Position: N24 10.263 W076 26.994
Laundry and shopping are so simple when you are land based! You throw the washing into the machine and forget about it. At the grocery you pop in, pick up anything you need or fancy, drive home, and finish up the washing. We remember those days.
Here on Rachel in the Bahamas it’s not quite that easy. We do not have a washing machine on the boat so we are always on the lookout for a launderette. It’s a common discussion amongst cruisers when arriving at a new location. You need to get the scoop on laundry, groceries, trash disposal, and of course the best happy hour deal at the local watering holes.
We already know that Black Point has the best launderette in the Exumas, possibly the only one, since in most places you pay a woman to wash your clothes. We spend a day sailing down to Black Point for this very purpose. On arrival we are taken aback, there are 74 boats in this normally fairly quiet spot! We know what that means. The launderette will be packed tomorrow! We decide to avoid the early morning crush by arriving later in the morning.
We saunter into the launderette at 11am, and are met by total chaos. There are about 12 washers and 12 dryers, normally this is plenty. All the washers are in use, all the dryers are in use and there are huge piles of wet clothes waiting for the dryers. Everyone is frazzled but trying to stay happy. Hmm, Julie decides to stay. We won’t go into all the painful details but Mark brings her lunch and a beer at 1pm, for a picnic (!!!!) and we don’t get out of there until 3pm.
The next day is mailboat day, translation: fresh fruits and veggies. Staniel Cay has 3 small groceries, Isles General Store, ‘the pink store’ and ‘the blue store’. It is about 10 miles by water from Black Point and with all these cruising boats around we know we’ll have to get there as soon as the boat starts unloading.
We raise anchor at 7am, arrive at Staniel by 9am and drop the anchor right off the town. We quickly jump into the dinghy and head for our favourite store. When we make out a shopping list it’s more of a suggestion, really, because you never know what will actually be in stock. In many stores the shopkeeper does not even have a cash register - just a piece of paper on which he or she writes everything down and adds up long hand. More often than not there are no prices posted so you never really know how much things will cost until you check out. The prices here are very erratic (generally pretty high) and often don’t make a lot of sense, but you only have 2 choices: buy or don’t buy !!
Sheesh! The dinghy dock already has about 10 dinghies tied up. We push our way through to the steps and Julie leaps out, climbs to the dock, and hurries into the shop while Mark ties off the dinghy. Darn, already a whole bunch of people in here and a line for the check out. We quickly go to the veggies and grab some of what they have knowing we can go through and decide what we really want in a few minutes after we get in line. No time to think, just grab before it’s all gone. We leave with 3 bags full of goodies: broccoli, zucchini, lettuce, cucumber, bell peppers and a great find – plain yogurt (oooh).
By the time we leave the store about an hour later, there are hardly any veggies left and no more will arrive for another week.
Back aboard we revel in our bounty. Julie makes one of our favorites – oven roasted mixed vegetables with chili-garlic paste. Hot, spicy and delicious!
Winding down,
Mark & Julie
s/v Rachel
