12V ice maker?

[MPHSystems]

I guess that between the 2 boats we spent about $700 in fuel to get from escalante back to antelope for 30 pounds of ice. That’s $24/pound + the ice itself works out to $250 for a 10 pound bag. The food will stay fine, we just need ice for the danm drinks.

Any ideas?

Amazon.com

 

[mjc]

Drink warm beer like the British instead.

 

[Gramps]

How long are you on the lake??? We use to fill a 162 qt ice chest with dry ice and wet ice. I think about 1/5 dry ice the rest was bagged ice for drinks. I wouldn't use lake water for ice or drinking.

 

[RiverCruiser]

Ice blocks last days in a cooler. Keep ice for the drinks in the bags, it lasts longer.

 

[v6toy4x]

As mentioned dry ice or a block in each drink cooler

 

[Nanu/Nanu]

You could try not going so far up lake.

Make friends with someone who has a houseboat with a deep freezer.

We freeze drinking water in one gallon jugs and we also do the block ice in the bottom of our ice chest too.

Weve had decent luck burying the ice chest keeping it shaded under the easy up or towels.

I personally haven't tried dry ice.

We kind of make the routine of heading in for ice fuel every other day. But we dont go up as far as escalante even still though its kind of a losing battle.

@mesquito_creek has a good little system but he is set up in a sweet cabin cruiser bit of a different operation.

 

[mesquito_creek]

I guess that between the 2 boats we spent about $700 in fuel to get from escalante back to antelope for 30 pounds of ice. That’s $24/pound + the ice itself works out to $250 for a 10 pound bag. The food will stay fine, we just need ice for the danm drinks.

Any ideas?

Amazon.com

I use a countertop ice maker similar to what you posted. It can keep up with 2 people drinking tumblers full of cocktails. I don’t use a 12v version I use a 120v plugged into an inverter running off two 12v lifepo4 100ah batteries. 12v might be slightly more efficient, but I use mine in the house at times also.

I would not run them off of my boat battery unless you have a separate battery on an isolated relay. Otherwise you will probably end up with dead battery at some point.

The storage area on the counter top unit isn’t really insulated so best to use it all or transfer to a freezer.

Also doesn’t make as much when it’s really hot in July and august. I don’t really boat in those months anymore.

I assume you are not in a house boat, otherwise you would just have other options?

 

[Outdrive1]

What brand cooler and size are you using?

 

[Sharky]

Ever considered a 12V freezer/fridge

ARB makes them. And they are proud of them. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084Z7TQSK?tag=nerdcamping-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1

Personally, I got a TruckFridge for boon docking in the camper. https://truckfridge.com/collections...ucts/tb51-portable-refrigerator-freezer-ac-dc

Pre-freeze it and throw bags of ice in it when departing. Keep it plugged in while traveling and plug it in once on the boat. I plug mine into the camper that has solar when camping. You will have ice all day long. Mine will keep bags of ice frozen for at least a week.

And, you can keep other stuff in it as well. Better than a cooler.

 

[hallett21]

I guess that between the 2 boats we spent about $700 in fuel to get from escalante back to antelope for 30 pounds of ice. That’s $24/pound + the ice itself works out to $250 for a 10 pound bag. The food will stay fine, we just need ice for the danm drinks.

Any ideas?

Amazon.com

You guys couldn’t go to bullfrog? Maybe take one boat lol

 

[Singleton]

Ice can last a week, if you pre-cool your cooler. Ice and cold water overnight. Empty is out. Then place dry ice on bottom of cooler and pack.

Our cooler for Yellowstone lasted 10 days with drinking ice

 

[mesquito_creek]

Ever considered a 12V freezer/fridge

ARB makes them. And they are proud of them. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084Z7TQSK?tag=nerdcamping-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1

Personally, I got a TruckFridge for boon docking in the camper. https://truckfridge.com/collections...ucts/tb51-portable-refrigerator-freezer-ac-dc

Pre-freeze it and throw bags of ice in it when departing. Keep it plugged in while traveling and plug it in once on the boat. I plug mine into the camper that has solar when camping. You will have ice all day long. Mine will keep bags of ice frozen for at least a week.

And, you can keep other stuff in it as well. Better than a cooler.

I agree, I have a dometic cfx50 and an under the counter fridge in my cruiser. They work great, but once again, they need some dedicated battery power. One fridge and a counter top ice maker is two days for me on 2 lifepo4 12v 100ah batteries before I am using my generator to charge them back up

 

[mesquito_creek]

Ice can last a week, if you pre-cool your cooler. Ice and cold water overnight. Empty is out. Then place dry ice on bottom of cooler and pack.

Our cooler for Yellowstone lasted 10 days with drinking ice

I am not getting that much distance out of a yeti/artic cooler. I use the synthetic ice sheets and break the bags open and shut the cooler without opening the lid and its making water by day 3

 

[MPHSystems]

You guys couldn’t go to bullfrog? Maybe take one boat lol

My boat has a blower and bullfrog only sells 87.

 

[DLC]

One key item is to let the melted ICE water drain out of the cooler Or drain it several times during the day.

Freeze water bottles
quality cooler helps

and pre chill everything

also drinks to ice ratio is something to consider - might need more coolers for more drinks

 

[DLC]

These are THE BEST 12v Fridges

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I have a 35 quart ! Yes you can bring ICE Cream off road…..

 

[hallett21]

My boat has a blower and bullfrog only sells 87.

I like the ice maker if you’re brining gallons of bottled water with you.

Would filling the boat with AV and refilling halfway with 87 be an option?

 

[MPHSystems]

I like the ice maker if you’re brining gallons of bottled water with you.

Would filling the boat with AV and refilling halfway with 87 be an option?

Boat holds 90 gallons and gets 2MPG, the more fun we have on the way up the lower my octane on the way back.

 

[DaveH]

i think your math is a little off as there is no need to run from Escalante all the way to antelope and back just for ice.

this was a non issue until the loss of dangling rope marina. since the NPS announced doubling of the use fee's for vessels for 2024 (not to mention now charging based on the size of your boat) maybe they can allocate some of these funds and reopen dangling rope. wishful think i'm sure.

my MO for camping on Powell is a two day cycle, carry enough food for two days, thats it. first day camp somewhere relatively near near Navajo so the morning of the second day you can easily get ice at antelope. then run to rainbow for a visit and on to escalante to camp the second day. Morning of the third day, back to Page and pull the boat out. since you have to get food in page, makes sense to take the boat and pay reasonable fuel prices at the same time and top off. then start the same process over again for an additional two days. i have in the past carried enough food for 4 days but its a PITA with that much food given the size of the boat i have and you have to at least go back to antelope or page for fuel so why carry it when you can resupply when getting fuel anyways.

considered going up to bullfrog from Escalante but as pointed out no 91 fuel.

last trip i tried something new, one large quality cooler filled with nothing but ice. kept that cooler CLOSED and it wasnt that the ice melted, we just had too many people and used all of it. looking back now, i think if we had an even larger ice only cooler, maybe mixed with a little dry ice, we would have been fine.

or i suppose we could spend 10k for a houseboat for a week and think of how much $$ we saved not having to get ice.

 

[77charger]

If I get a Powell trip in this year and boat camp I will fill one cooler with just ice and use the 55qt for food drinks. The 28 would be the ice carrier.

But either cooler would last a weekend easily opening and closing. I like to put drinks in larger cooler and food in smaller one. Freeze steaks and other meat place on bottom in vac sealed bags and put some Ice in there could go 4 days in summer.

 

[Boat 405]

Ever considered a 12V freezer/fridge

ARB makes them. And they are proud of them. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084Z7TQSK?tag=nerdcamping-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1

Personally, I got a TruckFridge for boon docking in the camper. https://truckfridge.com/collections...ucts/tb51-portable-refrigerator-freezer-ac-dc

Pre-freeze it and throw bags of ice in it when departing. Keep it plugged in while traveling and plug it in once on the boat. I plug mine into the camper that has solar when camping. You will have ice all day long. Mine will keep bags of ice frozen for at least a week.

And, you can keep other stuff in it as well. Better than a cooler.

I have 4 of these. I bring two 63 qt version on the houseboat. One set for fridge temps. One set at freezer temps. When we get on the houseboat we load everything into the fridge and freezer of the houseboat. Then I load one with drinks and set the temp at 32 degrees. Then I load the other with bags of ice and set it on freezer mode. We NEVER run out of ice anymore. Two fold. Drinks are already cold in the one set at 32 degrees that we constantly refill and if we want ice the bags of ice in the freezer mode one is frozen so no more worrying about melted ice.

When we go for boat rides I bring along a 3rd one that is 37 quarts. It plugs into 12 power in the boat. It holds all the drinks for the day and some food. All cold ready to go no ice needed. If we want mixed drinks then we throw a bag in from the freezer 63 on the house boat into a AO cooler for the day.

 

[92562]

We added a 10 cubic foot freezer on our houseboat and start the trip with ice blocks in the 120 gallon drink cooler. In the freezer we put eight 1 gallon plastic water jugs and freeze them. When the original blocks are melted we put in 4 of the frozen water jugs. Then, we rotate the frozen jugs as needed. The freezer is on when underway and we run the genny while cooking and that is enough to re-freeze the water bottles and we never buy ice except the first day.