Grocery shopping!

For our boater friends, this post might be boring; duh! of course we all go food shopping! To all of our non-boater friends, hopefully you'll find this interesting.

So.... what do we do about grocery shopping? Well usually we can find a supermarket relatively nearby. If we walk, I bring our big boat bags and try to stick to things that aren't too heavy. Here in Ft. Lauderdale there is a great Publix about 3 miles away. I usually take a cab and, depending on how long I know I am going to be, the driver either waits with the meter running or I call another cab when I am done. We use dock carts to get the groceries down to the boat. Hall of Fame is great because there are always dock carts available (which we have found isn't the case at a lot of marinas.)

Bill and I get the groceries where they need to be in a few steps. First we get all the bags in the cockpit.

Then Bill passes them to me down the companionway and I get them down below. And we begin the fun task of putting everything away...... Our fridge and freezer are top loading since when we are sailing and heeled over the doors could open otherwise. So our countertop doubles as the top of our fridge / freezer. We use bins inside the fridge to keep things organized and so we don't have to dig and dig to find things. It works for us - although it is a pain when that green pepper I am looking for is way in the bottom bin and I have to empty everything out to retrieve it....

We have a very small pantry that holds the few dry goods that we use regularly. Everything else goes behind the couch. The IP485 has storage in places you wouldn't believe..... We use behind the port side settee for snacks, canned goods, rice, cooking stuff, etc.

A little different from living on land, but all in all - not too bad! The key is to stay organized and always put things in the same place.