January 19, 2007

Hello all,

We “drove” to town yesterday for supplies. This means that we jumped into the dinghy and motored approx a mile ( 2 km ) to the village. The announcement had gone out on the weather net that the mailboat had “reached” or arrived at the dock and thus there would be fresh supplies in the stores.

There are three grocery stores on Staniel Cay – the Pink Store, the Blue Store and Isles General Store. We tend to visit Isles General first and get most of our list there. Visits to the other stores may complete our shopping list or maybe not. These stores are not what you encounter in Canada. They are very small, closer to the size of a small variety store. They have a few shelves, frigs and freezers plus overflow placed on the floor. All of the meat is kept frozen. Cheeses, eggs, milk and some vegetables are kept in the frig.

The customers help to unload the supplies from the truck and carry them into the store. It makes them available faster.

Sometimes there is fresh bread and sometimes not. Yesterday was a not. So, one of my jobs soon will be to bake us some bread. I made English Muffins the other morning while Murray was helping another cruiser with a project on their boat.

So, back to the shopping. I got most of the things on my list – 1 dozen eggs, 3 tomatoes, 1 green pepper ( all that seemed somewhat fresh ), a bunch of bananas, a head of cabbage, 3 grapefruit and 2 potatoes. The total cost was $18.50 US. I think the price of fruits and vegetables are fairly reasonable. It is just snack stuff or prepared items that are very expensive. The bread that I couldn’t get would have cost $5 a loaf. A box of crackers is $6. And I don’t even look at the price of cookies or muffins. Those I make myself, if we want them.

Luckily, we carry all the snack stuff that we think we will need for the winter months. Can you imagine? Trying to figure out how many boxes of crackers, nacho chips, salsa, nuts, etc that you may want to eat or use for entertaining? Basically, we carry as much as we can. When we are out, that is it.

Tonight, there will be a beach party. Now, what to take……?

Hopefully, all is well up there and the next time you go grocery shopping, look around and appreciate the choices that you have.

Hugs from, Murray & Heather