Groceries: How do you get them to the boat?

[longjonsilver]

i am curious as to how others get groceries to the boat. When cruising, there are times when markets are not close to the dock or the beach. How do you get them to the boat in absence of a friendly stranger with a car?

i have tried a modified golf cart, but find that when the load is too heavy or too close to the bottom, the cart is difficult to handle and i worry that rough roads or too much weight will damage the cart.

Then i started using a jogging stroller with pneumatic tires. This seems to work well.

What do y'all use?

[boatman61]

Rucksack on and Yomp..

[Hudson Force]

....carts, bicycle baskets, back packs, dinghies, rental cars, delivery services.

[s/v Jedi]

We stopped grocery shopping and now take all we need when we set off for a 6-9 month season. It requires a lot of prep like vacuum packing, pickling, canning, freezing etc. Also, pantry storage aboard becomes a project.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

We stopped grocery shopping and now take all we need when we set off for a 6-9 month season. It requires a lot of prep like vacuum packing, pickling, canning, freezing etc. Also, pantry storage aboard becomes a project.

Yuk. 9 month non fresh food no thanks

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Yuk. 9 month non fresh food no thanks

You won’t be able to tell the difference when eating a steak from the grill. For veggies it is only those eaten raw that are a challenge. For this, we sprout and grow some herbs and veggies aboard… next season we hope to grow lettuce.

We use very little commercial canned food; just some beans, tomatoes, fruits. The rest is all home cooked.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

i am curious as to how others get groceries to the boat. When cruising, there are times when markets are not close to the dock or the beach. How do you get them to the boat in absence of a friendly stranger with a car?



i have tried a modified golf cart, but find that when the load is too heavy or too close to the bottom, the cart is difficult to handle and i worry that rough roads or too much weight will damage the cart.



Then i started using a jogging stroller with pneumatic tires. This seems to work well.



What do y'all use?

In most cases especially island communities you can reach food outlets within a mile. This I regard as walkable

An electric scooter also seems to be flavour of the month or at least folding bikes

In more rural areas there tends to be farm deliveries , ie man in a beat up van.

We try and shop everywhere we can , picking up whatever is local and fresh, in some cases we shop ( ie acquire food ) every day or every second day.

I have a folding sack trolley and or backpacks. , it’s an enjoyable activity. If we in a harbour or on anchor for a few days we try and find sources of local /regional foods , usually this requires chatting to the locals. In this regard the med is a playground for food whereas we found the Caribbean much more challenging

I like to cook so acquiring local in season produce and adapting my recipes to the area I’m cruising in is half the fun. I learned how to make great jerk chicken in Jamaica

I can’t imagine sailing with the same food as I left base for months on end.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You won’t be able to tell the difference when eating a steak from the grill. For veggies it is only those eaten raw that are a challenge. For this, we sprout and grow some herbs and veggies aboard… next season we hope to grow lettuce.



We use very little commercial canned food; just some beans, tomatoes, fruits. The rest is all home cooked.

I eat little red meat mainly chicken and some pork as I find good meat in hot countries hard to come by. ( there are exceptions )

Vegetables are acquired from wherever we find ourselves. Usually great local stuff and fruit etc depending on where we are and the season.

I carry canned tomatoes ,Passata , coconut milk , condensed milk , some precooked beans. ( and of course Heinz baked beans ) about 20 cans in total at any time. Couple of emergency meals in a can ( French supermarkets are good for these if passing )

Lots of spices , balsamic cream and vinegar , various wine vinegars , cake /bread flour( this can be hard to come by ) mustards etc.

Recently ( last 5 years ) in out of the way places I’ve noticed it getting easier to acquire fresh milk , butter and cream. ( mostly UHT processed unlike back home , so will last quite some time in the fridge. )

[goboatingnow]

My main shopping activity fits into a back pack or two. Usually vegetables , peppers , fruit , bread and cheese if available.

For heavier items , sparkling water , beer , coke etc , I use the sack trolley or the carrier on the fold up bike.

[ranger42c]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

i am curious as to how others get groceries to the boat. When cruising, there are times when markets are not close to the dock or the beach. How do you get them to the boat in absence of a friendly stranger with a car?

What do y'all use?

Uber occasionally, marina shuttle sometimes, marina courtesy car once...

But mostly (folding) bicycle with rack plus backpack.

-Chris

[Chotu]

We do huge provisioning like Jedi. We use a rental car for this typically since it’s done maybe 3x or 4x a year.

After you set the base of your various menu items with dry, canned, UHT and frozen goods, you are then left to pick up a few fresh fruits and vegetables here and there. This greatly simplifies getting groceries to the boat since you can just put them in a backpack and walk to any store or fruit/vegetable stand once a week or so.

My main secret to being able to go a couple weeks without vegetable shopping was to switch from lettuce to cabbage. Lasts about a month instead of 3 days.

Avocados? Those are a special treat!

I make smoothies for the nutrition they provide. Frozen fruit mix for that. And... I freeze bananas for that too. Very enjoyable on a hot day.

[goboatingnow]

You’d think the world has no food !

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

You’d think the world has no food !

It’s a lot of wasted hours and ruined meals going to pick up a things at the grocery store every day. “Oh, gee, I’m out of cumin again?”

Well, that doesn’t happen to me. I have 2 back stocks of everything like that.

It can either sit in a store or sit in my boat.

Maintaining a base inventory takes all the wasted time and wasted meals out of the equation.

As someone who loves cooking, I do not love to be restricted in my ability to cook very interesting meals at any time and any place. No matter how remote the Anchorage.

[chris mac]

We also provision heavily ahead, Then buy things like fresh veg and dairy as we go. We just did a big stockup in Vero Beach. My wife put together the shopping list through Instacart while underway. It arrived at the dingy dock a couple hours after we moored. It's really easy, no car rental needed, and not as expensive as a car rental either.
For fresh stuff, we walk or take the scooters with back packs or a folding pullcart.

[Mike OReilly]

We also stock heavily before leaving the dock. This usually lasts us through the whole cruising season (usually around 3 months). We carry a range of foods, including fresh, canned and dried. The dried is mostly foods we've processed ourselves. We tend to carry a lot of staples so we can cook most things from scratch.

For re-stocking along the way we use a combination of fast-friends (people who give you the use of their personal vehicle ... surprisingly common in my experience), to taxis, to backpacks to a small wheeled collapsable cart.

BTW, +1 on cabbage. Will last nearly two months up in our climate, and can replace most leafy needs. And we also sprout and grow herbs along the way. Gives that fresh crunch no matter how long off the dock.