WORLD With reports this month on Provisioning Options in the Realm of Chartering, a regular contributor's observations on The Less-Traveled Corners of the Eastern Caribbean, and miscellaneous Charter Notes.
Meals in Mexican towns are cheap and delicious, but out in the Sea of Cortez there are very few places to dine out or shop.
the bare essentials before you start out. The opposite extreme is sailing in Mexico's minimally developed Sea of Cortez. Once you leave the La Paz charter base, there is virtually nowhere to buy food or dine out for miles and miles, so you have to bring along everything you'll need in the galley, right down to the limes and hot sauce. Naturally, charter companies adjust their provisioning options to the realities of each cruising ground, and in our experience most standard provisioning packages provide more than enough food for normal palates, with a good variety of entrée choices. Usually, you'll be allowed to choose between 'full provisioning', meaning all breakfasts, lunches and dinners, or 'partial provisioning', where it's assumed you'll have three or four dinners ashore during a week aboard. If you wish, you can nix certain foods from the options, such as seafood, pork or whatever. And yes, most companies will be happy to organize vegetarian menus too. Ideally, all the items you have ordered will be aboard your boat prior to your arrival, or shortly thereafter, so you can throw off the docklines and get out sailing as soon as possible. In fact, one of the strongest arguments for letting the charter company do it all is that by doing so you won't waste a minute of your precious sailing time. That said, lots of folks like to customize their orders or thoroughly selfprovision, especially if they are 'foodies' who take pleasure in whipping up their favorite concoctions for their boatmates. Depending on where your charter base is, pre-trip shopping can be relatively easy, and sometimes add to the overall cultural experience — particularly where ALL PHOTOS LATITUDE / ANDY
Eat, Drink and Be Merry: Recipe for a Successful Charter As our managing editor likes to say when proposing a noon-time respite from the office grind, "Hey, ya gotta eat!" While you may skip a meal once in a while during a normal work week, the joyfully physical activities of a typical sailing vacation — such as swimming, snorkeling, hiking and trimming sails — tend to make mealtimes inordinately important. That's why we've decided to tackle a subject we rarely touch on in these pages: provisioning. After all, a well-fed crew is a happy crew. During the many years that we've been taking charter vacations, we've found there are many possible approaches to the process of provisioning. Deciding which strategy is right for your particular charter largely depends on the area you'll be sailing in and the needs of your crew. Of course, on crewed yacht charters it is assumed that you'll be served fine gourmet cuisine based on your predetermined culinary preferences. But when booking a bareboat trip, some or all of your group will typically need to be actively involved in meal planning and have a game plan for where, when and how to provision. In the Greek Isles and along Turkey's Turquoise Coast you normally end up stern-tied to a village wharf, often surrounded by inexpensive bars and restaurants, with markets nearby also. So there's no need to provision more than
there are old-style open-air markets, such as in Guadeloupe, Martinique or Tahiti. Unless you fly in a day or two early, however, you may find that you've squandered the better part of a day getting it all together. Remember, everything tends to take longer in the laid-back regions that make prime charter destinations, and you can't always get everything you're after in one supermarket unless you are in a highly-developed tourism center like St. Maarten. Even there, the big stores are a long taxi ride from the charter bases. Will you save money by self-provisioning? Possibly, but not necessarily. And if you do, it probably won't be much. On a recent bareboat trip to Tahiti's Leeward Islands — where appetizers in swank restaurants can cost $35 and up — we were thrilled to pay $50/day/person for full provisioning, including several cases of drinks. And the food provided was both plentiful and delicious. You can save a few bucks, however, by bringing a variety of costly staples with you, but lugging the extra baggage is a hassle that many charterers would
