SUPERMARKET SWEEP - COVID edition

As we know by now, COVID-19 is affecting the lives of everyone in the world both directly and indirectly. For us personally, a major challenge has been food supply. Getting food from the grocery store is already difficult as a cruiser, but it has become a major challenge as of late. Once the virus made its way over here, I knew it would be tough to get food, but it has proven to be way worse than I originally thought. While we typically have a stocked boat, I’ve quickly learned just how important it is to have rations fully stoked.

We got back to Calypso three weeks before the virus hit the island of Grenada. While the boat was on the hard getting work done, Calypso was hit with a bug infestation so I had to throw every bit of food off the boat! SinceI had a completely empty boat to fill, I took it upon myself to do multiple shopping trips to fill it up. I ended up getting a good amount of fresh food to last us 3 weeks and enough dry goods to carry us through to 6 weeks. I was thankful I did that when I did since the island went into (and still is in) a complete lockdown. 

Thankfully, as we were approaching the end of our food supply, the Grenadian government opened up the 2 major grocery stores on the island for people to shop. However, there wasn’t an efficient way to do this, nor was it regulated, and it ended up being a complete disaster for most. I stood in line for 6 hours that day and came home empty handed. I had hit a breaking point while waiting in line as the 6th hour approached. I found myself to be dehydrated, hungry and sunburnt. It wasn’t worth the stress and ciaos that I was putting myself through when we still had enough food to last us 10 days (as long as we were really careful). 

I came home that day feeling defeated and angry with myself for not sticking it out, but Jeremiah quickly reminded me that it’s not worth adding another level of stress during an already stressful time. He was right--I let it go, knowing that the island would learn from this and most likely find another way to help people get a good food supply.

We were right and food delivery services started to become available the following week! With the government’s approval, they were able to take orders and deliver it directly to the patrons. Of course, I jumped on this one and have quickly become a regular! Heck, I may even continue with this option once the grocery stores finally do go back to normal shopping hours. I am happy to say that we get weekly shipments directly to our boat of quality meats, dry goods, fruits, veggies and alcohol all from 3 different sources! You do have to pay a delivery charge for 2 of the 3 companies, and that has been between $20 - $50 US. The fruit and vegetable trucks show up unannounced and there isn’t a charge for that as you literally just pick from the back of their van.

For us, it is worth every penny to not stand in a chaotic line with drones flying over your head to ensure the public is following the protocol of social distancing. The entire situation only aggravates people and causes arguing amongst each other. Once you finally make it into the store, you only have 25 minutes to grab all you can from somewhat empty shelves. Anyone remember the game show Supermarket Sweep?  Except this time it’s not free and you have other people trying to get the same things as you! I know what you’re thinking--“no thanks!”, and we feel the exact same way! It is well worth the delivery fee for a stress-free food shopping experience.