First of all, congratulations on your up-coming retirement! I hope we will see you on the way south!
Here is a link to the list we use to provision before leaving Florida. We truly try to buy everything we will need for 2 months in the Bahamas, from spare parts and motor oil to all food and personal items.
ipyoa.com/forum/25-provisioning-talk/254...isioning-for-bahamas
Maxwell's, the grocery store in Marsh Harbour, Abaco, is like a large, chain grocery in the US, with nearly everything you could want and interesting items you may have never seen before. It has drugstore items, too. The meats are all frozen and somewhat more expensive than US prices. You will find staples such as rice, flour, sugar etc. to be only slightly higher in cost. The REALLY expensive items are snacks, chips, crackers, cookies, cereals, nuts, chocolate, etc. Bring plenty of your favorite items! Fresh produce, dairy products and paper products are also expensive. I have heard it is similar in Nassau, though we have not been there on our boat.
The grocery stores in the Exumas are very small and more expensive than Marsh Harbour. Depending on when the mailboat arrives, the shelves in these stores may be quite bare. There is a schedule for the mailboat, but it is weather dependent. There may be no fresh produce or dairy items at all. Georgetown, Exuma, and Spanish Wells, Eleuthera have the best stocked stores in the lower and far Bahamas.
To be specific, the highest cost for diesel we paid this spring was $7.15 per gallon and $8 per half gallon of fresh milk. Average cost was $6 for diesel and $4.50 for milk. Gas for the dinghy was about $5 per gallon. From a budgeting stand point, we obviously spend hundreds of dollars provisioning in Florida before we leave and then spend much less while we are there. The main items we buy there are fresh eggs and milk. We do keep boxed milk, Parmalat or Borden's, on board for cooking, but I don't like to drink it. (One pleasant surprise is that Irish and/or New Zealand butters are delicious and reasonably priced.)
If you don't have a watermaker, you will be buying water....usually 30 cents per gallon at fuel docks in the Abacos, 50 cents in the Exumas. Some settlements offer free water in small quantities to cruisers. ALWAYS ask if the water is totally safe to drink before buying it or filling your jerry jugs.
We prefer to anchor out. We took a slip for 3 nights in Bimini due to weather at $1 per foot and in Spanish Wells for $1.25 per foot. In Hope Town on Elbow Cay, Abaco, we took a mooring ball due to weather for $20 per night. We also took mooring balls in different parts of the Exumas Land and Sea Park at $15. You may want to join the Bahamas National Trust before you leave the states....membership gives you priority status on the waiting list for the preferred mooring balls at Warderick Wells.
Hope this is helpful...Good luck with your cruising plans!!
