PROVISIONS?

• *What should we buy for your sailing charter? Our friends have that covered but here are some tips:
  Breakfast. Easy to eat foods like milk and cereal, bagels, english muffins and granola bars. Eggs keep really well.
  Lunch. Take enough sandwich fixings for the week. And lots of chips.
  Dinners. Easy dinners by centering them around the grill.
  Snacks.Bring lots of snacks! Snacks are especially good at happy hour, after a day of swimming and snorkeling while you are waiting for everyone to get cleaned up and dinner to be ready.
  Drinks. Take lots of water. The rule of thumb is 1.5 liters/person/day.  And don’t forget coffee!
  Condiments. whatever you like!
  Supplies. paper towels, tp, garbage bags and ziplock bags! For grilling, the charcoal bricks are good
• * Plan in advance. It’s not easy to just stop by the store while you are sailing around the islands, so it’s important to plan in advance. Bring recipes you think you'll need.
  Substitutes. If you order from the grocery store, if they don’t have the brand or exact item you ordered, they will try to find a substitute for you.
  Trash You are going to have to carry your trash with you for a day or two at a time until you find a place to take it. You will also have to pay for them to take it. Get canned beer instead of glass.
  Grill. Cooking on the stove or in the oven is really hot inside a non air conditioned boat. Be sure to move your dingy to the far side of the boat, away from the grill, before you use it! Also, order charcoal bricks (instead of bags of charcoal) as they will make life easier. We usually order 1-2 per dinner depending on what we are cooking.
  Snacks. Take lots of snacks!
  Water. Take a 1.5 liters/person/day.
  Fridge. Fridge’s on boats never work really well. They have no exact temperature control. They only cool when the motor is running. The fridge and freezer are often combined. Take into account that your fridge may not keep all as cold as you like. Run your engine daily to cool off the fridge.
  Bread. Bread doesn’t keep very well in the Carribean. If you can keep it dry, keep bread in the fridge until you are ready to eat it. Sour dough, english muffins and tortillas keep the best.
  Cooler. Use a cooler on deck to keep things you’ll want to get to all day long so that you don’t have to open (and warm up) your fridge throughout the day.
  Ice. Start out with a lot of ice in your cooler and fridge. 
  Spices. Might want to consider bringing some from home. In small ziplocks, they will pack very easily and it can save you a lot of money.
  
  ***Also, I just ordered this cool item! It'll keep my essentials dry whenever I leave the boat to go to an island. Available at Amazon.com. 16 -20x12.

Aqua-Quest 100% Waterproof Backpack Drybag - 'Mariner' 10L Model

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• LOW COUNTRY BOIL

	Photo Credit: Allrecipes

5 lbs of Snow Crab legs (frozen)
3 lbs of large shrimp, unpeeled
3lbs of crawfish or conch
3 lbs of andouille sausage, cut into 2-3 inch pieces
8 ears of corn, cut in half
2 boil-in-a-bags (Spicy optional) such as Zatarains
6 lemons (4 cut in half for the boil, 2 sliced into wedges for garnish)
1-2 light beers
Hot sauce to taste
Cocktail sauce and lemon butter for dipping
Large pot
OPTIONAL: 5 lbs new potatoes, cut in half
Add the boil bags, lemon halves, beer, and hot sauce to a large pot of water, filled to about half way, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the sausage and potatoes if included and cook for roughly 10 minutes. Next, add the corn and crab and cook for another 5-7 minutes. Finally, add the shrimp and crawfish and cook for no more than 3-4 additional minutes.
Remove contents from the pot and lay out on a newspaper-covered picnic table. Serve with cocktail sauce and lemon butter.

Here's a great site that offers tips on provisioning: http://www.sailonline.com/boat-charter/saving-money-a-tips/provisioning-a-charter-boat Tips from another sailing website: Have the marina deliver food to you or go to the local supermarkets. Some items are very costly. A box of cereal, for instance, can often run about $7.00. You take the risk, though, of having them confiscated at customs. Most of the supermarkets take credit cards. Even more fun is shopping in an open air market. These markets offer everything from flowers, fruits, spices and vegetables to freshly caught fish or even live animals. Avoid “guides” who offer to take your through the market. Bring sacks or your own bags to carry your purchases since they are not supplied at these markets. At the most, food is wrapped in newspapers. Prices are usually chalked up somewhere on the stall. Open air market vendors make their living selling food – not cheating tourists. Prices are competitive and usually reasonable, thus it is not proper to haggle over prices in the food markets. The vendors will gladly help you make selections and will often explain how to prepare unfamiliar foods. A word of caution: most fresh food we are used to is washed several times and wrapped in plastic. In the local Caribbean markets this is not the case. Wash everything before you consume it. There are two things people almost always do not buy enough of: paper towels and bottled water. Expect to consume more drinks on your Caribbean sailing vacation than you ordinarily would on land. You should figure on at least a 1 ½ liter bottle of water per person per day of your Caribbean sailing vacation. Cold beverages are usually kept on the lower part of the refrigerator. This means constantly unloading all of the stuff on top to get to the drinks, thus letting the cold air escape. A good tip is to purchase an extra bag of ice and put drinks for the day in a cooler to be stored in the cockpit. Regardless of what you purchase, never take a paper bag or corrugated carton aboard due to cockroaches. If your provisions have not been packed in plastic bags, unpack everything on the dock before taking it aboard. REFRIGERATOR The refrigerator must be loaded carefully. Most marine refrigerators are top loaders. Unlike a home refrigerator, they do not lose as much cold when the doors are opened, however, food is often less accessible. The object is to get as much food into the refrigerator as possible without over packing it (this interferes with the ability of cold air to circulate) and without having to unpack it to reach items at the bottom. Pack food in the wire trays provided in the refrigerator or in mesh sacks. This keeps the food from touching the holding plate and freezing. Remember that blocks of ice should line the bottom of the refrigerator.