Cruising Snack Food

When you are between meals and still craving a quick snack, what should you grab? Oh! You can only grab from the selection you chose while on shore at a grocery store where you didn't think about this feeling, this sensation, this yearning for something to munch on?!

One of the best snacks that we have found is roasted peanuts that are salted and still in the shell. Now, I would much rather munch on cookies or candy, but if I did that all the way across an ocean my teeth would rot out and I would get fat!

By best snacks, we refer to a few requirements that must be met.

First, it needs to be tedious to eat. You can buy a can of nuts and pour out a handful and throw it into your mouth. You just ate a ton of nuts in no time, and at that rate you will run out! Having the shells on means that you need to open each one at a time. This will slow you down and make the snack more of an activity and less of a meal.

Second, it needs to be tasty. Who doesn't like eating peanuts at a ball game? They come in different flavors and salinity levels, so you can pick your favorite.

Third, it needs to have a manageable trash method. This is where cookies and candy drop the ball on cruising snacks. Prepackaged snacks tend to come in plastic containers or bags. As you eat them up, plastic trash will start to pile up in your boat. Cruising should be about sailing somewhere neat, not sailing to the next plastic recycling facility! Peanuts come in huge bags that can then be opened while at shore and placed into reusable mason jars. Now, as you eat your peanuts, you end up with a bunch of empty jars that you can refill at the next port. As you eat the peanuts, the shells will pile up, and you can just as easily throw them into your wake.

The shells are biodegradable since they are a natural product, so no major harm in tossing the shells over the side.

Eating the peanuts is fun, and so is watching the shells flow away in the wake. It takes time and takes your mind off of the fact that you are bobbing around in the middle of the ocean for the next few weeks!

Lastly, the price needs to be right! Pistachios meet all the same requirements as peanuts, until you look at the costs. Peanuts in the US can be purchased for $4 for a 2 pound bag, or $2 per pound. Pistachios can cost around $10 per pound! Since peanuts are so cheap, fun to eat, entertaining, and easy to dispose of, Maddie and I feel that they are a great cruising snack food for out in the cockpit.

What snacks do you like to eat while at sea? Let us know in the comments section down below!

Orientation of the Head

All cruising yachts have a head (a marine toilet) located somewhere in the cabin. They might differ in size, shape, and where the waste goes, but they all have one important feature: they are mounted in the yacht.

This means that you can't just "move the head around" to suit your needs. You must sit there and use it where it is, no matter the conditions you are sailing in.

This is why it is important to choose a yacht that has a head oriented in an ideal location and orientation to make use at sea more comfortable.

Lets start with orientation. There are two obvious ways to orient the head, and a third that we will throw in because sometimes designers like to be "creative"! The first is to orient the head so it is aligned fore-aft with the yacht. The second is to orient the head so it faces athwartship. The third is some kind of diagonal orientation that exists between the first and second.

In the first orientation, as the yacht heels, so will the head and so will you on the head. Anytime you sit on it while underway, you will lean to port or starboard.

In the second orientation, the head is oriented athwartship and you will be facing the side of the hull, as you are aligned with the beam of the boat. On one tack, you will be reclined on the head, the other tack, you will be thrown off the front of the seat!

In the third orientation, any amount of heeling will result in you being tilted and thrown from the seat as you try and do your business.

Naturally, the third orientation (diagonal) might look nice while at a dock, but it will make life miserable every time you need to go. The second orientation (athwartship) will have you trying to hold on for dear life as you are leaned forward or back as the yacht heels over. The first orientation (fore-aft) is the ideal, where on one tack you lean to the left and on the other tack you lean to the right.

Now, onto the location of the head. While the goal of yacht design is to make everything feel "big and roomy", this is not what you want with the head. A large open head means that you have nothing to brace against as you go. Ideally, you want a head that is oriented fore-aft and something to brace your elbows against on both sides to hold you in place as you carry out your business. If you have a spacious head, you will find it hard to keep on the John as you will be flung from one side of the head to the other.

Remember, what you see in a boat at the pier will be heeled over like a fun house while at sea. Imagine trying to use a bathroom in a fun house. That is how cruisers do.

LED Navigation Lights

While LED Navigation Lights are a bit pricier when compared to regular incandescent bulb navigation lights, they do boast some serious advantages.

The first and most obvious is that they consume very little power when compared to a bulb. An LED Red/Green combination light will consume less than 1 amp while a similar bulb would consume at least 4 amps! Our anchor light consumes 0.1 amps, and our stern light burns up 0.5 amps.

All in all, running a set of LED Navigation Lights can save you some serious amperage and that will help save your batteries for more important amp draws, such as your refrigerator!

Te next huge advantage of LED over bulb is the incredible lifespan of the light. A regular bulb will burn out in a few months of use, especially if it is subjected to heavy weather where it is pounding around. I used to have to carry spare bulbs because it always seemed to burn out in bad weather and necessitate me going up to the tip of the bow in a pitching sea to change the light bulb. LED lights boast a burn time of 50,000 hours. This equates roughly to 5.7 years of illumination!

The last major advantage of LED lights over bulbs is heat. LED lights just stay cooler than a bulb navigation light, and this means that you have less risk of a burn if you lean into the housing while you are working on the deck. I have only seared my forearm on the bow light once to learn that it should not be touched after being on for hours! LED lights, on the other hand, never get that hot, making them safe to be around at all times.

Lastly, the biggest advantage that comes from LED lights isn't really an advantage of one type over another, but more of a special feature you get when you are fully LED: you can leave your lights on for the entire voyage. Yes, we leave our lights on by day. It isn't that we think we are more visible or safer having the lights on by day, but more along the lines of "we forget to turn them off" by day. The sun comes up and we stop seeing the glow of the lights around the boat. Since there is no penalty for keeping them on, we don't pay it much mind. When the sun sets, we never have to worry about turning on the lights, because they are already there.

When we arrive somewhere, we switch the navigation lights off and turn on the anchor light. The same truth hold for it. If we find ourselves on shore later than we expected, we don't worry about our boat being dark in the anchorage, as the anchor light is always on!

I am not saying that you should turn your lights on and forget about them, but with LED, you can and not have any serious consequences as a result. It makes it so that you always have your lights on in the dark and you don't have to think about it to make it happen.

Sargassum-less Sargasso Sea

The Sargasso Sea is the only sea in the world not bounded by any landmass. It lives nestled inside the North Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda.

The Sargasso Sea is a magical place, where the waters salinity is higher and a special type of floating seaweed originates. Sargassum is an entire world and habitat to tiny sea creatures that float along the ocean in these little rafts of life.

I had read that deep in the Sargasso, the sargassum would become thick and appear as a golden field in the middle of the ocean! The thought of waking up for my watch and stepping outside into the cockpit and seeing a golden meadow fascinated my mind!

As we sailed by Bermuda, I grew excited for the sargassum to become thicker! We would see small streaks of sargassum stretching across the ocean, which made me think we might be getting closer, but we were not.

We crossed the Sargasso Sea and never saw any thick patches. We actually saw more sargassum off the coast of Florida! Alas, we sailed on and exited the Sargasso without getting to experience the magical meadow that floats around in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Somer's Supermarket, Bermuda

Food in Bermuda is slightly more expensive than in the states. Yes, some items are ridiculously overpriced, but there is usually a cheaper alternative right next to it.

For example, Arnold's Oatmeal Bread costs $8.95 for a loaf. Right next to it is a house brand loaf that is twice as big and only $5.

So, if you insist on buying your favorite name brand foods, expect to pay through the nose. If you are willing to buy local brands, the prices are still manageable.

To help alleviate the pain of provisioning in Bermuda, shop at Somer's Supermarket in St. George's on the northern end of the island. It's a short two block walk from the dinghy dock and very cruiser friendly.

If you tell them you are on a yacht, they will give you a 5% discount on the total bill. Also, for a $10 deposit, they will let you take a grocery cart down the street to the dinghy dock, making it much easier to get all you food back to your boat. When you bring the cart back, they give you back your $10 bill.

Bermuda is such a gorgeous place to visit, and if you can avoid buying fuel there, you will find the cost of cruising there to be comparable to cruising on the East Coast of the United States.