Being a couple who despise leaving things to chance (too much military!!) I sat down a couple of weeks before leaving and made a comprehensive shopping list and meal plan. I think it’s fairly normal to have a usual list of ‘go to’ recipes that you are familiar with, that everyone likes and which can be adapted if needs be. Stick to these!! And remove all cardboard and write the contents on the top of tins. So much easier!

Franco

The first thing I stocked up on was dog food. I bought LOTS. I had pretty much bought all the UK’s stock of dried duck for the boy, like some sort of crappy drug mule so he was fine for snacks. I’m not stupid, I know the Caribbean has shops but the last thing I wanted was to be worried about the boy running out of food, and this was one thing ticked off the list.

Storecupboard

Knowing  what we eat normally,  I then went shopping and made sure I had plenty of tinned and dry foods. I can make a meal out of pretty much anything,  but we had been running the boats supplies down in readiness for the trip to purchase new items. This was the usual tinned corn, mushrooms, beans, tuna and tomatoes. I also bought enough fresh coffee, longlife milk, condensed milk and squash to survive months without having to restock. My thinking was we have the space so who cares. Just one less thing to think about. Plus we drink unhealthy amounts of fresh coffee.

Baking

Next was the boring, baking stuff. Flour, yeast, butter and longlife cooking cream. I also bought some cake mixes and threw them in the cupboard along with the rest of the baking goods. This meant I could make bread and quiches on the go. Always nice. Unless Lee changes tack. Idiot.

And then finally the meal plan which was super easy!

Meal plan: Breakfasts

There were 3 of us doing the crossing so I poured a large bowl of cereal, worked out how many packets would be required to feed the 3 of us for 4 weeks (3 week crossing and 1 weeks grace after arrival) and bought the tastiest granola in lots of different flavours.  I didn’t buy cheap and nasty. Just the decent stuff as we would be eating it every day. I also bought enough individually wrapped pan au chocolat for 2 each daily and also enough fruit juice cartons for 1 each day. So breakfast was the same every day. Granola, pan au chocolat, fresh coffee and fruit juice. I had made a tonne of Greek yoghurt in the Instant Pot as well so we also plonked this on top of the granola. Job done.

Meal plan : Lunches

Super simple. Sandwiches, packet of crisps and piece of fruit. I bought LOTS of decent sliced ham and cheese as well as the usual egg and tuna mayo combo. I found wraps lasted a lot longer than bread unless you are able to buy the cheap and nasty Bimbo bread from Spain. This should be readvertised as a doomsday preppers staple shelf food. Worryingly long lasting. I also took the time on the passage to learn to make bread. Even the bad loaves tasted good but after a week I was pretty confident with making a decent fresh loaf every day. This went down like a fat kid on a see saw.

Meal plan : Dinners

I made a list of 10 easy, good to freeze meals. I then made a large batch of each and bagged each portion of 3 meals separately. So after 10 days we restarted the same meal plan. I found this was ideal as that way everyone knew what was for dinner, ( I had the list up in the galley), it was easy to remove it from the freezer and no one got bored. All the meals were either complete, and just required reheating or simply needed a pasta being cooked.

I was a little anxious about rustling up decent meals in potentially unpleasant weather so felt quite proud of myself that the meals were really quick to sort out underway, filling and tasty. I would suggest starting early if you do have a freezer, or at least do this while plugged into mains power, else you will kill the batteries trying to freeze all the food. If you don’t have a freezer then a lot of meals can be made from store cupboard ingredients with the addition of some form of protein, many of which can now be purchased in tinned form. Carbs are your friend on a longer passage. They stretch the food, are comforting to eat and easy on the tummy. I would suggest paleo and keto is left to when you have access to shops!

Day 1: Spaghetti bolognaise

Day 2: Chicken curry, poppadoms and pickles

Day 3: Chilli con carne and rice

Day 4: Lasagne and garlic bread

Day 5: Beef stew

Day 6: Corned Beef Hash with fried egg

Day 7: Chicken fajitas

Day 8: Tuna pasta bake

Day 9: Chicken chasseur

Day 10: Spaghetti carbonara and garlic bread.

Snacks

We have a snack cupboard on the boat that everyone knows about. This is where all the crap lives like biscuits, sweets, nuts, cereal bars, crackers, crisps, chocolate bars and a ridiculous amount of Haribo liquorice that only Lee likes.

Booze

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t sail smashed but we did bring booze and every evening before dinner we would all have a sundowner together. Just a beer or a gin and tonic. It was kind of nice to do this, and as there were only 3, we made it into a bit of a ritual. Plus we had shed loads of it stashed away in random places around the boat for after we arrived!

In conclusion

And that’s that. Seems a lot but really wasn’t. I despise shopping and being in busy places so I found it easier to make shopping lists and religiously stick to them. This definitely kept the costs down too. Whilst not cheap coming in at a few hundred euros, it was restocking the whole boat and not just for the crossing. It’s always a nice feeling to have a fully replenished boat and we have the luxury of storage so why not!

I had only visited the Caribbean on holiday previously so had no awareness of what the supermarket situation was like. Obviously they have huge supermarkets in a lot of the islands, but costs are very high and some more familiar items you may struggle to find. To finish I would definitely suggest taking what you know you use a lot of and doing a meal plan.