to purchase, and how to store the provisions are tasks that anyone cruising on a boat must tackle (unless you are lucky enough to be anchored somewhere that has a boat "drive up" or delivery service like Pizza Pi).  In this time of COVID19 restrictions, even though many are not actively cruising, longer term provisioning is a similar task for anyone that doesn't want to visit a grocery store often regardless of if they are living on a boat or on land.  But where do you start.

My galley...which never looks this clean.

Unless you are one of those rare people that could appear on the food show "Chopped" where people whip up decent meals from random ingredients, you will probably need some recipes.  The old school card catalogs, recipe binders and books are one way to have recipes handy, but they can take up a lot of valuable space on a boat, are subject to water damage, and require a lot of manual work for  planning and provisioning.  One tool I have found helpful is a recipe app for my smart phone and tablet.  While electronics are still susceptible to water damage, having the data stored on multiple devices and taking some precautions to protect them will help ensure they are available when you need them.

In addition to storing the recipes, these apps can often help with meal planning and creating shopping lists to simplify provisioning tasks.  I originally started using an app called Pepperplate and found it to be adequate, if a bit glitchy at times.  Unfortunately, just as we were preparing for the Bahamas trip, the makers of Pepperplate suddenly sprung a paid subscription model on their users with no way to export their recipe data.  That behavior didn't sit well with me so I quickly tried to find a replacement  (they later provided a simple export after much backlash and a significant hit to their reputation among their users).  The requirements for the replacement application were:

• It must work on Android and preferably on Apple devices and Windows as well.
• It must store recipes in a local database so it works even with no internet connection.
• It must have some ability to generate meal plans for multiple days or weeks.
• It must be able to generate shopping lists from recipes and meal plans.
• It must have the ability to import/export recipe data.
• It should have the ability to synchronize data between multiple devices.
• It should have the ability to import recipes from popular online recipe sites.
• It should have the ability to scale recipes to vary number of servings.

With limited time, I narrowed it down to the two applications Paprika and RecetteTek.  Paprika is rather well regarded, but the trial was limited, purchase is per platform or per device and per major release (as best I can tell), and I didn't have time to dive very deep into its functionality before purchase as we were preparing for the trip at the time and I needed to manually rescue my data from Pepperplate before they shut me down.  I decided to give RecetteTek a try as it seemed to have most of the features I wanted and was free so my crew could also use it to help with planning without incurring an additional cost.  I'll do a review on it at some later point.  In general, these apps help make planning and provisioning easier and you end up with a shopping checklist of items to purchase without ending up with a bunch of missing ingredients or excesses.

RecetteTek with some of my
recipes and provision entries.

Another trick I figured out that is related to the recipe app is provisioning for other non-recipe or non-food consumables.  I created a "recipe" in the app that simply includes a list of snack and condiment items like popcorn, chips, candy, mustard, salt, and pepper as ingredients so they can be easily added to the provisioning grocery list.  Another has non-food consumables like toiletries and cleaners with estimated quantities of consumption for one person for one week (so you can simply scale the "recipe" for number of crew and length of time and then add it to the shopping list).  This way I don't forget to get the ketchup, dish soap, or toilet paper.

Obviously storage space is limited on a boat, and cold storage is at a premium so canned and dry goods, and recipes that can use them, are a great help.  Still, one likes to have fresh...or at least frozen...items around.  Of course, even if you are lucky enough to have refrigeration on your boat, that system has some quirks too.  Unlike the big refrigerators you find in the average American kitchen, the efficient boat refrigerators are often top loading, smaller overall size, and lack an air circulation fan.  The result is you can put a lot into a smaller space and they can run fairly efficiently on 12 or 24 volt power, but it takes a lot longer to cool or freeze items.

I've found 3 tricks to deal with the boat refrigerator.  The first is to realize the refrigerator is most efficient and works best when it is full, not empty.  So, if I don't have a lot of stuff to fill the refrigerator or freezer, I will place old milk jugs full of water in it to take up space and provide more thermal mass than the air alone.  Another trick is to never put anything warm in the refrigerator or freezer.  Since there is no circulation fan, all cooling is of a radiant nature and warm items take a very long time to come to temperature.  In the process the warm item can also warm up surrounding items which makes the whole thing less safe. The last trick, particularly for the freezer, is to package as much as possible in single serving or single use packages. Smaller packages take less time to cool before putting them in the fridge, can freeze faster than larger packages, can often make better use of refrigerator space, and doesn't require you to repeatedly thaw and refreeze items when you need some.

Turning a broccoli crown into multiple freezer packs using
the hints from the National Center for Home food Preservation.

One last thought about food storage...as this is what prompted me to actually start writing this post.  In this day of COVID19 I've found I'm taking a better look at how I am storing food on the boat.  I know that some things that we regularly refrigerate don't actually require refrigeration.  I didn't realize that cabbage, which seems to be refrigerated in the store, actually does better sitting on my counter than it does in a bag in the fridge. With the shortage of canned options, I've also been freezing some fresh stuff for later use.  I found this website that has recommendations and best practices for freezing all sorts of things (like the broccoli above).  The website theboatgalley.com also has many tips and tricks for food storage.

I hope this is helpful for your provisioning tasks...be it for a long cruise or just waiting out the current virus scare.  If you have other tips or tricks, I'd like to hear about them...so feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Meal Planning Update

Hello everyone.  Yes, I'm still alive.  I've actually been working on a post I thought I would have had done months ago, but am finding it a difficult one to write.  Part of the issue is how up in the air any potential plans are right now.  In the meantime, I thought I would write about some things that I used while on the boat and still use on land.

One of these that gets regular usage is meal planning.  Unfortunately the meal planning tool I had been using has decided to make the planning portion of the online tool a pay service.  While I am fine with adding recipes I've created and contribute reviews and ratings as well as endure advertisements, I (like many cruisers) just don't have the money to pay for annual subscriptions for such things.  So, I've been looking for alternatives.

A recipe I created and manually entered into Pepperplate.

Thus far, my favorite is a service called Pepperplate. The meal planning portion of the service is similar to BigOven and the grocery list generation is actually a little better about grouping similar items together so it makes the grocery store trip a bit easier. Recipe access is better as it doesn't link to other sources for the contents or instructions but imports them into the application.  By doing this, it also allows for offline access on tablets and other devices where you have downloaded their app.

The one thing Pepperplate doesn't have is an integrated database of public recipes.  Instead, it utilizes other recipe sites and can automatically import from many sites (AllRecipes, Better Homes and Gardens, Chow, Food Network, Recipes.com, and Simply Recipes just to name a few). It has a browser bookmark applet that makes recipe import simple.  On sites where it doesn't automatically import, pulling in a recipe is a simple matter of a few cut-and pastes using the same browser applet.  This is all similar to how BigOven worked and so far I've found Pepperplate a bit easier to use.

If you are looking for an option to aid in meal planning and provisioning, you might want to give Pepperplate a try.

Teach A Man To Fish

How does the saying go....give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will go out and buy a funny hat, lots of expensive equipment, and sit in a boat on the water drinking beer all day.  Well, I'm sure it goes something like that anyway.

One of the things I've wanted to do since I moved onto the boat was have some gear so I could fish while on passage.  It kinda makes sense, right?  You are moving along at trolling speeds, might as well throw out a line or two and see if you can get some fresh fish for dinner.

The problem is, I don't know much about ocean fishing.  Ok, I don't know a whole lot about fishing at all.  Most of my fishing was done when I was a child in Colorado streams that you could pretty much jump across.  I don't think putting a couple of brightly colored salmon eggs on a hook the size of my pinky finger nail will work here. So, over the past months (ok, years), I've been talking with friends and acquaintances about what it would take to fish from the boat.

I'm not really interested in the "sport" of fishing where someone tries to land some huge trophy fish using a bunch of expensive equipment and line that will break if you sneeze on it. Or having to maneuver the boat to chase the fish all around the ocean for that matter.  Fishing under sail isn't so much the sport of fishing as it is the act of  replenishing food stores.  I imagine it is more akin to commercial fishing on a much smaller scale than fishing for sport.  Slowing the boat down or changing course just won't be in the cards. Getting the fish on board quickly without  increasing our time to destination is the name of the game.

After doing a lot of research on gear, I finally decided the best option would not be a conventional rod and reel, but instead to create a couple of simple hand-lines on large spindles known as Cuban yo-yos. I looked at Penn Senator reels and short rods that might be workable on the boat, but in the end the ease of use and storage of a hand line seemed like the best option.  It also doesn't hurt that it is a pretty inexpensive fishing rig.

My just put together Cuban yo-yo
handline fishing setup.

The Cuban yo-yo is a rather simple plastic spindle.  They have a U shape to hold line, with one side of the U tapered to allow the line to cast off (kind of like a spinning reel) The ones I'm using are about 9" in diameter. There are no cranks or clutches, you simply wind the line around it by hand. The big advantage on a boat is that this device is very easy to store, even rigged and ready to go.  You can stuff it in just about any bag or locker on the boat (try that with a 6 foot long rod). At under $5, just about anyone can afford to have several of these on board.

The down side of this approach is that you do have to reel in the line by hand.  Traditional monofilament line that you would use on a normal fishing rod would be pretty rough on the hands.  So, for hand lines, much more stout line is typically used (along with gloves).  The recommendations I found were to use 300 to 400 pound test monofilament line. During my research I even found a commercially made hand line and a fellow blogger that used a combination of monofilament and 1/8 inch double braided nylon line (commonly referred to as paracord). This sounded like the best option for ease in handling so I decided to go with this approach.

The next question was how much line. The sport fishing folks often use several hundred yards (400 feet or more) of line to allow the fish to run without breaking the line before they can turn the boat to follow a fish that is trying to run away. The people trolling for Dolphin (A.K.A. Dorado or Mahi Mahi) and smaller Tuna claim that you just need enough line to clear the wake of the boat. I guess the theory here is that the wake itself kinda looks like the disturbance of a school of bait fish to these species and this length will make your lures look like the stragglers in the group. The general consensus was that 100 feet should do the trick. This length is also easier to pull in by hand than several hundred feet of line.

I rigged my two yo-yo's with about 75 feet of 1/8 inch nylon chord (roughly 550 pound test) and 25 feet of 400 pound test monofilament, making sure that one rig is a little shorter than the other so we can troll both of them. I started by drilling a hole in each of the yo-yo's so I could pass the nylon line through it.  I then tied a loop on the end of the line and a stopper knot on the other side of the spool.  I can use the loop to attach the line to a bungee cord and then to the boat.  The purpose of the bungee (or a length of surgical tubing) is to provide a shock absorber when the fish first chomps down on the lure. I'll also add a safety line a bit longer than the bungee just in case the bungee fails. If that is a little confusing, what I've got thus far is a bungee to attach to the boat, the bungee then attaches to a loop in the nylon chord.  The chord passes through a hole in the yo-yo near the loop and a stopper knot that will prevent the yo-yo from deploying itself down the line.  My hope is this setup will allow for some shock absorption and will allow me to grab the yo-yo and start winding in the catch.

Theory on attaching this thing to a stanchion on the boat

Connecting the other end of the nylon line to the monofilament is another trick.  The nylon chord is pretty easy since you can use any of a number of rope knots.  I decided to tie the nylon to a heavy duty over-sized snap swivel using a Buntline hitch followed by an overhand knot as a safety for the bitter end. I then added 25 foot section of monofilament to the end of the nylon line. Since you can't really tie knots with the thick 400 pound test line, I used crimping sleeves and a crimping tool to make a loop on one end. A loop was added to the other end as well, but this time with a snap swivel to allow for attachment of the lure and leader. I used a nylon thimble to reinforce the loops and minimize chafe on both ends.

The result is a very strong line with the weakest link thus far being the 200 pound test swivel at the very end.  On that swivel I will be adding lures rigged on leaders with lower breaking strength, so if some very large fish comes along and tries to take the bait...or my catch hooked on the bait...it should break there saving most of the rest of the setup.

I got lots of advice on what pre-rigged lures to try.  Many of them had names indicating they were designed to specifically target Dolphin (Dolphin Delight, Dolphin Candy, Tuna Tango, Ahi Slayer, etc.) and several recommendations on colors.  I've tried looking for these various lures for quite some time now, and had virtually no luck finding them in stores from Florida to Virginia. I did pick up a couple similarly named lures in similar colors to the recommendations.  At one shop I ended up buying some supplies to make my own rigs and will likely give that a try as well.  Got to keep yourself entertained on passage anyway, right?

Hopefully some of this will appeal to some fish

So, I don't know how all this is going to work out, but hopefully we will be able to augment our provisions with some fresh fish.  Now if I can only figure out all of the fishing license issues in the various states...and where I actually need licenses...where is that beer anyway?

Two is Better Than One

While living the bachelor lifestyle for the most part the past year had a couple perks, it is definitely nice having my wife (and the dogs) on board.  Sure, there was no consensus to be had when deciding what to do for dinner, but sharing this lifestyle definitely makes it better.

Right now one big benefit is having a helping hand with all the projects that have been on hold since I couldn't complete them by myself.  Today the big task was making one of the large storage areas a dry storage area.  The Leopard 38 has a big storage area at the front of each hull, above the watertight buoyancy compartment.  And with no openings to weather, it should make a large and dry storage area.

Of course, on my boat, it hasn't been all that dry.  A pulpit rail mount and the pulpit seat mount have both been leaking a bit.  The result is some water made its way into this compartment, and that doesn't make for a nice storage location.  And the reason I haven't fixed it yet...you may have guessed...is because I need two people.  Both of these mounts go entirely through the hull (thus the ability to leak) and so I needed someone in the compartment to turn a wrench on the nut while someone else was outside keeping the bolt from turning.  Since I don't have an arm that is 20+ foot long with several elbows, it is not something I could do myself.  So, like so much of the hardware on this boat, a helper is needed to loosen and tighten the bolts.

With a helper, it was a simple task to remove the bolts, clean the mounting surfaces, apply some butyl tape (an excellent option for re-bedding through-bolted hardware), and re-mount the hardware. Given my previous experience with the tape, I have confidence that these two leak locations are now resolved and shouldn't give me trouble for a long time.  Unless I missed a leak, I think we now have one more large storage area at our disposal...which will come in handy right now.  Now we just need to repeat the process in the other hold.

In other news, if you find yourself moving on a boat and another boater is moving off, hopefully you have made friends with them.  In my case, my friends Gary and Joan have not only beefed up our provisions but also had these mini milk crates that may help me get my refrigerator organized (the details of organizing a top-loading refrigerator are deserving of its own post).  Thanks guys and good luck with your future endeavors!

Organization-less

We've been back at the boat about a week now.  Found a couple systems that will need repair before we leave, but the biggest problem we seem to be having at the moment is getting the boat organized. For some reason we are really struggling with getting things in reasonable places.

We've been slowly getting stuff moved from the Prius to the boat, but after a week the Prius still isn't empty.  It is getting there, but a few items just haven't found their way on board.  And the settee table and surrounding area still has stuff piled on it that has yet to find a home on the boat.

It seems most of the last couple days have been running to the local Dollar Tree and Target looking for storage containers that will fit in the various holds on the boat as well as fit the things we need to store in them.  I hate having all these plastic boxes...but without them, the larger holds in the boat would undoubtedly resemble one of those toddler play ball pits, only with all our stuff piled in it.

The only thing I think we are doing right at the moment is inventorying everything as we store it.  I have a giant provisioning spreadsheet that will not only track what food is aboard, but also all the other items too.  In addition to recording what is on board, it also tells me where on board it is.  It tracks the quantity of any given item based on the amount stored in each of 24 different storage locations on the boat.  Hopefully this will at least help me remember what I have on board and, as importantly, where it is on board...and save me hours of digging through holds looking for something "I just know we have somewhere".

Now if all this stuff would go find it's own home and just let me know...I'd be set.  Guess we had better get this done soon, as we are running out of time before we need to head north for the dreaded "H" season...and I do have a few items to attend to before we cast off.

Little Oven Meet Big Oven

Even while living at the dock I've had a couple problems with provisioning.  One was figuring out what to make for dinner and the other was remembering to get everything I need when I'm at the grocery store. Knowing that both of these items will become exponentially larger problems when I'm not tied to a dock with access to a car, I've been trying to figure out how to better deal with these problems.

A number of weeks ago I stumbled upon a service that I thought might just help out with both of these issues. The service is called Big Oven and is a combination online recipe book/organizer, meal planner, and grocery list creator.  Something like this sounded like it could help, and since the basic level of membership is free, I decided to give it a try.

They have a bunch of different recipes to try.  You can search for specific recipes if you want, or you can browse by different groupings such as a seasonal collection, quick and easy suggestions, best ratings, etc. The application allows you to review and read reviews of the recipes to help you decide which ones to try. It also lets you flag recipes you want to try and this is handy when building a menu plan. If you have your own favorite recipes, you can also add them as either publicly available or private (up to 50 in the free version) and it can also import recipes found elsewhere on the web so you can include them in any meal planning efforts.

I was able to create a couple week-long menu plans and then have it generate shopping lists from the menus.  By installing their app on my phone, I was able to sync up the shopping list on my phone so I could take it to the store and make sure I bought everything I needed.  The application attempts to organize the shopping list by departments so that you aren't running back and forth across the store or constantly scrolling through the list.  As you put items in your cart, you can then check them off of the list so you can keep track of it all.

I tried several recipes from the site as well as entered a few of my own.  Overall I think the application is handy and did help me organize a weekly menu as well as keep me on track at the grocery store.  And some of the recipes on the site are fantastic, my favorite one thus far is this Chicken Tikka Masala one.

Chicken Tikka Masala, Baingan bharta, and Naan

The application does have some drawbacks though.  When generating shopping lists, it didn't seem to combine ingredients from multiple recipes into a single shopping list item...so I ended up with three listings for "1 onion" instead of a shopping list that read "3 onions"...and this can make the shopping list rather long if you have a large menu plan.  The big catch for cruisers though, is that everything is stored online.  This means that once you are done planning, you will need to make copies of your plan and all the recipes before you head out of internet range.  Not impossible to overcome, but would be nice if the application could save this stuff for you without having to resort to screen captures or cut-and-paste.

Still, it is a tool worth having in your meal planning and provisioning arsenal.  So, if you cruise, do you have any special apps or techniques you use to help with these tasks?  Leave a comment and let me know.