My wife and cruised without
refrigeration for 2 yrs in the tropics. We stocked up every 6 months with mostly canned and bought the best brands for quality. Canned butter, canned whole cooked chickens and canned Canadian bacon were favorites. Canned stewed and diced tomatoes were most often used for salad making. We tried dehydrated but found hydrating was a hassle and went back to canned because most already had
water. We bought a stack of 12 dozen eggs fresh from the chicken farm and they lasted without coating a few months before we finished them off. Most of our meat was from catching fresh fish daily and trading fish/lobster with big boats for "red meat". A pressure cooker without pressure was used to bake bread and with pressure for mostly fish.
Mayonaise was a major issue at first. We originally stocked up with the smallest jars and used it up in the same day. After a few months being out and around cruisers with 10-20 yrs experience we switched to
buying quarts jars...they were most often using the larger jars. The brands with highest preservative are best...Blue Plate was the chosen brand back then. We never had mayo go back with just the two of us and the quart size.
We wrapped glass items in the plastic bags newspapers are delivered in. They cushion and help contain minor breakage...which we never had.
To keep rust away every can was marked on top with content and dipped in hot wax with labels on. It was a minor hassle to keep wax out when opening but not a deal breaker. I would caution from using any coating on cans that could be hazardous to your
health...it's almost impossible to open and keep every particle of coating out of the food.
We grew sprouts the whole time and used different beans. My
advice on that is to try a bunch of beans to see which you like best. Flavor varies widely.
So that was 50+ yrs ago and i wouldn't flinch at cruising again without a fridge.
We almost delayed our
cruise because we couldn't afford
refrigeration but decided to go anyway. It took about 6 wks to adjust and we never again cared about it again. We actually turned down offers of free ice from large powerboats who had ice makers. It's more fright hype than reality. Warm drinks were no different than cold ones, etc.