Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

  

The phonetic alphabet is used in voice communications to improve the legibility of a message. It starts out with Alpha, Bravo, Charley... for the letters A, B, and C and most of us are familiar with it from the movies and the radio chatter of airline pilots. A good example of it's use might be in spelling your own name. Haven't you ever been asked to spell yours out for someone only to repeat it again? It's frustrating but you should know it's a problem easily avoided by using the phonetic alphabet. For example, my name is simply Sierra, Tango, Echo, Victor, Echo, STEVE.   MARY is Mike, Alpha, Romeo, Yankee.  Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot of course represents the letters WTF. These letters could mean different things to different people depending to some degree on their life experiences, interpersonal associations, and cultural influences. In the context of what I'm about to discuss these letters stand for:

WHERE'S THE FOOD?

The planning of our trip requires me to spend some time worrying about the food we'll consume along the way. Why, you might ask, does food merit any extra attention when I should be focusing on the matters of boating and properly executing this trip? The main cause of this concern has to do with my copilot, namely, wife Mary. Remember what I said about the promise I made to keep things comfy & cozy? Paying attention to eating accommodations ranks high up on her C & C scale. Then of course there's another reason. Anyone who knows her also knows that food is muy importante and must be regarded with the highest level of seriousness. Have you ever heard of someone who carries a food thermometer in her purse? I know it's for work but does she really need it with her all the time?

A Common Tool

in Mary's Purse

Oh boy, let me redirect on this topic before I step in too deep. Who could ever complain about someone having others welfare in mind regarding the quality and safety of their food? That's a credible endeavor and I have, after all, been the benefactor of her occupation and preoccupation with food. The occupation part provides our home with a nice paycheck. The preoccupation makes for tasty dinners she seems to pull magically out of the air. Such a perfect balance, and with food forever front and center in her mind it's only natural that these mental gyrations convert into some nice feasts. As in fact they do.

Most would think of eating when traveling as an obvious need satisfied by finding a restaurant. You sit, order, eat, pay the bill, and go. Problem solved. (Oops!, I forgot the tip, cheapskate).   I have no doubt we'll be seeing the inside of a lot of restaurants on our trip but you might be surprised to hear  me state that our goal will be to try to minimize this as much as possible. I repeat, we don't want to go to a lot of restaurants. OK, I know what your thinking and you can stop focusing on that cheapskate comment. That's not the reason. The real reason is we both become saturated with and weary of restaurant food after a few days. I like to eat out as much as anyone but the thought of every meal, everyday, for 25 days is too much. We are declaring right here, right now, that our goal is to eat no more than once a day at a restaurant. That includes both full service and fast food. 

Does this mean we'll just pickup junk food for the rest of our days' meals?  No, but there will be a lot of temptation do so while we're underway. A quick treat during a refueling stop seems too easy to avoid.. Fortunately there are forces at work that might help us avoid this indulgence. The choices of food while on the water will be limited so we usually won't just stumble upon it. We'd have to seek it out, and if inconvenience isn't a sufficient inhibitor then all we'd have to do is contemplate what we might find to purchase. I don't hold out much hope of finding a choice menu items at some of the marina stores will pass along the way. Bless them for trying, and I understand the problems of a short season and low customer traffic, but come on; it makes gas station food look prime. A prerequisite for consuming it might be to first deposit a 6 pack in my belly. I suspect a lot of their weekend customers are already covered in this department. But even with all this, I have to admit I can fall prey to it so I'm wondering how to avoid it.

Junk Food

It doesn't prevent scurvy

Perhaps there should be a call for strict dietary discipline on our trip. Maybe it would be fun to pretend we're sailors of times past who'd fall ill from scurvy, rickets. and beriberi. After a few weeks at sea these poor souls would start to develop sore gums, skin welts, and other maladies. It killed many tens of thousands of sailors and while the ancients had anecdotal indicators that citrus could curtail it, it was only positively determined to be from a vitamin C deficiency in the 1930's. But even if they had known with certainty about vitamin C there wasn't much they could have done about it. Any food with the required C concentrations would, without refrigeration, quickly spoil and oxidize the vitamin away. If on our trip we're to avoid a similar fate maybe I should impose laws of nutrition on my vessel as the British Royal Navy had. For this I'll need some guidelines. Let's see what was said about scurvy a long time ago. In 1734 physician Johann Bachstrom published a book in which he stated that "scurvy is solely owing to a total abstinence from vegetable food, and greens which are the primary cause of the disease" and urged fresh fruits and vegetables as a cure. I have a strong hunch his advice aligns squarely with present day American Dietetic Association guidelines. I'm going to check with a dietitian.

Tick, Tick, Tick

OK, I'm back. The dietitian says ole Johann was way ahead of his time and spot on. Seems like a consensus has formed among the experts, both past and present, and I'm now supplied with all I need to know in order to set the nutritional laws for Das Blue Fin Boot. They will be quite simple.

Fruits and vegetables must be on board at all times while underway. 

This rule will work out nicely because it will provide us with the necessary food stock to counter balance the hi-cal low-fib stuff from the restaurants. So for almost a month we eat right all day long and end the day eating crap. Sounds fine by me but my co-pilot will probably say it violates a principle of the food pyramid or something along those lines. I say, "what difference does it make?" Sometimes I think food experts would have been better served if they'd just become accountants. Maybe food accountants. They could count the fibers, proteins, carbs etc on a ledger just like a real CPA. Balance the budget at every meal and your body lives life in harmony. I say that's baloney! The body doesn't balance its dietary budget with every meal. The hours between meals is not important. It takes days and weeks for an imbalance to have an effect. Ok, calm down.

The Food Pyramid

Looks nice here but what about

when it's in your stomach?

See that pretty little food pyramid to the left? I know it's not used as much anymore to preach about food values but as long as you keep sweeping your way through that stuff like a Pac-Man, and don't linger too long at any one place, you'll be just fine. During our trip we'll munch out the middle section during the day and then hit the top and bottom tiers in the evening. I've got the consensus of the experts and, along with my own crazy opinions, I'm sticking with my orders. The Blue Fin sails with fruits and veggies on board to be consumed during the day and then topped off with regular human food at night. 



I'll consider it a challenge to make short trips to grocery stores and shops along our route to lay in fresh supplies. Just like finding a motel room, we'll need to navigate our way through the river towns to pickup food and supplies. I think we'll enjoy doing this and it should give us a chance to do some exploring and pass time while away from the boat. A few extra miles on the bikes will do us good and who knows what we might find that's interesting. 

The Blue Fin has a nice medium size cooler that attaches to the floor ahead of the center console. I wanted to avoid owning a cooler that was just average so I picked one up at Fleet Farm with thick sides and an insulated tight sealing lid. I'm sure it's not the best cooler in the world but it was around $80 so it wasn't the cheapest either. Matt had put it to use in some hot weather for a few days and reported that he was surprised at how well it performed and claimed it was able to hold ice for almost two days in normal summer temperatures, which is longer than most of the coolers I've owned. I expect really hot conditions on the trip and it seemed wise to pay some attention to this detail as I don't want to be forever running after ice, sipping warm drinks, and handling spoiled food. 

We'll also have a dry storage container that will hold some packaged longer term food items. Think peanut butter, crackers, cereal, dried fruit, and similar such things. A good Tupperware or some other fancy watertight enclosure kept semi-permanently in the boat should do the trick. This could be handy if a day goes into overtime or some unexpected delay occurs. And continuing on the theme of longer term provisions, I'll see to it that we have two, one gallon bottles of fresh water on board. Again stored semi-permanently just in case we need it and not necessarily intended for daily use. And one more caveat. What I say above is what we intend to do. I'm sure there will be places where and times when it just won't be possible.