With my wife on her deathbed (not really, it just seems that way) with a very bad cold, I get a rude awakening to another world . . . the shopping bus. At home when we’d run out of something, I’d just jump in the car and head down to QFC in scenic downtown North Bend to satisfy my whim. Here it’s a little different.
Each morning on the VHF 66 Grenada Cruisers Radio Net there is an announcement of the “shopping buses.” This is something I’ve always ignored. Except today I’m hungry. Now I’m not the type of guy who looks like he’s missed a lot of meals in his life, but seriously, when you get a craving on the boat you typically want to eat it NOW. Oh what I’d do for the McDonalds drive-through and their $1 hot fudge sundae right now.
So back to the shopping buses. Since we have no mode of transportation except our dingy (and how many big supermarkets are on the water anyway?), I motor into the Secret Cove Marina dock and join the line of minglers waiting for the shopping bus. These are typically mini vans run out of each major anchorage about once a week.
Most do an “essentials tour” that includes stops at the ATM, Ace Hardware, Budget Marine, CK’s (more about that later) and the IGA. Since I’m a newbie to all this I opt for the direct bus to the IGA under the assumption that’s about all I’ll be able to handle in a single day.
I’m girding myself to listen to a good hours worth of “cruiser gossip,” but strangely today’s bus is all guys. It’s a little unusually to see one or two guys on the shopping buses, but today is a “boy’s day out.” The gossip is replaced by great guy talk like how to rewire a circuit without getting electrocuted, the best way to change an oil filter while laying upside down with hot oil dripping down your cheek, and how many times you can hit your finger with a hammer before it starts bleeding.
Our express bus heads straight from Secret Harbor to the large IGA store at Spice Island Mall, about five miles away. As the bus winds through the narrow roads I review the grocery list I hurriedly put together using the Notes app on my iPhone. I try to do the math of the bulk and weight of everything I have to buy versus the two Costco insulated bags I have to haul it all back to the boat in.
The topic of “shopping while cruising” is worthy of a book, but the short version is it’s quite an adventure at the very least. In Florida and Puerto Rice we rented a car and went to Costco’s and WalMart SuperStores, filling the trunk with six months of stores. I remember Meryl asking me to pick up some chips and I quickly came back with a query of “corn or wheat, salted or unsalted, natural or adulterated” and so on.
In the Bahamas we’d roam the village streets to find “the pink house,” the local one-room grocery store where we’d be excited if they simply had one thing on our list. On most of the islands, including a large one like Grenada, you still need to know “when the boat come in” because in the two or three days before the boat comes in there will be a very sparse selection of foods, especially fresh vegetables. And the day after the boat come in the place will be packed. In Grenada the boat usually comes in late on Thursday and the Secret Harbor shopping bus is early Thursday morning. I’m sure there’s some perverse logic that I’m missing here.
Even though we get to the IGA at the respectable hour of 10:00 am, it’s still packed with locals, yachties, and medical students from the nearby St. George’s Medical School (they all look so cute in their little green scrubs). I immediately head left for the Produce section and quickly realize that I don’t recognize half the veggies on display.
“Excuse me Madame, what are these bowling-ball-sized green things?
“They are paw paws.”
“Madame, excuse me again, but what is a paw paw and what do you do with it?”
You finally give up any sense of “coolness” and ask a million questions about this and that. I’m amazed when I pass the condiments section and see my old friend Heinz Ketchup on the shelf. Now we don’t need any but it’s reassuring to know that it’s sitting there waiting for me in my time of need. The same can be said for Miracle Whip, although I’m still bereaving the death of Tang (you have to be really old to understand that one).
At the frozen meat section I start to see things involving various parts of a pigs’ anatomy that I’m not sure I want to ever eat, or at the very least even know about. The fish section is similar. I find solace in the Spices aisle since Grenada was known as “The Spice Island.” Lots of great smelling stuff even if I don’t know what most of it is.
The bread section is problematic. No squishy soft breads here. They don’t seem to use a lot of preservatives in the bread so it’s pretty much buy it and eat it. On the French Islands you can buy incredible baguettes, but here they are kind of hit and miss. Finding the English muffins and bagels takes a while since they keep them in the freezer section, not in the bakery.
In the “There is a God” section I find several boxes of my favorite (and difficult to find) Wheat Thins. Meryl usually buys one; I buy four.
The cleaning section, normally one of my favorite aisles, has some amazing finds. Various bug and cockroach sprays that I’m sure were banned in the US years ago line the shelves. And where can you buy 24% muratic (hydrochloric) acid? Reminds me of an especially gruesome episode of Breaking Bad.
Milk is a problem since they don’t seem to drink much milk in the tropics. The IGA is one of the few stores that has quarts of real 2% milk, probably because of the high percentage of Americans attending the nearby medical school. Normally we buy the long-life milk in the Tetra packs which is OK in tea but not that great in cereal.
The ice cream section is especially sad, since it’s all sitting there waiting to be eaten but there’s no way it will make it back to the boat in the 94-degree heat. As a matter of fact I have to carefully budget my time so that I get all the frozen foods at the very last minute and get them into the Costco insulated bag (without being accused of shoplifting) so I can get them up to the checkout counter in one piece.
As I approach the check-out counters I realize my timing is bad since the lines stretch around the corner. I forget tomorrow is Grenadian Thanksgiving and a holiday. It’s not for eating turkey, just for thanking America for saving them from the Cubans and Russians.
As I finally reach the checkout counter and begin to stack my groceries on the conveyor belt, I restart the mental math of “X” amount of groceries into “Y” amount of two Costco bags. Doesn’t look good at this point. Good think Meryl has stuffed some extra smaller bags inside the Costco bags. Doing my best imitation of a box boy I try to get all the cold stuff into one bag, and save the eggs and bread for the top of the second bag which I can’t close anyway.
Another rude awakening is pricing. Those wonderful Oreos I saw on the shelf are about 3x the price of the local cookies. The problem is, with the exception of certain vegetables and fruits, there aren’t a lot of locally produced foods. Live and learn.
It's pushing 11:00 am and I rush down the mall pushing my cart with the one forward wheel spinning sideways (why do they always do that?) trying to catch the 11:00 bus departure time. I whiz by a group of guys sitting at a fast food place as I fixate on the red mini van parked out in front, only to arrive and find it empty. Turning around and looking back inside the mall I see the guys quietly sitting and staring at me. Sheepishly I wheel my cart back in the air-conditioned confines of the mall and take a seat. I ask what time the bus is leaving, and forgetting about the concept of “island time” realize I have a few more minutes while the driver rounds up the rest of the passengers. I make for the little take-out counter remembering that: 1) they serve the only frozen yogurt in town, and 2) Meryl isn’t with me. I savor the frozen delight of the cool yogurt sliding down my parched throat waiting for someone's wife to come running over saying "you'll ruin your lunch."
Piling all the bags into the second seat of the mini van, and all the guys in the back, we slowly head back towards Secret Harbor with one more stop at CK’s Foods, kind of a mini Costco that seems to be popular with yachties. As we enter and I see the racks and racks of El Presidente, Stag, and Carib beer it becomes clear why this is a favorite stop with the sailing crowd. I’m pretty much shopped out so I just roam the aisles trying to find the elusive gallon size of Pace Picante Sauce with no luck.
The ride back reverts to more guy talk: “So how many times have you climbed to the top of your mast and dropped the single nut you were trying to attach to the bolt that holds your rig together?”
The guy's shopping bus . . . the girls don’t have a clue what they missed.
Each morning on the VHF 66 Grenada Cruisers Radio Net there is an announcement of the “shopping buses.” This is something I’ve always ignored. Except today I’m hungry. Now I’m not the type of guy who looks like he’s missed a lot of meals in his life, but seriously, when you get a craving on the boat you typically want to eat it NOW. Oh what I’d do for the McDonalds drive-through and their $1 hot fudge sundae right now.
So back to the shopping buses. Since we have no mode of transportation except our dingy (and how many big supermarkets are on the water anyway?), I motor into the Secret Cove Marina dock and join the line of minglers waiting for the shopping bus. These are typically mini vans run out of each major anchorage about once a week.
Most do an “essentials tour” that includes stops at the ATM, Ace Hardware, Budget Marine, CK’s (more about that later) and the IGA. Since I’m a newbie to all this I opt for the direct bus to the IGA under the assumption that’s about all I’ll be able to handle in a single day.
I’m girding myself to listen to a good hours worth of “cruiser gossip,” but strangely today’s bus is all guys. It’s a little unusually to see one or two guys on the shopping buses, but today is a “boy’s day out.” The gossip is replaced by great guy talk like how to rewire a circuit without getting electrocuted, the best way to change an oil filter while laying upside down with hot oil dripping down your cheek, and how many times you can hit your finger with a hammer before it starts bleeding.
Our express bus heads straight from Secret Harbor to the large IGA store at Spice Island Mall, about five miles away. As the bus winds through the narrow roads I review the grocery list I hurriedly put together using the Notes app on my iPhone. I try to do the math of the bulk and weight of everything I have to buy versus the two Costco insulated bags I have to haul it all back to the boat in.
The topic of “shopping while cruising” is worthy of a book, but the short version is it’s quite an adventure at the very least. In Florida and Puerto Rice we rented a car and went to Costco’s and WalMart SuperStores, filling the trunk with six months of stores. I remember Meryl asking me to pick up some chips and I quickly came back with a query of “corn or wheat, salted or unsalted, natural or adulterated” and so on.
 |
| "The Pink House" in Staniel Cay, Bahamas. |
 |
| What they don't have at "The Pink House" they may have at "The Blue House." |
In the Bahamas we’d roam the village streets to find “the pink house,” the local one-room grocery store where we’d be excited if they simply had one thing on our list. On most of the islands, including a large one like Grenada, you still need to know “when the boat come in” because in the two or three days before the boat comes in there will be a very sparse selection of foods, especially fresh vegetables. And the day after the boat come in the place will be packed. In Grenada the boat usually comes in late on Thursday and the Secret Harbor shopping bus is early Thursday morning. I’m sure there’s some perverse logic that I’m missing here.
 |
| The boat arrives on Thursdays at Staniel Cay and the first thing off is the beer. The guy in the red shorts wants one. |
“Excuse me Madame, what are these bowling-ball-sized green things?
“They are paw paws.”
“Madame, excuse me again, but what is a paw paw and what do you do with it?”
You finally give up any sense of “coolness” and ask a million questions about this and that. I’m amazed when I pass the condiments section and see my old friend Heinz Ketchup on the shelf. Now we don’t need any but it’s reassuring to know that it’s sitting there waiting for me in my time of need. The same can be said for Miracle Whip, although I’m still bereaving the death of Tang (you have to be really old to understand that one).
 |
| I probably asked a question of each of these ladies in the Produce section of IGA. |
At the frozen meat section I start to see things involving various parts of a pigs’ anatomy that I’m not sure I want to ever eat, or at the very least even know about. The fish section is similar. I find solace in the Spices aisle since Grenada was known as “The Spice Island.” Lots of great smelling stuff even if I don’t know what most of it is.
The bread section is problematic. No squishy soft breads here. They don’t seem to use a lot of preservatives in the bread so it’s pretty much buy it and eat it. On the French Islands you can buy incredible baguettes, but here they are kind of hit and miss. Finding the English muffins and bagels takes a while since they keep them in the freezer section, not in the bakery.
In the “There is a God” section I find several boxes of my favorite (and difficult to find) Wheat Thins. Meryl usually buys one; I buy four.
The cleaning section, normally one of my favorite aisles, has some amazing finds. Various bug and cockroach sprays that I’m sure were banned in the US years ago line the shelves. And where can you buy 24% muratic (hydrochloric) acid? Reminds me of an especially gruesome episode of Breaking Bad.
Milk is a problem since they don’t seem to drink much milk in the tropics. The IGA is one of the few stores that has quarts of real 2% milk, probably because of the high percentage of Americans attending the nearby medical school. Normally we buy the long-life milk in the Tetra packs which is OK in tea but not that great in cereal.
The ice cream section is especially sad, since it’s all sitting there waiting to be eaten but there’s no way it will make it back to the boat in the 94-degree heat. As a matter of fact I have to carefully budget my time so that I get all the frozen foods at the very last minute and get them into the Costco insulated bag (without being accused of shoplifting) so I can get them up to the checkout counter in one piece.
As I approach the check-out counters I realize my timing is bad since the lines stretch around the corner. I forget tomorrow is Grenadian Thanksgiving and a holiday. It’s not for eating turkey, just for thanking America for saving them from the Cubans and Russians.
As I finally reach the checkout counter and begin to stack my groceries on the conveyor belt, I restart the mental math of “X” amount of groceries into “Y” amount of two Costco bags. Doesn’t look good at this point. Good think Meryl has stuffed some extra smaller bags inside the Costco bags. Doing my best imitation of a box boy I try to get all the cold stuff into one bag, and save the eggs and bread for the top of the second bag which I can’t close anyway.
Another rude awakening is pricing. Those wonderful Oreos I saw on the shelf are about 3x the price of the local cookies. The problem is, with the exception of certain vegetables and fruits, there aren’t a lot of locally produced foods. Live and learn.
It's pushing 11:00 am and I rush down the mall pushing my cart with the one forward wheel spinning sideways (why do they always do that?) trying to catch the 11:00 bus departure time. I whiz by a group of guys sitting at a fast food place as I fixate on the red mini van parked out in front, only to arrive and find it empty. Turning around and looking back inside the mall I see the guys quietly sitting and staring at me. Sheepishly I wheel my cart back in the air-conditioned confines of the mall and take a seat. I ask what time the bus is leaving, and forgetting about the concept of “island time” realize I have a few more minutes while the driver rounds up the rest of the passengers. I make for the little take-out counter remembering that: 1) they serve the only frozen yogurt in town, and 2) Meryl isn’t with me. I savor the frozen delight of the cool yogurt sliding down my parched throat waiting for someone's wife to come running over saying "you'll ruin your lunch."
Piling all the bags into the second seat of the mini van, and all the guys in the back, we slowly head back towards Secret Harbor with one more stop at CK’s Foods, kind of a mini Costco that seems to be popular with yachties. As we enter and I see the racks and racks of El Presidente, Stag, and Carib beer it becomes clear why this is a favorite stop with the sailing crowd. I’m pretty much shopped out so I just roam the aisles trying to find the elusive gallon size of Pace Picante Sauce with no luck.
The ride back reverts to more guy talk: “So how many times have you climbed to the top of your mast and dropped the single nut you were trying to attach to the bolt that holds your rig together?”
The guy's shopping bus . . . the girls don’t have a clue what they missed.
What??? No more Tang??? Did you two watch "Waterworld" before you took off? Everyone hated it but me, or they pretended they did. Kevin Costner was a very good sailor, with his little lime tree and his water production/collection system.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, thanks, Walt. Now I'm starving!
ReplyDeleteBarb Armo