How do you buy enough food and supplies for two people of at least a month? This has been our recent challenge as we prepare to head across the Pacific from Ecuador to the Marquesas on what will be our longest passage by far. We’re estimating the crossing will take us 25-30 days at sea. As we’ve learned from previous passages, your body is always working even if you don’t realize it. So, getting lots of calories and good nutrients is essential. On top of that, we’ve been reading up on what items are difficult or impossible to find or extremely expensive in French Polynesia, so we have to stock up on those items as well. For example, apparently it is difficult to find peanut butter, and mayonnaise and honey are really expensive. Who knew?
Our boat was pretty empty of food when we started. When we pulled the boat out of the water in October, we pulled all food out to either eat it or toss if it was old. That means, we didn’t even have dry/canned food or condiments and had to start over. We also need to stock up on things like shampoo and toothpaste.
Going to the store is quite a process. There’s a store about a mile from the Marina we can walk to. But, to get it back to the boat, we take a $2 taxi ride. Then we have to haul all the bags down the ramp to the boat, get them inside and find a place to store everything. We didn’t want to be too overwhelmed by the shopping, so we decided once a cart was completely full, we were done shopping for the day. We’ve done about 4 runs and have one left to go for all our fresh fruits and veggies.
Not even half of it…
We are always worried about bugs on the boat (especially cucarachas, yuck!) that can come in the groceries. We dispose of all cardboard packaging immediately. I rinse banana stalks and pineapples in salt water. And, I take each can, write the contents in a sharpie on top, remove the label and rinse in water with bleach. Apparently bugs like to lay eggs in the glue that holds the labels on. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
On our last passage, i also premade a bunch of dinners and froze them which were perfect to easily heat up when we encountered rough weather and it was difficult to b in the galley for very long. I did the same this time. I spent the last few days cooking chili, pasta with meat sauce, red curry beef stew, and chicken veggie quinoa. I can get 2-3 dinners out of each. We also frozen chicken, pork chops, etc. that we can cook while underway. And, hopefully we will catch some fish! If we run out of fresh items, we now have enough canned and dried food to feed an army!
Our preparations for the Pacific crossing haven’t just been about food. The boat went back in the water about a month ago with fresh bottom paint, and since then we have been ticking off a laundry list of boat maintenance items. Most were just little items, but we did replace the lower shrouds. We also checked all the sails and halyards for wear and chafe, but everything looked good. There is definitely peace of mind in checking that everything is in good order!
Adagio going back in the water…
We have had a little fun this month in addition to all the hard work. We’re planning to go to the Tuamotus this year, where one of the fun activities you can do (because of the consistent wind) is kitesurfing! But, neither of us have been kitesurfing before or have gear. We started searching online and found out that there is kitesurfing in Ecuador in a beach town called Santa Marianita where they have kitesurfing schools. Unfortunately the windy season was over, so there was no more kitesurfing until May. But, one of the instructors we found, Javier, had used gear for sale that was only a year or so old. They buy new gear for their students each year and were happy to unload last year’s kites that were still in good shape. Javier even offered to let us stay at his house for free.
So, Mike, Dan, Amy and I hopped on a 4 hr bus ride to go learn about kitesurfing. The town was getting ready for Carnival, so there were lots of people at the beach and preparations for the party. Even though there wasn’t enough wind to learn how to kitesurf in the water, Javier gave us some technical lessons on the sand. Now, we’re just going to have to find someone in the Tuamotus to really teach us how to get up using our new kitesurfing gear!
We got back to Salinas just in time for Carnival. Monday and Tuesday leading up to Ash Wednesday are holidays here, so everyone was at the beach during the day. We headed into town Tuesday night to have dinner and see the craziness. The young people have some pretty hilarious traditions for Carnival. Everyone has water squirt guns and cans of spray foam. Kids sit in the back of pickups and spray people walking on the sidewalk as you walk by. And, some people take paint and run up to you smearing it all over your face.
Amy and I both got smudged with paint by random people on the street. We started running from the people with spray foam cans, but Dan had his own spray foam and started instigating spray foam attacks. At one point we were sitting ducks in the back of a taxi with the window down and got drenched in foam. Thanks, Dan…
So, I think we’re ready to go! The officials are coming to check us out tomorrow. We’ll likely leave Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning. We plan to update our Facebook page during the crossing with tweets via sat phone. We will be checking in at least once a day if you want to follow our progress. And, I will plan to do more substantial updates on the blog a few times during the crossing. Other than the sat phone, we would be able to respond to anyone until we reach Nuku Hiva. Wish us luck!
Katie