Journey Date: September 2022

Published: February 2023

Provisioning (or, you know, catering) for a yacht charter is tricky business. Storage space is limited so you don’t want to go overboard (sorry), but you also don’t want to waste precious cruising time travelling back to shore to re-stock your supplies.

Food Glorious Food

There are several companies that will organise your provisions for you based on the number of passengers and days you are sailing. Their options looked good and we considered this but we didn’t think they were very good value. Instead we decided to organise everything ourselves. Before we put in our orders, we sat down as a group and worked out what we wanted to eat and drink on the trip so everyone got to enjoy their favourites. Did I mention that planning is key to enjoying a Whitsundays cruising holiday?

Provisioning companies

Whitsundays Provisioning has a range of package options where they provide everything you need for the duration of your trip. Here is a comparison of the costs for some of the different options so you can see how it compares to self-catering, which is what we decided on. Prices and exchange rates are correct as of 20-Feb-2023.

If you’re looking for something more gourmet than the supermarket but with more flexibility than committing to a package, the Prickly Pineapple has lots of appealing pre-made meal options as well as fresh fruit and vegetables.

Online supermarket order

We decided to do an online order for groceries from major supermarket Woolworths and get this delivered to the yacht. We also ordered seafood and alcohol which we collected ourselves. On our arrival in Airlie Beach, we walked from the ferry terminal to the shops (around a 10 minute walk) where we collected our alcohol order from BWS (more info below). There is a Woolworths supermarket next door if you need to buy any last minute supplies at this point. Then we ordered a taxi to take us to collect our seafood from Fishi in nearby Cannonvale and then around to Shute Harbour to board our boat.

The following is all the food we bought. We had far too much for 4 people for 6 days, but this list should give you a good starting point for thinking about what you want to order if you decide to self-cater.

Breakfast

• Bread – 3 loaves
• Eggs – 1 dozen
• Mini muffins
• Mini croissants
• Cornflakes
• Coffee (we’re particular about our coffee, so we took a tin of our favourite Illy coffee from home)
• Milk

Lunch

• Ham
• Smoked salmon
• Prosciutto
• Cheese
• Olives
• Wraps
• Bread rolls
• Quiche x 2
• Salad x 6 bags
• Tomatoes
• Cucumbers

Snacks

• Chips (so so many chips)
• Biscuits (I think it was 8 packs. We got VERY excited about biscuits!)
• Fruit (enough to prevent scurvy in the entire Australian Navy)
• So much cheese!
• Crackers

Dinner

• Seafood platter
• Sausages
• Steak
• Chicken
• Fish
• Salads
• Dinner rolls
• Potatoes
• Corn on the cob
• Garlic bread

Dessert

• Chocolate
• Mini cakes
• Lollies/sweets

Condiments

• Butter
• BBQ sauce
• Mayonnaise
• Cocktail sauce
• Tomato sauce
• Olive oil

You could probably cut down the amount of provisions from this list by about 30 to 40% and still not run out of food. Just bear in mind that having to travel to a supermarket and buy extra provisions could be time consuming and a nuisance, so you’re better off buying more than you need. No-one wants to spend their cruising holiday doing a very slow run to the grocery store!

I expected we would have more down time during the day for preparing lunches, but we were often busy swimming, snorkelling or motoring somewhere, so lunches were usually something pretty simple like sandwiches or wraps. Breakfast was usually cereal or pastries with coffee on the deck.

Although we had far too much food, it didn’t go to waste. Everything non-perishable we left for our briefer to take back and distribute among the yacht charter team.

Alcohol

We did a click and collect order with BWS in Airlie Beach. This worked really well because we got to choose exactly what we wanted online a few days before we arrived. Then we picked it up from Airlie Beach and then transported it with us in the taxi to Shute Harbour where we boarded the boat.

Whitsundays Provisioning also do alcohol deliveries. We had planned to use them but when I put the order in a week before our trip I had already missed the cut off date for delivery. If you want to take this option you should put your order in several weeks in advance.

Airlie Beach Hotel Bottle Shop will also do alcohol deliveries but they do not have an online store where you can select your items. Instead you can email them your preferences and price range and they will provide you some recommendations based on what they have in stock. Their Airlie Beach store is huge so you should have no trouble finding something you’ll like. Their website says there is a minimum order of $500 for delivery.

We actually drank a lot less on the boat than I expected we would. Before we went, I imagined we would have so many hours to fill at night, that we would be lounging around on deck slowly working our way through our bottles of wine and our gin supply. But because we always woke up early when it was bright and sunny and we were so active all day we were always tired early. I think most nights we were all asleep by 9:30pm. So we had a lot less drinking time than I anticipated.

Water, water, every where

Again, you don’t want to run out of water part way through your trip and then spend a lot of time travelling back to shore to stock up again. We bought a dozen extra small bottles of drinking water and an extra 10 litres (around 2.6 US gallons) of water in a large jug. We also had cans of mineral water. We drank most of the extra water we took which meant we were able to keep the tank water for cleaning dishes and showering.

What’s in the galley?

Before you go, check which basic supplies are included in your charter. For example, ours included salt and pepper, vinegar, paper towels, aluminium foil, coffee plunger, etc. Also check your galley (kitchen) to find out what equipment is included. Ours had a microwave but there was not enough power to run it unless you were connected to shore power so we never used it.

Next time

Next time we go to the Whitsundays, this is what our meals would look like:

• Breakfast – coffee, cereals, muffins, pastries, eggs, toast
• Lunch – Wraps or sandwiches
• Snacks – Fruit, cheese and crackers, chips (I don’t know why being in the sea makes me want salty snacks but it always does)
• Dinner – Fresh seafood platter on the first night and then BBQ everything (prawns, bugs, steak, sausages, potatoes, corn) and salad

Except for scrambled eggs, we did all of our cooking on the BBQ. We never once used the oven. Next time we charter a yacht like this, I would do the same again. What could be better than a BBQ meal on the deck of a private yacht in the Whitsundays? Nothing, that’s what.