Groceries and Inventories

When I arrived on board INTREPID II after our relaxing week in Mazatlan, I was set to sort and organize our existing provisions, combine the ones Kelly had brought down, then prepare an updated inventory complete with locations, quantities, weight, brand name.  A proper provisioning inventory! Well, I made a promising start and everything was stowed, dated and on various hand written lists. Some items are even on the excel spreadsheet according to categories:  baking goods, spices and herbs; canned goods - seafood, meat, poultry, canned veggies, canned fruit; galley supplies; paper products; pastas, rice and noodles; sauces.

Municipal Mercado in Guaymas

However, maintaining the spreadsheet has become much more complicated and of course there have been more pressing boat chores to attend to.  I don't keep my computer set up all the time, so it's back to the hand written lists when we use something, followed by an update to the inventory spreadsheet when there is time.  But the intent is there and we will give this a valiant try again this cruising season.  When you start off with things in logical locations that only lasts so long due to limited storage space. You do need to know that the extra coffee beans are sitting next to the water maker (because they are soft) in the middle cubbyhole on the port side settee!  We have attempted to do the same thing for all the technical and mechanical items - spare parts, tools, boat equipment, safety equipment, etc.  The Captain is working on a new system as he turns the quarter-berth into a garage or "bodega".  Perhaps he'll expound on that project sometime soon.

As a matter of interest I've listed some of the items on our latest grocery receipts.  We've been using a conversion of 12 pesos = $1 Canadian, give or take the increasing strength of both the Mexican peso and the Canadian dollar.  We find that prices are reasonable for many items and even more so if we shop at markets rather than in grocery stores.  When we bought a bag of juice oranges from a street vendor, we got 26 good size oranges for $25 pesos - just over 8 cents an orange.  We can't get fresh squeezed OJ here, so are squeezing oranges ourselves.

These prices are from either WalMart or the Super Del Norte grocery stores:
- Ocean Spray cranberry juice - 1L $17p
- C cell batteries - Duracell (2 pack) - $55p
- Mexican Rum - 1L - $100p
- Powdered whole milk - $50p
- bunch of Green onions - $4.9p
- 4 nectarines at $24.9/kg - $8.59p
- Knorr's quick cooking rice -$8.50p
- Bag of Potato chips - $25p
- Fruit sodas (sangria) cans - $6p
- Broccoli - $24.9/kg - $4.61p
- Avocados - $33.9/kg - $14.58p
- Tomatoes - large - $14.9/k - $6.55p
- 18 large brown eggs (can't find just a dozen) - $27.95p
- Multi gran loaf of bread - $26p
- Flour Tortillas - 1/2 kg - $9.45p
- Package of cinnamon buns (6) - $21p
- Halls cough lozenges - $5.5p
- Robitussin DM - 150 ml - $99p (from a local Farmacia)...quite pricey, but  necessary at the moment.

And of course, cervezas:  a six pack of Bohemia is $66p - approximately $6 Canadian, and an 8 pack of Pacifico is $70p.  Kelly is enjoying his Bohemia in bottles while he can and we will be provisioning with cans of Pacifico as they are lighter and easier to store while underway.