Docking at the Docks in Downtown Hampton, Virginia was difficult and we needed to do it twice, as we requested to arrive a day before our reservation and our planned long term slip was occupied.
Both dockings were tricky because the river current was deceivingly gradual but completely opposite to the wind direction on both days. Making you think– why is the boat moving “that way!”
This slip would be our home for the next week or more.
On Saturday morning, the homecoming parade for Hampton College (across the river from our dock) was promenading along the Main Street blocking most traffic and it was quite the event!!! A 2.5 mile parade route with over 2 hours of floats and local marching bands. We planned to rent a car and run errands for the entire day so we needed to wait for a break in the festivities to jump up two blocks and catch an Uber.
After picking up our rental car- First stop: West Marine. I don’t remember why. The rest of the day was primarily about provisioning for nonperishable items. I think we filled two full carts at Target. (We also grabbed some more clothes for Jenna because she has sprouted up a few more inches and she needs more shorts. Not easy to find in late October!). After Target we grabbed a quick lunch at Five Guys and ran back to the boat to drop off load number one. Because we only had the car for 24 hours as soon as we packed away load one we ran back out to three more grocery stores, a liquor store and returned to target for more stuff! Dinner was Chick-fil-a, and returned to the boat to offload and put away load number two.
When we returned to the docks, I was really glad to know that we were on the floating dock. Due to the extremely high tides and storm off shore, the fixed dock, that we had spent our first night on, was submerged under water. At least 6 inches — possibly more.
More provisioning: Our amazon deliveries arrived on Monday and Tuesday. I have actually ordered quite a bit of dehydrated foods. Advice on provisioning, aka: the need to stock food supplies, for this 10-14 day trip can range from making sure you have enough fresh water to “buy 2 pounds of potatoes and other hard veggies per person per day with a 50 % buffer.” WHAT??? I need 75+ pounds of potatoes? I later learned that the book with this tip, The Care and Feeding of Sailing Crew, by Lin Pardey with Larry Pardey, was one of the more “extreme” adventure sailing guides (40 years of sailing with multiple Pacific crossings.) It has some clever tricks for long term 21+ days with produce but also provisions without refrigeration. Ten pounds of carrots and cabbage anyone?
Yes, many of the Caribbean islands we will visit have “grocery stores” and restaurants, but the cost can be almost double. Certain items we enjoy, like wheat thins, ritz crackers and cape cod chips are not available. Essentially, not only are we food shopping for the next 10-14 days but to help ease spending in the islands and for convenience on getting the groceries to the boat the next 8 months. On land, I can pack the trunk full of multiple bags of groceries, and then unload them into my large kitchen. Once in the islands, each “provisioning run” is in our dinghy. The dinghy can easily hold 4 people but, “There’s no trunk” so stock all the grocery bags at your feet and try to keep it dry.
Next, find a place to store the groceries. Many cruising catamarans have loads of cabinets and bins for storage. A fellow boat actually brings their entire year supply of dog food for two dogs with them. Our boat was built for “fast, light sailing,” not so much storage cubbies. I bought 12+ large and mid sized storage pins for nonperishable and open air veggies that we have stacked in to the forward starboard hull. There are more bins in a storage area beneath the bunk — but these areas are not convenient to reach while underway.
We have a small interior refrigerator (1 meter high) (.75 meters wide) and an interior freezer (same size). In the cockpit, the outside seating area, there is the Dometic cooler (which is a plugged in cooler that can act as a fridge or freezer or one of both) and we have purchased a portable cooler, but it requires slipping in new ice packs once or twice a day. The portable cooler is not the quality of YETI or ORCA coolers but it is very light weight and I am happy to have the “cooled” overflow space for fruits and veggies that don’t require very cold temps.
We had ordered four large pre-cooked frozen meal trays from the kitchen of the local yacht club. Two lasagnas, one meat and one veggie, Chicken pot pie and rotisserie chicken with Veggies. The idea is — stock the freezer and keep the dishes simple to heat up and serve on passage— and don’t forget lots of treats. Sailors love treats on passage, so in addition to staples on our boat such as double stuffed vanilla Oreos and large containers of Skippy peanut butter, I grabbed a variety of different snacks and desserts.
Our freezer also has frozen shrimp and meats. (Ice cubes but sadly, no ice cream). Our crew, Mindy and Reinhart, have also offered to bring some frozen quiche and meatballs. We are also hopeful to catch some tuna or mahi on passage, but not a lot of room in the freezer at the moment. Sushi, anyone?
Passage food plan: everyone makes their own breakfast and lunch and then we will eat a common dinner together. I really enjoy cooking breakfast but on passage it might be too challenging (sea conditions) or I might feel too tired. Fun and easy to do at the dock but I did not want to plan to do this everyday.
Back to dehydrated foods– will we ever eat these??? Too early to tell. Certainly dried blueberries or strawberries in yogurt will be a nice addition but dehydrated beef stroganoff or dried sausage which came in one of the camping “buckets.” Not sure. I have also grabbed powdered milk, powdered eggs, powdered butter, powdered cheese sauce (just imagine 4 cups of the powder packs you get in a Kraft Mac and Cheese box) and powdered cream cheese (who knew?). It’s possible that we will be grateful for these supplies when we are in the outer islands of the Bahamas with no grocery store in site. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. There is also always the risk that the refrigerator stops working or is “accidentally” shut off (yep, that happened 3 weeks ago).
I have a few cookbooks onboard, including The Boat Galley by Carolyn Sherlock and Jan Irons and One dish meal planning. We also have Starlink so there is the option to seek Internet advice. I have supplies to make my own breads, sourdough starter, instant yeast, various flours and such but I still have not attempted it. It’s on my to do list for this year. More amazon boxes arriving with silicon bowls for bread “proofing.” More things to find a storage spot for.