One of the more challenging parts of planning another trip to the Bahamas is provisioning the boat.. Provisioning a sailboat for several months, involves more than just food. It's also things like AA batteries, distilled water for the ships batteries, new underwear, shoes for growing Coleen, lots of dog food, lamp oil, tons of paper towels and toilet tissue, medicines, new dish towels, and of course every conceivable spare part. You can bet that if you need it you won't be able to buy it in the Bahamas, or if you can it will be extremely expensive. So the provisioning list is practically endless. It requires a lot of organization and many trips to various stores.
We rented a car to assist in this venture and got the amazing 3 day weekend rate from Enterprise for $9.99/day. Even after tax & gasoline I only spent $62, had the car from noon Friday to noon Monday.They upgraded me from a compact to a very nice luxury car. (which I might add, happens for me 9 times out of 10).
Saturday we drove to Daytona Beach to check out a Marine Surplus store. I managed to get a few things on my list for a great price, but was overall not impressed with the place and felt it probably wasn't worth the hour drive. We then stopped at the Daytona Beach West Marine to get the rest of the items on our spares list for a great price due to DJ's Port Supply account.
We stopped for lunch at Mexican place that proved to be my demise for the rest of the weekend. Sunday, I was good for nothing, so an entire day of provisioning was missed! I somehow managed to get up early yesterday and make a whirlwind stop at a few stores before noon. Unfortunately, the Ace Hardware would not refill my propane tank as they said it was out of date and needed to be re-certified. Bummer, not sure how I'll get that done.
Next up was a stop to fill some jerry jugs with diesel as they don't sell diesel at this marina and I now have a new 40 gallon tank to fill. Of course the diesel pump didn't work at the first station I tried. Strike two! I finally found another place and took care of that minutes before the Aldi's opened. Coleen and I then spent an hour and a half in Aldi's filling 3 carts. We then rushed back to the boat, threw it all in the cockpit, except for a few items that were stuffed hastily in the fridge, and set out again.
A quick stop at the Bank of America to get quarters for laundry was strike 3! The ATM spitted out a receipt telling me I had some suspicious activity on my account and they had suspended my card until I called them. Of course I didn't have a phone with me and the line at the bank was 20 people deep. No quarters! Bummer! ( I found out later that Aldi's had run my card through twice for the same amount, reversed one, and I guess that seemed suspicious).
I had Coleen reading out the list while driving to Walmart so we could prioritize what we could grab in 30 minutes as that's all the time we had left. We did our best, but that wasn't much time. Somehow we managed to get the car back by 12:15! Almost on time.
We spent the rest of the day organizing and stowing everything. I worked until 10 p.m. last night and am still not quite finished. Poor Coleen got sick around 6 p.m. so was out of commission. Before that she worked like crazy. She is a great helper, manages to find a game, a song or something fun in everything. The dog was walking around looking confused as there was really no place to sit. He finally hid under the companionway stairs.
Coleen is always in charge of the can locker. She somehow makes great fun of stacking all the cans as high as possible in neat rows on the cabin floor. It was a bit more challenging this time as Prince managed to knock them over a few times. After stacking and organizing she manages to fit it all in the locker on the starboard side. I don't know how it happens, but somehow, every time she manages to get them all in. Afterwards any time I need a can of something she's in charge of finding it. We find it helps to have plenty of emergency canned fruit, evaporated milk (for puddings), and lots of tuna.
Lots more work to do today so I'd better get busy. I sure hope my little girl is feeling better!
xxx
We rented a car to assist in this venture and got the amazing 3 day weekend rate from Enterprise for $9.99/day. Even after tax & gasoline I only spent $62, had the car from noon Friday to noon Monday.They upgraded me from a compact to a very nice luxury car. (which I might add, happens for me 9 times out of 10).
Saturday we drove to Daytona Beach to check out a Marine Surplus store. I managed to get a few things on my list for a great price, but was overall not impressed with the place and felt it probably wasn't worth the hour drive. We then stopped at the Daytona Beach West Marine to get the rest of the items on our spares list for a great price due to DJ's Port Supply account.
We stopped for lunch at Mexican place that proved to be my demise for the rest of the weekend. Sunday, I was good for nothing, so an entire day of provisioning was missed! I somehow managed to get up early yesterday and make a whirlwind stop at a few stores before noon. Unfortunately, the Ace Hardware would not refill my propane tank as they said it was out of date and needed to be re-certified. Bummer, not sure how I'll get that done.
Next up was a stop to fill some jerry jugs with diesel as they don't sell diesel at this marina and I now have a new 40 gallon tank to fill. Of course the diesel pump didn't work at the first station I tried. Strike two! I finally found another place and took care of that minutes before the Aldi's opened. Coleen and I then spent an hour and a half in Aldi's filling 3 carts. We then rushed back to the boat, threw it all in the cockpit, except for a few items that were stuffed hastily in the fridge, and set out again.
A quick stop at the Bank of America to get quarters for laundry was strike 3! The ATM spitted out a receipt telling me I had some suspicious activity on my account and they had suspended my card until I called them. Of course I didn't have a phone with me and the line at the bank was 20 people deep. No quarters! Bummer! ( I found out later that Aldi's had run my card through twice for the same amount, reversed one, and I guess that seemed suspicious).
I had Coleen reading out the list while driving to Walmart so we could prioritize what we could grab in 30 minutes as that's all the time we had left. We did our best, but that wasn't much time. Somehow we managed to get the car back by 12:15! Almost on time.
We spent the rest of the day organizing and stowing everything. I worked until 10 p.m. last night and am still not quite finished. Poor Coleen got sick around 6 p.m. so was out of commission. Before that she worked like crazy. She is a great helper, manages to find a game, a song or something fun in everything. The dog was walking around looking confused as there was really no place to sit. He finally hid under the companionway stairs.
Coleen is always in charge of the can locker. She somehow makes great fun of stacking all the cans as high as possible in neat rows on the cabin floor. It was a bit more challenging this time as Prince managed to knock them over a few times. After stacking and organizing she manages to fit it all in the locker on the starboard side. I don't know how it happens, but somehow, every time she manages to get them all in. Afterwards any time I need a can of something she's in charge of finding it. We find it helps to have plenty of emergency canned fruit, evaporated milk (for puddings), and lots of tuna.
Lots more work to do today so I'd better get busy. I sure hope my little girl is feeling better!
xxx
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