You didn’t think I was just going to let my love of food and meals go to the wayside while I was on a boat, did you? Oh no, we had over a dozen hungry sailors on board throughout our week in the Bahamas, and we only ate out once.

Dana, the head galley wench, had learned a lot from the trip last year and came armed with some lessons learned. I accompanied her and her boyfriend to Costco in Fort Lauderdale where we piled up three enormous carts with over $1300 in provisions for the crew. Dana had planned out a whole meal schedule, and I was glad to be her assistant of sorts for the week!

Breakfast: For the most part, folks fended for themselves for breakfast. Sometimes we cooked eggs and bacon, but the grab-and-go muffins seemed to be the best since we were usually moving around all over the place in the morning and didn’t get to sit down for a proper breakfast. We purchased too many apples and pears, but not enough bananas and clementines. Nate was especially happy one day with cheesy eggs and bacon wrapped up in a whole wheat tortilla - he requested more of those next year. And there was a coffee maker on the boat so I brewed fresh coffee every day. I was the only troublesome eater, and I usually ate pb&j on a gluten free tortilla or Udi’s Multigrain. We bought cereal and pancake mix but that wasn’t used until the last day when we were already at shore.

Lunch: For lunch, it was lots and lots of sandwiches and grilling. We had a little grill that could attach to the boat and we grilled up hot dogs and burgers. Other than that, folks would make sandwiches out of cold cuts, or sometimes we made tuna salad. Lessons learned here is that we definitely did not purchase enough bread (and too many hot dog buns!) and people were making PB&Js with hamburger buns by the end of the trip. The tomatoes and lettuce for sandwiches and burgers went bad and it was kind of gross. One day I cooked up BLTs with avocado for the crew and everyone was asking for seconds. Purchasing gluten free bread for me ahead of time was key here.

Snacks: Snack items were HUGE on the trip. Pirate’s Booty, pretzel crisps, popcorn, hummus, carrots, Ritz crackers, salsa, tortilla chips, buckets of nuts, you name it. We were happy snackers around 3pm. I think we ran out of most snacks by the second to last day so we will definitely purchase more next time.

Dinner: Dinners were a wonderful time of day, when we all sat down together and ate a warm (well-earned!) meal. Dana really stepped it up and huge hits were taco night, mac n cheese (she made two variations - one with ground beef and one with bacon), grilled chicken with pasta, and one night we went out on the town in Bimini for seafood and Bahamamas. To keep up with my dietary restrictions, the night we did mac n cheese I made a salad with leftover ground meat (like a taco salad!) and on the night with pasta, I just had chicken with red sauce - like a chicken parm! We even had one successful fishing attempt, and the nearby restaurant cooked this guy up for us!

Drinks: The key lesson we learned here is that even if it is a GREAT deal to buy Costco brand beer in bulk, no one will drink it because it’s nasty. So fork over a couple extra $$s for something a little better. We ran out of champagne for mimosas by the last day and margaritas by day two. Lessons learned there.

I had no idea what went into feeding a boatful of hungry and thirsty people for the week, but I definitely am better prepared for next year. It’s difficult to gauge just how much food you’re going to need for a group of that size! I have to hand it to Dana for keeping us well-fed. I would definitely lean towards buying more non-perishables, more sandwich-making items, and more things that don’t need to be cooked to be eaten for next year (more grab-and-go). Although the nightly family dinners are a must.