Can someone enlighten me as to whether I need to bring my own grocery bags or not. the last few times I have had things delivered, but since we are getting to the island on the first ferry we decided to do our own shopping.

Yes - bring them - makes things much easier

Thank you Winterstale

We were there last week and I believe they charged $.10 per plastic bag. We had the bulk of our provisions delivered to the boat and filled up 2 backpacks and then bought 2 plastic bags at the store for produce and hand-picked shopping. We were out of Hodges Creek, so used the smaller store near there and we were pleased with their selection.

Do they have bigger bags available for purchase? We have purchased reusable bags on St. Maarten, that are branded with the name of the store there. It makes for more fun shopping here locally to use them, and imagine we are in the ilons..

I don't recall if Riteway did, but the little grocery store at Rhymers in Cane Garden did which we reused.

Did it have the name of the store on it? So much more fun if it does.

Yep. Agree. It did.

You can purchase large reusable bags at the checkout if you want (branded). Or they will put things in plastic bags (not sure of the charge).

Or you can grab empty boxes from under stairs just past the checkout counters (no charge). This is the best option for large orders.

We always take a few bags with us, plus a insulated soft-sided bag for cold items. Works really well and doesn’t take up much room.

we use boxes but make sure after food is unloaded the boxes stay at the marina in the trash as we learned the hard way that there can be bugs in the boxes...

good points on cardboard boxes and provisions and boxes on board.

We also never put cardboard boxes on board a sailing vessel, or even bring items home from Costco into the house.

Best to bring you own stout plastic bags , they do not take up much room, and are easy to pack.

The reason we do bring aboard card board boxes is that they can be roach hotels.

As to riteway, we now bare boat out of Conch Charters and run one of their several dock ' barrows ' over to riteway which is a short distance up the road.
When checking out, we take items out of the stores carts and put them into the dock barrow, and wheel the supplies to the boat. The store put our purchases
into normal plastic bags...., totally easy transition.

However, we do not sail with 8 to 12 people, there is just the two of us, and that might make a huge difference for transporting needed provisions.

I found you can pack more than you can carry with a Polar Bear insulated bag for the cold stuff and 3 or 4 of those French net shopping bags.