Market day

Some of the bounty we brought home today

Going to the grocery store at home is a simple matter of relative ease.  You hop in the car, drive to the store, shop, carry your food back to the car, and drive home where you store everything in your large refrigerator and/or pantry.  Some of us don't particularly like to shop but, in the scheme of life on land, it isn't all that difficult.  Not so on a boat.

First you have to determine where the closest grocery store is located and whether or not the distance involved to get there is reasonable.  Since we had been here before, we knew the store was about two miles away, a distance we could walk without too much trouble.  You also have to locate a dock where you can leave your dinghy for a period of time without worrying about 1) being arrested for trespassing on private property, 2) having the dinghy stolen, or 3) having the dinghy damaged by sharp objects on the dock or in the water if the wind or current bang it around while you're gone.  We had that one covered too because of a previous visit, but it can be very difficult at times to find a dock to use.  Then you have to pack in the dinghy whatever you have for carrying home your purchased items and take the dinghy to a dock.  This morning we packed our rolling cart, a milk crate, and a backpack because we had some serious shopping to accomplish.

At the dock you unpack your "luggage" and haul it with you on your trek.  You do your shopping, pack the items in your cart, and head back to the dock, usually accompanied by some strange looks from fellow shoppers.  Today we came across the perfect size of cooler that we needed for our dinghy (more about this later), so we had it strapped to the rolling cart and loaded all our groceries into it at the store.  Talk about stares!  Anyway, there is also a great vegetable stand along the way back to the boat at which we stopped to add to our purchases.  All this is then carefully transferred to the dinghy for the trip back to the boat where it is all laboriously unloaded.  But wait!  You aren't finished yet because now you have to find places to store all this stuff in a dorm-sized refrigerator and a pantry about the volume of two bread boxes.  Let's just say we were pretty tired by the time we were finished the grocery shopping for today.  Hopefully these purchases will last us a few weeks with only a couple of additions of fresh things along the way.

Happily, the new fuel pump Tom installed in the dinghy motor yesterday seems to have solved our problems with fuel getting into the crankcase and causing the motor to run badly or not at all.  At least we didn't have that to worry about today while transferring groceries from shore to boat.  What would I do without his great MacGyver talents!