February 18, 2009 “MAILBOATS”

We in the USA take a lot for granted when it comes to procuring our food and water daily. If we want water to drink or bathe, we just turn on the faucet; if we want to purchase food, we simply go to the grocery store or stop in the nearest McDonalds. What do you do when you live on an island alone, or with 20 people, or with only 100 people, and there are no grocery stores or restaurants within 20 miles of you little cay? (a very probable scenario here) If you’re lucky enough to have a small powerboat, you can make a daytrip over & back to a larger island to purchase supplies but that’s a killer with the price and unavailability of fuel nowadays . . . not to mention the unpredictability of the weather. That’s where the Bahamian “mailboats” come in.
Once a week a “mailboat” out of Nassau, New Providence or Georgetown, Exuma makes its delivery route stopping on a predetermined day at even some of the smallest settlements throughout the Bahamas to drop food, water, and supplies. The dozen or so employees/residents here at Exuma Park headquarters on Warderick Wells Cay received their mailboat this morning. They rushed out a half mile to meet it in small 15ft boats and unloaded their order quickly. That’s it until next week.
The mailboats themselves are varied; most are 150-250 foot length shallowdraft “ships.” Some are attractive like the brightly painted blue & yellow ones in the Nassau Harbor photo. The one that delivered here this morning looked like a derelict Haitan smuggler of WWI vintage. It’s a simple but effective system of commerce in the Bahamas. If we, cruisers, want to buy some food now, the nearest little grocery market is 18 miles south of here in the town on Staniel Cay. I’m sure that they got their delivery today also, so we’re hoping to head down that way in a day or so in order to buy some bread, fruit, lettuce, and fill our boat’s 50 gallon water tank. When I say
“grocery market”, don’t envision a real store, not even a 7/11. I’m talking about a one-room attachment to a private home with a few shelves of canned goods and some open crates of bananas, plantains, potatoes, cabbages, onions, etc. It’s definitely interesting shopping, but you pay for all that delivery effort . . . and should . . . it’s hard work. It’s actually kinda fun. There are all kinds of canned juice drinks from South America and neat European baked products that we never see in the States. You can buy a beer for $3.50, or you can buy a whole case of 24 for $84 (24 X $3.50) . . . quantity discounting is a “foreign” concept in the Bahamas. Nancy has discovered that cheeses are cheaper here than at home, even US brand cheeses marked “for export only”. We recently learned that a governmental import/export deal with New Zealand keeps the price of cheese, butter, and sheep products low. Occasionally you can run into a luxury product like potato chips. A couple of years ago I actually found “a” bag of Lays Baked Potato Chips all alone on a shelf. It was normally $3.29 in Durango; I gladly forked out $6.50 for it. Haven’t seen any yet this year, even in Nassau.
It’s funny how word spreads around among cruising sailboats as to when certain islands are supposed to receive their mailboat delivery. As in “that’s the day you can buy lettuce in Black Point.” In Nassau harbor, you would hear announcements daily on the local radio station like “the Kerry Lynn will be leaving for Eleuthera on Tuesday evening for those of you needing to send goods to Dunmore Town.” Anyway, the mailboat system make us appreciate shopping at Sams and Super Wally World at home in Durango in the summers.