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Joined: Jun 2016
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There’s been a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of traveling with frozen meat. We’ve been doing it for years and plan to bring 50 pounds in February. Without re-instigating the merits of packing frozen goods in from the upper 48, my question is this: what are some of the pre-cooked, gourmet-style offerings you have brought with you and would suggest?
Last trip, we brought chicken marsala, beef bourginon, spaghettti, and chili sauce for hot dogs. together hamburger patties, sausage, bacon and lunch meats.
Left the cooler behind as a donation on the way home.
Shifty.
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Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 364
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Our two Polarbear soft-sided coolers will have the following next month for our two week sail:
Ribeye steaks 2 meals duck breasts corned beef pork back ribs beef stir fry beef stroganoff Italian sausages 1/3 lb deli hamburgers pre-cooked chicken marsala, pulled pork, sloppy joes, tacos, chicken chunks for pasta salad Canadian bacon, bacon, sausage patties, little smokies ham chunks for pasta salad or omelettes
Will be taking Polar bears home!
Kevin
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Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 543
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Anyone with any "dry ice" experience on this? We are flying out early am > SJU airport that night > don't get to the boat until evening day #2. Are they still hitting you with a "tax" at BVI customs on meat, etc? thx
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Joined: Oct 2009
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Everything you bring in is subject to Customs duty. They may choose not to charge you. Not declaring it could get a lot more expensive.
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Joined: May 2008
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Anyone with any "dry ice" experience on this? We are flying out early am > SJU airport that night > don't get to the boat until evening day #2. Are they still hitting you with a "tax" at BVI customs on meat, etc? thx Several times, we went door-to-door 36+ hours with no thawing, food was frozen solid with no dry ice. The key to so pack the cooler with high density items that are VERY well frozen and make sure that cooler is packed tight.
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Joined: Feb 2002
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We've brought frozen vacuum sealed filets, bolognaise sauce, tune, swordfish, and hamburger. Never used dry ice and went great for about 16 hours. Just enough to cook on our own then we went to the many great restaurants on VG fo90r lunch/dinner.
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Joined: Nov 2000
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We bring ice. Much better water in Ohio.
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Joined: May 2002
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We go the other way and ship wine back to Sonoma..
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Joined: Jun 2014
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We’ve brought taco meat, premade burgers, steaks, shredded cheese, cooked chicken breasts (for salads), bacon precooked. Heck our first trip down we brought 3 quiches! As for customs we always declare what’s in the cooler, estimate it’s value at $100. Once we were asked to pay $10.
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Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 945
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Like above, I have been 24 hours with Polar Bear cooler (24 can size) fully packed with frozen items and stayed frozen . A few items with minimal thawing.
I have done 2 pounds Dry Ice , same cooler /items and at 24 hours solid frozen. I am sure it would have been fine with 36 hours. Flying, each passenger, can have up to 5 pounds.... so 5 pounds MAX in a single cooler. I would not do more than 2-3 pounds in this size cooler.
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Joined: Nov 2018
Posts: 41
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Anyone with any "dry ice" experience on this? We are flying out early am > SJU airport that night > don't get to the boat until evening day #2. Are they still hitting you with a "tax" at BVI customs on meat, etc? thx Only did the cooler thing on one of 3 trips. Saved $$ but it was a PITA schlepping it and our luggage. That said we did Toronto to CLT to STT to Tortola over 2 days. Stayed overnight in STT and ferried the next day to Tortola. I watched the CLT-STT baggage handlers load our cooler and noticed that the extra luggage straps i added were gone. TSA in Toronto or CLT had left a note in the cooler ("kilroy was here") but they kept the straps. On the return leg I duct taped new luggage straps to the cooler. ( I had taken extra straps to test as a "ladder" to get back into the dinghy after snorkeling...FAIL) Once on our boat we found all food was still rock solid. In addition to our frozen goods I had packed 2 sheets of Techni-Ice ( http://www.techniiceusa.com/ice-packs.html) that I had kept in our freezer for about 1 month. The theory is that somehow these sheets get colder than ice and stay frozen longer. That was our experience after a 2 day journey. I gave away most of the 12 sheets that I bought. Subsequent usage saw me cut 2 cubes out for my step-daughter's post nose-job cooling.
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 38
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Our group has been coming down for about 30 years. We bring a cheap cooler filled with meat. We use the cooler for beer during the charter and leave it. Yes there is a savings,but most of all can prep meals and is a huge quality difference. We are a group that are very good cooks and enjoy cooking. We also use sheets of techni-ice. We leave home 0 early and get to our charter for a sleep aboard at about 6 in the evening . The meats are all rock hard frozen.
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Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 202
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High quality, soft-sided coolers have treated me and my crew well for years. As mentioned, all items should be frozen rock-solid and packed tightly. Have gotten 30-hours out of them before thawing. The only food issue we ever had was in 2016 when the C&I folks wanted to have a long chat about the chicken breasts we brought down. They even wanted to see the receipt! Had the receipt; was a non-issue, and paid $10. Quality is the big difference with bringing your own foods. We like good steaks and certain specialty foods that are unavailable there, so bringing a few things down is no big deal.
Last edited by FatDaddyK; 01/14/2019 12:17 PM. Reason: Adding trip Ticker
The world is an oyster; now where did I leave my oyster knife...?
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Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 68
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As I may have mentioned before, I usually bring some frozen steaks, chicken breasts, and gourmet hamburger patties (ask, and I will tell you the right meats and proportions to grind). Freeze solid, pack in soft sided cooler along with some frozen bottles of water. Didn't thaw on the trip down.
Since we acquired a vacuum sealer I may pre-season the steaks before I freeze them.
I do it for a combo cost savings/quality. I usually figure the last day cooking on the boat is a kind of hobo pasta sauce with all left over meats in the sauce.
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Joined: Dec 2014
Posts: 108
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Joined: Dec 2014
Posts: 108 |
We got back yesterday and used a soft sided cooler. We brought down steaks, shredded chicken, taco meat, ground sausage, and meat pasta sauce. All which I prepared and vacuum sealed ahead of time. It worked out great for us and used the soft sided cooler for ice.
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Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,429
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None of the boats that we've chartered have had a freezer that was large enough and cold enough to keep a substantial amount of food frozen. So, those of you who take lots of frozen stuff on charter, I'm just wondering: - Do you check in advance with the charter company regarding the boat's freezer?
- Do you charter catamarans? (always been monohulls for us)
- Is a generator required to make this work?
Dan
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Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 2,157
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We have lots of freezer space on our lagoon 450 in the TMM fleet. I Often bring down 2 polar bear coolers of frozen food.
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