Layout by Susan, and Provisioning the Mirage

Yesterday my friend, Susan, and her husband, Jim, stopped by while Mike and I were in Alameda provisioning the Mirage for our trip. Susan took some photos of us on the boat and, as soon as she got home, created this digital scrapbook layout. Isn't it great? I just love it, and plan to include it when I create a photo album of our Baja Ha Ha cruise. Susan also took the photo of the water that she used as a background. Check out more of her work at her website http://www.seastarphoto.com/. She has incredible talent as a digital scrapbooker, and specializes in travel photos.

It was a very productive day all around. Before we even reached the boat around noon, we had stopped at West Marine to buy a wide-brimmed hat for me (very necessary in Mexico!), Trader Joe's to stock up on the dried fruit/nut trail mixes that we love to snack on, and Svendsen's Boatworks to buy detailed charts of the west coast of Mexico. Mike had ordered a new sail, a genoa, which arrived on Friday, so we had that with us, too, AND 8 or so large boxes of food. We hauled all that to the boat and began the process of figuring out where to put everything. Storage space is at a premium onboard a sailboat, and ours is only 34 feet long to begin with. We separated out several days worth of meals which we stored in the galley area. The rest went into lockers under the bed in the bow. To get to that food we'll have to lift up the foam mattress we sleep on and rummage around for what we need. I did make a list of which foods are in which lockers (there are three) so we won't have to look through all of them to find what we want. We'll restock the galley from the lockers every few days or so.

Our "staples," which we hope will last approximately 30 days or so. We will be traveling without benefit of refrigeration, so we will eat mainly from boxed meals, canned meats, soups, instant oatmeal, and instant beverages. We can't carry enough food for the full 60 days so we'll shop along the way, as we are able. We'll also buy fresh meat and produce when we can, but obviously, we'll only be able to purchase as much as we can eat in one day (especially when we are in the warmer climes of Mexico). I'm particularly looking forward to buying fresh fish from the local fishermen there.

Here's our little galley with provisions stored. We have a two-burner propane stove, and an Easy-Bake Oven-size oven that I just love to bake brownies in. We can make toast in it, too. Just to the left of the blue basket that is full of spices is a small "icebox" that we can put block or cubed ice in if we want, to keep things cold. We've just found it's usually more trouble than it's worth to keep replacing the ice. We do keep water and 2-liter bottles of soda and ice tea in there, but we generally just drink them at "boat" temp; it's surprising how quickly you get used to that.

And....when all else fails....and there's just nothing in the galley that appeals to me....there's my old standby, crackers and peanut butter. YUM!

Let's go sailing!