The review of today will be short and simple because I actually was very busy with Stephen to master a mountainous task today. We scheduled to meet at 08:30 in the boat house to review our strategy for victualing the boat for the short sprint race that is up ahead and will start the day after tomorrow. We both volunteered a couple of weeks ago on the WhatsApp group when Rich asked whether there would be somebody to help victualing. Honestly help is something that I am willing to provide whenever it will help the team to progress. After we arrived here in Subic Bay Stephen and I learned that help meant to take over the whole job. All of a sudden we were responsible for the supplies on the boat, the menu and the cooking instructing for this leg, two races, five days plus thirty-three day. And this involves not only food and drinks but also thinks like wet wipes, toilet paper, bin bags, cleaning stuff and whatever is needed to run the boat below deck and keeping the crew of 17th well fed and strong.
Obviously the boat contains already a lot of stuff and in the handover from Rachel and Ben we received an inventory list of everything that was inventoried. Based on this inventory Stephen and I developed a meal plan for the 5 day race and created a shopping list what we would need to complete the recipes. Alog with that we received advice from Rich and also some of the round the worlders pointed at the risks and wishes in terms of these supplies. „Never run out of toilet paper“. „Make sure there are enough wet wipes“ „We need more protein in our food“ „Dont take the risk that we will be hungry, leg one was awful“ „make sure meal are canned food only, the only way to cook is throwing cans into a pot and ….“ „You have no idea what it means to cook at 45 degree angle, make sure it will be not a challenge to us“ „chopping? I am not doing it“ „make the stock transparent, it does make sense not to know where stuff is“ „snacks, snacks ist the most important things“ „Pringle Bells, Pringle Bells, Pringles all the way…“. Jiwizz all this good advice, we both got scared even for this short haul race. And than we do have the mighty Pacific in front of us. So for us it is not only the sailing challenge but also the challenge to create disappointments and grief. We for sure could make sure that 2 out of 17 sailors will be happy, thats ourselves. But for the other 15 it is a big challenge keeping them motivated and well fed across the pond in the cold.
Now we decided on a menu with fresh stuff to consumer a lot of what is on board already. But the challenge with the fresh stuff clearly is the heat. 33°C outside and below deck even more. We have a little fridge At home that would be good for two people and a week of supplies. Here it is 17 of us and lot of days. Veggies and fruit need to be stowed outside from any cooling which limits the choices. We decided to go for apples, honey melon and mandarines. We will see how long they will last. The supply of apples was very, very expensive. I would say the kilo was more expensive than the meat we bought. They are imports fro the US.
Anyway 9 am Rich showed up and off we went to the harbor mall in order to buy supplies. Rich had to go with us because the cashier requires personal identification with the credit card. This was a challenge t skip because he has lot more to do than going shopping. But this is what it was. We had our list. I took my computer with me to tick off what we needed and we stormed the super market.
Now it is a bit different than at home. You have obviously a lot of food that is very specific to the Korean cuisine. So we had to realize that we were not able to buy mash potatoes powder. Not available. So here our dinner day 3 went unless we find a work around . Mash from rice was not an option. So we diverted for this leg to fresh potato. But this meant peeling and chopping, cocking and mashing and not just tossing a bag of powder into the pot filling it with hot water and done. On the fly in the super market we had to take a number of these decision to divert. Only thing that was dead easy was Pringle Bells because there was a whole isle of prongs available to us.
Supplies were packed in boxes and a taxi took us home to the marina.
After arrival at the club we took everything to the boat unpacked the boxes and laid everything out in the cockpit. We searched for the stuff on board and brought that up to. Everything was packed in daybeds according to the recipe except the meat in the fridge and the fresh stock. Bags were numbered and later in the day lined up bag 1-5 on the font lower bunk on starboard opposite of the mast. In front of the mast we stored all bread and burger buns.
After the Stephen and I decided to look at all stock on board. And it was quite some journey with interesting surprises. We have a lot of stuff on board. I mean tons of toilet paper. I would say there is enough for a shit flew of 15 of us for 30 days, sorry. We found oregano, 9 restaurant jars that will allow us to spice up pizza in a pizza delivery restaurant for a year. we found tons and tons of stuff not only in bags but in lockers and in the galley itself. For sure WTC is safe to stay out there for a long time without running out of tea or honey or oregano or sweets at any time.
We rearranged the supplies in the galley and repacked all other stuff. Under one coffin bunk we found 10 blocks of „cheese“ smelly like socks that had been worn for a month. Obviously we thought except for the odor that this had no value. It was fun to look at PG tips supplies. 6000 bags on board. For us 17 this is a supply for 137 days. Hopefully we will not be out there for so long. Anyway the supplies were all put on board for a good reason and the number one risk for a victualler is to get killed because the boat runs out of Pringles, Nutella, coffee or tea. It became late but we got the job done. At least we believe where stuff is and have an idea of supplies. Tomorrow we have to run for four more items and than we will see how this works out. I am sure the crew is preparing already the plank for us two. Just joking. The day ended peaceful with a nice sunset. One day of prep to go and we will be in business – finally sailing.
Joe Sails 