Boating; Tortugas Shopping

Shopping for the Dry Tortuga's trip.

Thirty years ago I did an overnight shrimping trip aboard a boat I was brokering. I'd decided to learn about shrimping first hand so I could 'talk' shrimp boats with potential customers. I decided to immerse myself in the whole experience including the ten cart grocery shopping trip.

There were more steaks and other meat and eggs and bread and high energy producing food than I've ever seen in any other place. These guys would work it off, none of them were fat and they would be re-supplied if they needed to be once or twice during their trip.

Later, while running a water taxi, I used to ferry drunken shrimpers off the Casey's Alley dock with last minute supplies. Casey was behind Winn Dixie so while some were shopping others were drinking and doing some specialized shopping. I never got stopped on the way over to the boats but I always wondered what a nosy law guy would find amongst the cookies and beer?

Now we "Dead End Canalers" are building our shopping for the annual May Dry Tortuga's trip and it is remarkably different. No dozen boxes of pop-tarts but loads of fiber cereal. We're old remember. Sure there is a lot of beer but a lot of it is the favorite brand of commercial fishermen, BUSCH. We won't drink it unless we run out of the good stuff. Busch is for trading. We won't go into with whom because trading is prohibited within park boundary's.

We stack the beer in the shower and pack blankets around it to cushion the beer and save the shower. Before it was outlawed, trading was rampant there and some boat owners were cheated out of a hundred pounds of Grouper if a boat was weathered in for a week. My personal favorite was Tile fish and I'd give extra Busch for a whole fish. (Tile are deeper water Gulf of Mexico fish that taste a lot like Florida Lobster)

In a pinch the commercial Fishermen will take Pabst Blur Ribbon which is my favorite but I guard it jealously. Before ******* bought his cruiser he was a partner on the Jersey and came along on our leg of the trip. He thought it funny to trade the PBR and leave me with the Busch. He took an unexpected swim after one such practical joke.

Over the last month we've been loading durable goods. It's remarkable how long Lays potato chips will remain crisp if unopened. We have all the canned goods we'll need for the 10 days down and back, and then some. The return crew will stop in Key West so they can re-supply there if needed. Ostensibly the KW stop is for fuel but even after running the generator for nine days and taking the boat northwest of the Fort for fishing trips we should have enough to go directly back to Fort Myers Beach.

Fresh vegetables that don't need much refrigeration goes along, lots of onions and tomatoes. I bring a big Tupperware full of chili because nothing is better on a stormy night in the Dry Tortuga's anchorage than a hot/hot bowl of chili. I keep my Habanero hot sauce separate. This will also help you stay awake during those stormy night anchor watches. I keep a bowl in one hand and an air horn in the other to awaken sleeping boaters of their impending doom as their dragging anchor allows them to slalom through the anchorage.

Now it is just to await the 20th of May to load the boat with the perishables, frozen gallons of water and be prepared to get underway on the 21st of May. Are you coming along?

Boatguy Ed (boatguiEd@aol.com) is a manufacturer of the worlds BEST anti-fouling bottom paint, www.supershipbottom.com. TWEET me @boatguyed and a corresponding web site is http://www.boatingbyboatguyed.com/ ........ NEVER, EVER TRY TO BUY HIM A DRINK!

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