Tag Archives: provision

Magsin Celine

Provisioning: Our version of Ralph’s Supermarket

Provisioning, what is it?  You have heard me say a number of times, that we had to provision the boat.  What exactly does that mean?  You, as a landlubber (yes, that is what we call you), can easily walk or hop in your car and go to the nearest Costco, Super Target, Ralph’s or Randalls to pick up your groceries.  You can even pop in a convenience store (7-11) or mini market (gas station) to get basic supplies.  Not to mention the farmer’s market to get fresh goods from growers.  You are after all in the land of plenty.

Here in the islands, we don’t have those luxuries.  I am not complaining, just stating the facts.  Almost every island has a “magasin” which is a type of market or grocery store.  It is similar to a minimarket or 7-11 and about the same size with twice as much stuff packed into the same amount of space.  With the exception of Tahiti, most islands and atolls are limited to what they can store and sell in between deliveries from the supply ships.

Supply Ships

The number and size of these magasins are dependent on the size of the island, the population, and the number of tourists.  Most of the Tuamotu atolls have very small and limited provisions. However, the larger islands like Nuku Hiva, Hiva Oa (Marquesas), Mangareva (Gambiers), and Tahiti, Bora Bora (Society) will have more variety.

The supply ship comes from Tahiti and brings provisions to the outer islands.  For example, in Nuku Hiva, the supply ship comes every 2 weeks.  However, we visited during the holidays and we ship was here once in 2.5 months!

Nuku Hiva Magasins

Nuku Hiva is the largest and most populated island in the Marquesas. It has several decent magasins, a produce market, and plenty of fruit bearing trees.  We shop for provisions (food, produce, fruit, veg, beverages) at the local magasins, produce market, and buy direct from locals.  On very rare occasions, we will pick directly from the trees when they appear to be on public property (not on private land).

So, what does a local magasin look like?  Let me tell you, the Nuku Hiva magasins are above average in size and stock. Good for us, for now!  Most have between 3-4 isles, with end caps, frozen area, liquor area, and produce area.

Magasin Celine

This magasin offers hydroponic lettuce which is a rare treat.  It has a super small produce area (see bottom photo in back on red baskets), 2 freezers and plenty of dry goods.

Magasin Celine

Magasin Celine

You might see an entre isle or two of cereal, but here we have a ¼ of an area for cereal.  But, you an see we have Special K.  They do have an entire isle filled with liquor though. 

Typical isle

Typical isle

One thing we leaned very quickly is that liquor is extremely expensive here.  Thank goodness we did not need to purchase any during our year stay.  I took some photos of liquor bottles…an easy conversion is to drop the last two digits.  So, for example the bottle of Baileys is $49, he Jack Daniels is $86, and the Bombay is $79.

Expensive liquor

Expensive liquor

Magasin Kamake

This magasin has its own bakery and supplies other magasins with fresh baguettes.  It is a little more stocked with a different variety of food.  They do have an “organic” or “natural” isle which is intriguing.

Kamake with a natural selection of food

Kamake with a natural selection of food

Their produce area is actually refrigerated (to make them last longer) and they have a few more freezers of meats.

Produce Market

Provisioning runs always include a search for fresh produce.  Nuku Hiva has its own produce market, which is a rare treat!  They are open in the mornings from 0530-1130.  Each day it differs depending on the local deliveries.  The lower left photo is a tasty fruit called pumplemouse which is similar to a grapdefruit.

Produce market

Produce market

Artisan Market

Another wonderful treat is the artisan market. We have only seen an artisan market in a few islands and we have visited well over a hundred throughout French Polynesia!  This is where the local artists showcase and sell their crafts.  It can include hand-carved marlin bone, necklaces, tapa cloth, hand-carved wood statues and oh so much more.

Wood and bone carvings

Wood and bone carvings

Jewelry, honey, carvings

Artisan goods

Artisan goods

In short, provisioning in the islands is a smaller version of shopping in the States.  Less variety and quantity, but what do you expect living in a third world country in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?  I’m thinking we are pretty darn blessed.

The economy in the Marquesas is very fragile, but from what we have seen it is still thriving.  Provisioning for locals usually consists of their own fresh produce and fish that they catch.

Other Services

Nuku Hiva is way advanced compared to most places.  They have a very robust recycling program. With all of the provisioning we cruisers do it is nice to know we can recycle our glass, plastic and aluminium.

Recycling Center

Recycling Center

All of the post offices are yellow and look the same.  Most post offices have an ATM (because there are no banks on smaller islands or atolls) and sell the local cell/data sim cards.

Typical post office

Typical post office

There is one jail on the island, which was generally used for ‘short stay’ internments such as the last 3 months of sentences and was also often altogether empty. Lately, however, prisoners can opt to do their full sentence here if they have no family on Tahiti, so the Nuku Hiva jail now has inmates all the time.

Jail in Nuku Hiva

Jail in Nuku Hiva

Provision Run in Colon.

Exploring The Big City of Colon, Panama

Matt and I hired a taxi to take us to the big city of Colon. We could have taken a 2+ hour bus ride for $3 each but we wanted to do a large provisioning run and make multiple stops.  A friend of ours gave us the name of a wonderful, English speaking taxi driver, Jack who took care of us!  Our goal was to hit the fresh market, the Zona Libre de Colon (free zone), and Quartro Alto all in one day.

Jack picked us up at 0730 and we were on our way.  It was such a nice ride being in a car rather than the noisy, bumpy, rickety bus.  We were able to enjoy the beautiful rolling hillside.  Panama is very lush, green, and beautiful this time of year.  We passed through several coastal towns, tons of farms with grazing cows and horses, and a large national park.  After about an hour and a half, we arrived in Colon.

We had heard that Colon was not safe and that we should not walk around, but Jack assured us that he would guide us in the right direction and keep us in safe areas.  And he did.

The fresh market is similar to the one in Colombia with fresh fish, meats, veggies and fruits.  The free zone is a massive (thousands of stores) area where you can buy just about anything duty free and tax free, and Quatro Alto is a large outdoor mall that has a huge grocery store, technology stores, and a marine store that we wanted to check out.

The first stop was a marine store.  We were in need of a few basic items such as boat polish, friction rings, silicone grease, 4000 UV adhesive, etc.. and the marine store in Quatro Alto is small.

The first marine store was well organized, two story building mostly dedicated to fisherman.  The entire bottom floor housed fishing gear, lures, poles, dry suits, spears guns and more.  The smaller upstairs had boat stuff, but it was pretty darn small.  At this store, we found boat polish and our U.V. sealant which was good.

The fresh market was next as you want to get here earlier than later to get the freshest foods.  We were instructed to stay inside the open air building as it was located in a “not so good area.”  Jack would have come in with us but he could not find a parking spot.  He dropped us off and picked us up at the entrance.  It was similar to Colombia, but much more organized and professional looking with official stands for each vendor.  We did a quick walk through first before we decided which vendor to buy from – there were a lot, but we wanted to get as much as we could from one place.

Fresh market in Colon, Panama

Fresh market in Colon, Panama

It’s overwhelming because you can’t hide from the damage we do to animals  Again, I do eat meat, but seeing the meat section makes me sick.  We ended up buying a 9 kilo pork shoulder for $20 and lot of veggies including: 3-papaya, 3-pineapple, 2-stocks of celery, 2-cucumbers, 2-squash, 10-oranges, 5-limes, 3-green peppers, 2-red peppers, cilantro, 2-avocados, 3-apples, 4-onions, and 2-heads of lettuce for about $36.  The price stunned us, but we were too busy grabbing stuff to ask  for prices and we just wanted to get out of there.  Either way, they were fresh and looked delightful!

Fresh fruits and veggies from Colon, Panama

Fresh fruits and veggies from Colon, Panama.

Next stop, the Zona Libre de Colon.  Jack did not know much about Zona Libre de Colon so we really did not know what to expect.   Liquor and perhaps an iPhone replacement were top priority for this excursion.  Friends told us that it might be difficult to get cases of liquor out of the zone and to ask before we buy:  good plan!   Jack dropped us off at a secondary gate and we went to the office to get a pass.  After showing our passports, we paid $1 each and were let lose in the jungle. This place is so big that they have tour guides on the corners to show you around.  There were well over 16 blocks in the clothing area alone.  We found a tour guide and asked where the technology section was and he pointed 4 blocks down and 10 blocks over.

Several stores had the apple logo, but many did not sell any apple products, WTF?  A few stores had the 7+ but they were more expensive than buying from the states so we soon gave up on this search.

Next we found the liquor area where we were hoping to buy a few cases of rum, vodka, and beer.  We had heard that you could buy a bottle of vodka for $4.  Once we found a good store, we inquired about the process.  We could certainly buy the cases, but they did not know how to get it out of the free zone.  Our taxi driver did not even have a permit to come into the free zone (he could not drive his car in so he dropped us off outside).  If we had a connection at the gate we might have been able to pull it off, but we didn’t  After discussing a few scenarios, we decided it was not worth the trouble and walked away.

An hour later, we were done with Zona Libre de Colon and a bit exhausted after walking around for a little over an hour.  Now we had to find our way back to the place where Jack dropped us off.  Most of the streets did not have names and did not go all the way through.  We knew we needed to get back to Calle 14 and Enrique Jimenez but the later street never appeared again.  After wondering around aimlessly for awhile we asked a vendor who pointed us to 3 exists.  We took our best guess and headed toward the one that looked closest to where we started and low and behold we found it!  Yeah.

Jack took us to Cuatro Alto to find a Mas Movil sim card, a marine store, and the market.  This was a lot more civil than the free zone.  We easily found a place to buy our sim card so that we now have multiple ways to try to get online while in San Blas.  We have the Digicel card, the Mas Movil, GoogleFi and of course Matt’s pirate ways.  Try to hide from us now, Mr. Internet!

The marine store in Quatro Alto was very, very small.  Even smaller than the first store we went into and we were not able to find much of anything there.  It looks like we will have to order the rest on Amazon so I can bring it back with me in January.

Supermercado Reys is the largest grocery chain in Panama and is owned by a single family.  It was a very clean, orderly, and well stocked market.  We loaded up two carts with almost everything on our list.  We found a 750 bottle of Smirnoff vodka for $8 (not the $4 bargain we hoped for, but not bad) so we grabbed 4.  I know, you are wondering if I lost my mind as it is not a potato vodka, but beggars can’t be choosers.  We also found a liter bottle of Abuelo rum for $10 so we grabbed 6 bottles.  We’ve heard that alcohol is very expensive on the Pacific side so we are stocking up.  We could not find cases of beer or diet coke so we swung by the Reys in Sabanitas to get the last items on our list.

Exhausted, we headed back to Linton Bay and hauled our goods to the precarious dinghy dock, managing not to dump anything in the water.

Loading up the dinghy with a huge provision run.

Loading up the dinghy with a huge provision run.

It took Matt and I a few hours to stow everything.  We removed all cardboard and labels from cans (prevents weevils), wrote expiration dates on all cans, bottles, jars.  Cut up, vacu sealed, and labeled all frozen meats. bleached and washed all fruits and veggies, and managed to find places to store it all inside the boat.

A few alcoholic beverages...

A few alcoholic beverages…

Success List:

  • Food
  • Beverages & Liquor
  • Sim card
  • Marine Store
  • Fresh Fruits and Veggies

We were so tired, but we decided we deserved a reward and headed to the bar to catch the last of happy hour.  The usual crew was there, “Sweet Chariot” “White Shadow” “Wandering Rose” and a few others.

Happy hour in Linton Bay, Panama

Happy hour in Linton Bay, Panama

It was a fun day, full of a few adventures.  Colon turned out to be lovely, but we did have rose colored glasses on with the help of our new friend Jack!