8th February

12 03.520 N
68 51.216 W

Weather; overcast, wind n/a, waves n/a

It was hard crawling out of bed this morning as the sky was a nasty shade of grey and it looked like it was going to rain but we had plans for the morning so we dragged our sorry arses out of the pit, had breakfast, showers and got ourselves dressed ready to go shore to catch the free bus to the supermarket. As we approached the dinghy dock another dinghy got in just before us and took their time tying up, leaving very little room on the dock for us to tie up to but we squashed our way in between the already docked dinghies and scrambled to secure our dinghy. The dock is very small and at most it can accommodate 6 dinghies with just 2 cleats to tie up to. it isn't helped by the fact that there has been a dinghy locked to the dock ever since we have been here, with no outboard on it and the dinghy is half full of water so we think it has been here a while to fill up with rain water as it hasn't rained since we arrived a little over a week ago. Anyway we managed to lock our dinghy to the dock and made our way to the gate where the bus is supposed to pick up anyone wanting to go to the supermarket and joined the 4 other people already waiting there. Very shortly after we were joined by another person and just on 9 am a small bus turned up and we all piled in. The bus took us to a Spar supermarket, not where we were expecting it to go but it didn't matter as we were on a scouting out exercise. As he dropped us off the driver said he would be back in an hour to pick us up for the return journey. We headed inside and were pleasantly surprised to find a regular large supermarket stocked better than anywhere we have been shopping in since Cost U Less in St Thomas! As we had gone on this trip to just work out what was available we hadn't gone with a shopping list, we made our way down each isle oohing and ahhing at the variety and quantity of stock that was available - it certainly had everything we would need in plentiful supply. Who would have thought that we could get so excited and enthused by a grocery shopping trip! As we made our way around the store we dropped a few bits and pieces into the obligatory trolley and took note of some things that we would get once we had a car to cart it all back in. There was even an in store butcher and bakery plus a cafeŽ off to one side and a pharmacy - it was like being back in the States. I don't really know how the prices compare as we don't tend to convert the local currency back, we just spend what we need to spend and have done with it after all you could go mad thinking of what you would buy the same stuff for in your local store at home but you aren't at home so you just suck it up and buy what you need/ want at the time. This was just one supermarket and we know there are at least a couple more so it will be a case of having a look to see which best suits our needs for provisioning. At least we know that even without a car we can get a free bus ride to this supermarket on Mondays and Thursdays - bonus! With just one bag full of bits we were done for the day's shopping and went to wait outside for the bus ride back to the dock. No one seemed to have bought a great deal, just what they needed for the immediate future. We arrived back at the dock, thanked the driver and made our way to the dinghy along with everyone else. We had to wait until all the others had moved their dinghies before we could get to ours to load up the bags and return to our boat. The water had become choppy in the space of time we were gone and I was lucky to only get slightly wet from spray on the return trip. Back on board we stashed our purchases and bags away, all up we were done by 11 am - a worthwhile couple of hours, we certainly would need to have a list if we go on the bus again as an hour in a supermarket goes really quickly. We had an early lunch and then Gerry vanished outside, he apparently tightened the intermediate shrouds on both sides of the boat and checked the oil level on the outboard motor, which didn't need topping up after 85 hours of running time. The afternoon was spent reading books and watching you tube videos in Gerry's case, I updated the blog and began writing this one before prepping the roast that we were going to have last night but left until today. We did nothing else until it was time for our cocktails in the cockpit as we watched the comings and goings in the harbor. We pigged out on the roast, it was the first one we had eaten in a while and we made every mouthful count! Afterwards there was just enough room in our tummies for 2 squares of a chocolate bar each, any more and we would have exploded. So that was it for the day, more tomorrow, maybe.