Ask anybody in Eilat what they have to say about the month of June this year and you can be sure they will talk about the heat. At the beginning of the month we were hit with sizzling temperatures that hovered over the area for weeks, and then a heavy Sharav. Already weary of the heat and sand, Manny and I began to think of escape.

Just in time, another offer for a boat delivery job came our way. Towards the end of June Manny worked on firming up the contract, and I began to think again of provisioning. Last summer sailing on the Atlantic leg of Ellen's delivery, I prepared a big pot of soup each day. Using my vegetarian cooking skills, I used different grains and legumes to provide non meat protein but also to give a good base of carbohydrates for cold watches. This summer our delivery will be in the Eastern Med where summer temperatures are sure to dampen my enthusiasm for standing over a hot stove. So what will I cook?

While at sea on a small boat, I find it easiest to cook one-pot-meals. Sailing in the Eastern Med during the summer often means light winds and hot humid weather. The last thing anybody wants to eat in this weather is soup and we have been informed that the refrigerator on this boat may not work. I am thinking of one-pot-meals that will revolve around room temperature grains or pasta salads and rice dishes.

Before setting offshore, I like to cook some satisfying food that will be easy to heat and serve. That way if sea conditions leave me with an uneasy stomach, I can have a rest from the galley and Manny still has a good meal. Last summer while provisioning in a French supermarket, I found some interesting packages of mixed grains. They turned out to be such an onboard success that I will be taking one mix with us. This simple pot of mixed grains and savoury spices can provide good energy without upsetting most stomachs.

Simply Satisfying Grains
1/3 cup coarse, cracked whole wheat (bulgur)
1/3 cup quinoa
1/3 cup split red lentils
1 medium cooking onion, chopped
½ cup chopped celery or 1 fennel bulb chopped
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground fennel seeds (if using chopped fennel bulb then substitute a small piece of chopped fresh ginger root instead of ground fennel)
1 ½ Tbsp olive oil
2 cups water

Wash grains well, until water runs clear. Drain and set aside.
Sauté onion in olive oil one minute. Add spices, stir and cook one minute. Add celery or fennel, stir and cook one more minute.
Add grains; cook a little, stirring to coat grains with spices. Add water and cover pot with a lid. Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer and cook till done. Approximately 30 minutes.
When all the water is absorbed, the grains are cooked. Turn off heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir with a fork to break up grains and serve.
Serves 4

In my experience, leafy green vegetables don't last very long without refrigeration. One good way to provide the missing minerals and nutrients found in these vegetables is through making herbal infusions. An herbal infusion is a large amount of dried herb that is brewed for a long time. While herbal teas provide some nutrition, an infusion packs a much bigger wallop. For instance, a cup of nettle tea contains only 5-10 mg of calcium, whereas a cup of nettle infusion contains up to 500 mg of calcium.

I first learned about herbal infusions from herbalist Susun Weed If you want to learn more about herbal infusions and which herbs we can use, I highly recommend taking one of Lady B's online herbal classes. A past student of Susun Weed, Lady B, aka Barbara Hall is a gardener and herbalist living in Oregon, USA. She has been gathering, growing and preparing herbal medicines for many years and has a wealth of knowledge. Today she shares that knowledge in several lively online classes that will leave you understanding healing and herbs in a whole new way.

Onboard Yofy, we make infusions from dried Nettles and Red Clover but it is our Red Raspberry Leaf Iced Tea that draws all the attention. Among other things, this tea is rich in Vitamin C, bioflavonoids, calcium and magnesium. It is a cooling tea with the potential of reducing high blood pressure and cholesterol levels in many individuals. Each summer I make gallons of this iced tea and get rave reviews from all our visitors.

Red Raspberry Leaf Cooler
1 cup of mixed dried herbs: Red Raspberry Leaves, Hibiscus flowers and Rose Petals (about 2/3 of the mix is Red Raspberry Leaves)
1 bottle of pure apple juice
1 ½ to 2 liters of water

Infuse herbs for a minimum of 4 hours in one liter of boiling water. Strain, squeezing out as much liquid as you can from the herbs. Pour infusion into a two liter jug, add apple juice and top up with water. Refrigerate.

While I prepare provisioning lists, I think about the challenges of provisioning in a new language. Finding ingredients, reading labels and learning how to substitute ingredients can be very challenging when you don't speak the local language. Last year I happened upon Kathy Parsons' websites. These are two great sites where Kathy provides printable cheat sheets and shopping lists for sailors cruising in countries where French or Spanish is spoken. I found her cheat sheets to be invaluable shopping aides and she has also written two good language guides for sailors.

Of course once all the provisioning is completed and brought back to the boat a whole new challenge awaits us. Where the heck can we put everything? Nothing frustrates me more than cruising authors who say store everything in lockers, but don't tell you how. When we first went cruising many years ago, I constantly asked other sailors, "Where do you store your provisions?" On a small boat I just never seemed to have the space. So now, for all of you who wonder the same thing, this is where all the food provisions get stored onboard Yofy.

Galley storage for day to day use:



Note how often things are tucked away in behind other things (such as bulk herbs and spices tucked in an empty corner next to the cooking pots)
Cabin storage which includes fresh vegetable storage, day to day quantities of grains, etc. plus dry stores and back up:



The fresh fruit and vegetable locker is vented by two good sized plastic vents that Manny inserted in the settee base. Sorry, I didn't manage to get them in the shot. These vents provide the needed ventilation to keep things from going off quickly.

Today's grab bag is a hanging net where I tuck opened packages of crackers, nuts, bread and any fresh fruit or vegetables that need to be eaten today. When we are under way, I also use this net for our night watch treats.

I do wish we had a bigger galley with handy locker storage that would make access to my Tupperware containers of rice, flour, and other kitchen essentials easier. For now I need to lift salon settee cushions to access the storage.

And this is how it looks:
VEGETABLE LOCKER



BULK DRY GOODS LOCKER


CANS AND PACKAGED FOODS LOCKER


I have lined the floor of each locker with plastic non skid padding that both reduces onboard rattle when underway and makes for easy cleaning.

However you choose to organize the food provisions on your boat, finding accessible lockers and an organized way to find a place for everything will make the cook's life much more agreeable. And as we know aboard Yofy, a happy cook means more creative onboard meals. And tasty and healthy meals underway provide the energy and enthusiasm for bearing any discomfort that a passage may bring.

Now I'm off to prepare lunch. Bon Appetite! Or as they say over here Beteavon!

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- Part 1 © 2010 Robyn Coulter -
May is panning out to be a month of guests. Our weather is already warm and it has been easy enough to entertain visitors with a day of sailing. With each visit I've been thankful for Yofy's excellent storage capacity. When her lockers are full, the makings for a spontaneous lunch or evening snack is within easy reach. All of which has got me thinking about provisioning.

Many articles have been written about provisioning a sailboat for an offshore cruise. Books have been written about stocking a sailboat's galley and cooking on board. While most of us profess that provisioning is really quite simple, the sheer prevalence of articles and books suggest that it is a subject worth studying.

Take any confident sailor who feels at home in their shore side kitchen and ask them to provision for a short sailing holiday and you are sure to stir up just a little angst. Suddenly the idea of being less than a short car ride from the nearest supermarket gets us all in a tither. What can we cook that will meet all the crews likes and dislikes? How many dry goods do we really need? And lastly where the heck are we going to store it all?

On board Yofy we ask another question. Does our provisioning list include healthy and nutritious food? Time and again I have watched in dismay as neighbouring sailboats load on supplies. All too often the large majority of their food shopping consists of crisps, cookies and alcohol. While I certainly understand the urge to nibble on watches, snack foods do not provide the nutrition and energy to sustain a crew on a sailing holiday, never mind an offshore leg.

Earlier this month a simple question posted on a popular cruising forum brought up the subject again. A woman sailor in the northern hemisphere was looking towards the summer sailing season and wondering what and how much food she needed to stock her galley with. People who answered her, suggested pre-meal planning, stocking up on canned goods, and even calorie counting. As I sat down to send her my two cents worth, I realized that I needed to write a blog. So, after twenty years of living aboard and a summer of provisioning and cooking for six to eight people, here are some of my thoughts on the subject.

The first thing to consider when making a provisioning list is - who's going and where are they going? It sounds obvious but your provisioning list is going to change considerably if you have young children or teenagers on board. Is the crew made up of mainly robust males with hearty appetites or is it a mixed crew with some dainty females who prefer to nibble throughout the day. Will you be sailing in colder climates where warm, heating food is needed or is this a tropical vacation where cooking over a hot stove is not very appealing?

Even if you only use your boat to go out for day sails and the marina is a short walk away from the nearest foods store, it is important to have a basic stock of food supplies on board at all times. This was driven home to me many years ago when we were sailing out of Toronto, Canada. Friends invited Manny and me to sail with them along the coast to the next marina where there was a pub and we could all have dinner. After dinner we would sail home. We picked a sunny Sunday and joined them on board. Out on Lake Ontario the wind didn't co-operate and after three or four hours it became apparent that we wouldn't make the pub in daylight, never mind sail back home. The weather changed a little and it became cold out on the water. The couple hadn't thought of food because we were due to eat out and there weren't enough supplies on board to feed us. We hadn't brought enough warm clothes. On the approaches to our home marina the skipper underestimated depths and we went aground. In the end, we didn't arrive back at the dock until well past midnight - cold, hungry and wiser for the experience.

Today, we always top up water tanks, check our fuel gauge and keep a basic supply of food on board every time we leave the dock. We have spare warm clothes on board too.



If you are provisioning for an offshore passage you will need to keep in mind the crew's food preferences. I am a vegetarian. Manny is not. When we have guests on board we try to offer a meal that has a vegetarian dish as well as meat or fish. It can also help to know how the crew manages in heavy seas. Are they prone to sea sickness? Or do they just get hungrier?

Friends of ours crewed in a rally that encountered high seas and rolly onboard conditions. The skipper hadn't thought to provision for rough weather and sensitive stomachs. The only dinner available was fried fish. Needless to say most of the crew went hungry. On Ellen we found that while underway, nobody could tolerate acid foods like tomato based dishes. Fresh fruit, however, disappeared at an alarming rate. In eight days, six people ate their way through four dozen apples, two dozen bananas, 2 dozen pears and a dozen oranges.

Living onboard Yofy, our provisioning routine is just as important as our maintenance schedule. Keeping provisions well stocked allows for last minute decisions to go sailing for a few days. Just as we keep backup spares for all our important boat systems, we also keep a backup for each of the basic provisions on board.

I keep Tupperware containers of all my basic dry goods in the galley lockers and also have at least an equal amount stored away in another locker as backup. So, if I have a large Tupperware container of Quaker Oats on board, I'll also have half a kilo of oats stored away in another locker as back up. The same goes for quinoa, cracked wheat, barley, buckwheat, lentils, chickpeas, mung beans and other legumes. I'll keep even greater supplies of rice, flour and pasta. We keep a supply of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. While we don't keep a wide variety of canned goods on hand, we do have plenty of cans of tuna and sardines and jars of peanut butter, molasses, jam and honey. I am always careful to make sure that we also have a couple of cans of beans in tomatoes sauce and a few packets of instant soup. These may never get eaten, but in a pinch they will serve as dinner. One can of powdered milk and a few cartons of a variety of juices and UTH milk round out the list.

Many visitors find it unusual, but onboard Yofy we also consider herbs and spices to be essential provisions. A basic meal of lentils and rice becomes much more palatable when spices are used in the cooking, but what many people do not know is that spices and herbs can provide essential minerals and aid with food digestion. We stock dried nettles, red raspberry leaves, and red clover blossoms to make nourishing infusions. Infusions are easy to make and one cup of nettle infusion provides 250 mg of Calcium, along with chlorophyll, chromium, cobalt, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, protein, riboflavin, selenium, thiamine, zinc, vitamins A, C, E, K. Our basic spices include turmeric, cumin and ground coriander. Among other qualities turmeric is an excellent blood purifier, when combined with turmeric, cumin is a very good digestive and immune booster and dried coriander seeds are known for lowering cholesterol levels.
Along with fresh vegetables and fruit, these basics will provide healthy and nutritious meals, even if we aren't able to stock up on other packaged goods, or fresh meat, fish, eggs or dairy products.

Below you will find a copy of our basic provisioning list. This is a list of what stock we regularly keep on board. Keep in mind that Yofy is a 30 foot sailboat, with a small galley and a top loading refrigerator. While we do have an oven, we do not have a microwave or a freezer onboard.

Yofy's Basic Provisioning List:
Dry goods only - 2 people living aboard with occasional guests

CANNED AND BOTTLED GOODS:
8 Tuna
4 Sardines
2 Tomatoe Paste
1 Whole Tomatoes
1 Pasta Sauce
2 Small Pineapple Rings
2 Tahini
2 Beans in tomatoes sauce
2 Corn
1 Peanut Butter
1 Jam
1 Molasses
1 Honey
1 Olives
1 Pickles

SAUCES, SPREADS, ETC.:
1 Pesto
1 Mayonnaise
1 Mustard
1 Hot sauce
½ liter Soya sauce
1 gallon (4 ½ liters) Olive Oil
1 liter Canola Oil



STAPLES:
3 packages/kilos Brown Rice
1 pkg /kilo Brown sugar
2 pkg/ kilo Whole Wheat Flour
5 pkg Spaghetti
5 pkg Penne
1 kilo Dried Legumes (peas, lentils, beans)
1 pkg Couscous
1 kilo Quinoa
500 grams Corn Meal
200 grams Soya Flour
1 kilo Quaker Oats
1 pkg Granola
300 grams Nuts (almonds, walnuts)
200 grams Dried Fruit (dates, raisins, figs, apricots)
300 grams Seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame)
1 pkg Powdered Milk
1 liter UTH Milk
Baking supplies (baking powder, soda, vanilla...)
Spices (full spice jars + backup)
Salt

DRINKS:
Bulk Herbs (100 grams each nettles, red raspberry leaves, red clover)
Several boxes Herbal teas (in bags)
1 box Black tea bags
1 box Green Tea Bags
2 Instant Coffee
1 pkg Cocoa powder
4 pkg Cup-a-soup
1 liter bottle Lemon Juice
3 boxes Juices
Lots of Wine
Really Lots of Beer
Bottled water

CRACKERS AND SNACK FOODS:
2 pkg Ryevita
1 pkg Burrito wraps
1 pkg Rice Crackers
1 pkg Other Whole Meal Crackers
1 pkg Pretzels
500 grams Popcorn
2 pkg Dark Chocolate
2 pkg Cookies
1 pkg each Candies (ginger, mint, licorice)
2 pkg Mint Chewing gum

PAPER GOODS:
Paper towels, toilet paper, wet ones, tissues, aluminum foil, strong trash bags, zip lock bags

CLEANERS:
Dish soap, laundry soap, hand soap, shampoo, conditioner, bleach, toilet cleaner, vinegar, cloths, rags, scotchbrite, brushes...

HEATH MISC.:
First Aid Kit, batteries (all sizes), insect repellant, sunscreen, moisturizers for dry skin...

Stayed tuned for Part 2 where I'll show you how I store it all, share some recipes and provide tips for offshore provisioning with a large crew!

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After years of thinking about it and months of reading about how to do it, we finally published our own website. It went online this week:
Yoga and the Art of Boat Maintenance at www.yogaandboatmaintenance.weebly.com
In the long run it wasn't difficult at all and we'd highly recommend the folks at Weebly who run a very user friendly site for creating and hosting websites.

With the launch of Yoga and the Art of Boat Maintenance, Manny and I offer a variety of services related to sailing and yoga. We present our credentials and years of experience as a Yacht Delivery Team, Marine Technician and Yoga Instructor. You will also find a page for projects and tips. This is where you will be able to find regular updates with free information on DIY projects for your boat and tips about everything boat and yoga related.

It's only the beginning and we have hopes for an exciting website where we can reach out to the sailing and yoga communities to offer our services and share information. You will be happy to hear that we have linked this blog into the website so that readers will be able to access relevant stories and information at both places.

We hope you take the time to check out Yoga and the Art of Boat Maintenance and I'll be back soon with more news of life onboard Yofy.

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