I was fascinated when I read up on how much food they would need to bring. The ships must have been nearly sinking with food at the start and ready to topple over by the end of the trip. I didn’t make the weight calculations, though. That would be a lot of guessing on my part.
I collated the information below from Explorer’s Grub about Martin Frobishe’s 2nd trip to North America in 1577 for 120 men over 4 months (120 days). This gives us a guess about the kinds of things the Dutch sailors were toting about when they landed at Mauritius. No wonder they were eating everything in sight that could be considered fresh food.
| Item | Amount Listed | 4 months / man | Total on Trip |
| Biscuit (hardtack) | 1 lb / man/day | 120 lbs | 14,400 lbs (7.2 tons) |
| Beer | 1 gallon / man/day | 120 gallons | 14,400 gallons (457 barrels) |
| Salted beef/pork (meat days) | 1 lb /man/day | 60 lbs | 7,200 lbs (3.6 tons) |
| Dried codfish (fast days) | 1 fish / 4 men / day | 20 fish | 2,400 fish |
| Oatmeal and rice (backup if fish runs out) | (none specified) | ||
| Butter | 1/4 lb / man/day | 30 lbs | 3,600 lbs (1.8 tons) |
| Cheese | 1/2 lb / man/day | 60 lbs | 7,200 lbs (3.6 tons) |
| Honey | (none specified) | ||
| Cooking oil | 1 hogshead | 64 gallons | |
| Vinegar | 1 pipe (2 hogs heads) | 128 gallons |
If you are more curious about details of the nutritional value of their food, Cambridge looked into it further.
And here is a more official map of Mauritius than the silly one I made.
Map of Mauritius, by Reijer Cornelisz, ca. 1603