Our date has arrived for our departure. Up to this point great thought has been put into pulling this off, with most of the effort having been put into food prep. We are taking a fleet of 7 boats, 3 rental craft and 4 personal rafts. We have sourced all of our own gear with the exception of groovers, larger coolers, and a battery powered water filter.
Food logistics have been discussed for months and the actual cooking and packaging began slowly in late summer, with all prep and cooking completed several weeks out. Our nonperishable items were purchased in early September which has left only our perishable fresh buy items the week of departure.
We elected to prep as much as we could at home, and vacuum seal those meals as they were staged in a chest freezer. A week prior to leaving we rented a walk in freezer to “freeze in place” the meals, as well as create a solid block of ice in each cooler.
As we had our frozen food staged we worked towards our non-perishable items. Meaning, figuring how much of a Costco warehouse to bring along with us. Our trip was 18 days & 11 people which came out to 583 “people” feedings. Snacks and sides were a little more difficult to gauge serving size but we managed to buy the bulk of the non-perishable for $925. Total food costs came in at $360/pp or $20/day.
We staged all the ammo cans and large items like propane, kitchen box etc and dropped it off with the outfitter when we were going through town the month prior. That meant that all we had to bring were our boats, our coolers, and our pillows. We had bento boxes made for each participant so that lunches could be prepared in the mornings and eaten at each persons leisure. Someone even took the time to gift wrap and put a nice note on the item!
Here we are, ready to depart and head down river. We froze a 103qt cooler solid, and used a rubbermaid bin as a mold so we had a dedicated beer fridge and then threw everything we owned on the beach. Beers are cold, boats are heavy and hopefully we don’t starve to death…
