Pacific Passage Provisioning: One Boat’s Experience

Time for a NUMBERS post.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for more than a year. I kept track of our produce while we were on passage from Mexico (Cabo San Lucas) to the Marquesas in 2011. We used the provisioning charts in Care and Feeding to estimate how much fresh food to buy.

We purchased these items about 2 days before our passage in La Paz. After purchasing we worked our way down to Cabo San Lucas and left from there for the Marquesas. Our passage took 26 days. If not otherwise stated, we lost 5-10% of what we bought to spoilage. All items with an * were kept in green bags and items with ^ were kept in fridge. I stopped keeping track at 40 days so some items we still had at that point (e.g., potatoes and onions) are marked “more than 40 days”.

What we bought, spoilage, and how long it lasted:

• 50 oranges – ate last orange at day 26.
• 25 apples*^ – ate last 3 on day 40 in a fruit salad, crisp.
• 6 lemons – at day 58 were dried but still squeezable.
• 12 limes – lasted 31 days and were still good.
• 5 cantaloupes – we made the mistake of washing these and lost 50% in the first few days and consumed the rest.
• 1/2 of a large watermelon^ – finished on day 3 with no spoilage.
• a lot of potatoes (50+) – more than 40 days.
• 50 carrots*^ – more than 40 days.
• 12 sweet potatoes – finished around 30 days, could have purchased more.
• 50 onions – more than 40 days.
• 9 leeks*^ – finished on day 28 with no spoilage.
• 50 tomatoes* – unsure because I seem to have forgotten to mark it. More than 2 weeks, probably close to 3 weeks.
• 10 cucumbers*^ – ate last on day 17 with no spoilage.
• 14 avocados* – half stored in a green bag. All items in green bag went bad. Others were consumed on day 11.
• 6 bell peppers*^ – finished on day 28 with no spoilage.
• 3 heads of green lettuce*^ – finished on day 13 with minimal spoilage.
• 3 heads of green cabbage – finished on day 27 with the last cabbage half lost.
• 2 bunches of radishes^* – finished on day 4.
• small bag of mushrooms^ – finished on day 3 with only 1 or 2 lost.
• 60 eggs – finished at 35 days with no spoilage except 2 cracked while loading on boat.
• 2 baguettes – finished on day 3 with no spoilage.
• 6 loaves of BIMBO bread

We loaded the bottom of the fridge with long life cheeses and long life meats. We also bought one gallon of milk (finished day 8), 5 packets of deli meat (lost 2 to broken package and spoilage), 2 packs of hot dogs and chicken thighs.