Sometimes it’s not about whether you’d care for a pear, it’s more like, if I don’t eat this bruised pear right now, it is going to be mush in an hour and I’ll have to toss it overboard (and they cost me $5 apiece in Tahiti and I won’t see another pear for three months). My eating schedule is dictated by priorities … what needs to be eaten before it goes bad … or the seas are going to be rough this afternoon, so I better prepare a meal now … or my next destination does not allow the import of honey, so I better use it up … or I need to go up the mast this morning, so I better skip breakfast (because it’s hard to exercise strenuously on a full stomach). Sometimes it’s the other way around … I’m hungry but this squall necessitates I steer the boat by hand (while I gobble a handful of nuts using my other hand) … I was planning to eat that meal I prepared for the passage, but when I opened it up I discovered it had already gone off. Sometimes things are on sale … I just caught a big Mai-Mai and fish does not keep in the fridge for more than five days … or that bunch of three dozen green bananas I brought onboard five days ago have all ripened at the same time. I don’t really have meals … I snack all the time. Especially on a passage, I rarely have time or the opportunity to “prepare” a meal. I’m too busy either doing boat stuff or sleeping. I’ll have a can of corn. Later, I’ll have a chunk of cheese or a hard boiled egg. Then, maybe an orange. I do try to eat a balanced menu, just not all at the same time. My relatives probably remember when I was a kid, my ADHD (they didn’t call it that back then) didn’t allow different types of food touch each other. I would sort food on the plate and eat one type at a time. It’s sort of like that on the boat.
Alajuela 38