March 30, 2015 Marsh Harbor "town day", Bahamas

Even the dinghy needs maintenance, pumping up pontoons

Today became “town day”, where we try to accomplish everything we need in town in one trip.  Dave wanted to refill a propane tank.  There is a place where you leave the tank at 9:00am or 1:00pm and someone returns with them filled at 1:00 or 4:00pm.  Well, we missed the 9:00 drop off, but figured we would just pick it up at 4:00.  That also meant we would spend another night in Marsh Harbor.  Oh well. 

The store where we dropped off the propane was like a small version of a Pamida or Alco variety store minus the food.  There was a little of everything, but focused on the home and gifts.  We decided to pick up a couple cheap floating air mattresses we used as kids.  There are times it would be nice to just hang out in the water by the boat without having to swim the whole time.  Preferably at anchor in a smaller bay or harbor.  The water in this harbor wouldn’t be too clean with so many boats.  Plus you could get run over by a dinghy, I don’t think there are any “no wake” rules here. 

Next was lunch at the Golden Grouper.  The last store recommended it, but I had read that this was where the locals go.  Dave had steamed chicken and I had grouper Nantua.  It was grouper made into a salad spread and put on toast of homemade bread, with parmesan cheese on top and toasted again.  It was delicious and reminded me of toasted tuna salad sandwiches we had growing up, but I had forgotten.  We probably had Velveeta cheese on ours.

Then we spent about 2 hours at the BTC office, Bahamian Telephone Company.  We were in line twice at the service counter and twice at the cashier before we figured everything out.  We were able to get a SIM card for one of our phones, we chose my phone, and put data on it.  We still won’t use our telephones, but now we have a great wifi connection that can be used on all the islands.  We can connect Dave’s phone and our laptop to my hotspot.  And we can add data as needed.  We will own the SIM card ($15) and be able to use it in the future, if we have a phone that it fits into.  Not sure if we will ever be totally off the grid.

Then we went to the grocery store.  We needed milk, bread, & eggs.  But we thought we would try cooking plantain.  I also picked up some powdered drink mixes.  Gatorade and water are boring after awhile.  We don’t drink much soda pop and have a few cans of diet coke and ice tea from Florida.  But then you have to deal with the cans as garbage.  I just priced diet coke at $24 for 24 cans.  I’m thinking a 12 pack in the US runs $3-5, or $6-10 for 24.  So we are OK without it.  We had friends in North Carolina that were really stocking up on diet coke before they left for the Bahamas and Caribbean.  Now if we need a mix for rum with our visitors, that may be a different story.  The last time I had rum and coke, I was still able to drink caffeine in the evenings. 

We stopped back early for the propane and the tank was back early, yippee!.  So we headed home with all of our purchases.

Now we plan to leave Marsh Harbor and hang out at the smaller islands until next Saturday.  We heard on the net this morning that there is a sailboat race on Wednesday that is open to the public.  May have to check that out.  We’ve never raced with this boat.  Dave said there wouldn’t be any fast tacking because he would have to stop halfway though the tack to rest before he could finish cranking the winch, the sails are larger and he is older :)