It is very eye-opening coming into the USA after a 6 month absence. We’re surprised at how positive our “first’ impressions are. To tell the truth, we weren’t excited about coming back. We are certainly looking forward to seeing family and friends and Razzo (family dog), but sort of dreading getting caught up in the rat race again. The day after we got here we rented a car to check in at Customs and then went grocery shopping. Mary Beth, who has never before been a big fan of groceries from Walmart was like the legendary kid-in-a-candy-store. Two days later she’s still raving about how fresh things were, how much choice there was, and most of all how cheap it all is. She would go back just for fun even though we have plenty aboard right now.
Here are some of the things that have struck us:
Prices: Things are really, really affordable here and the choices are almost overwhelming. Fuel, food (grocery and prepared) are really good deals. Our dollars for provisions will go much further than we are used to in the Bahamas where prices are 2-3 times higher than in the US.
Walmart: Having not seen one in a very long time, we were astounded at how nice our shopping experience was at Walmart. The prices are great, they have nearly everything, it was clean and of course there are still some of those “classic Walmart shoppers” to add a chuckle to the shopping experience.
Quality (food and goods): While not everything is high quality in the US, there is almost always a high quality option which is pretty affordable and widely available. We had grown accustomed to a “lucky to have one choice” perspective. Very few stores on the islands have more than one choice in anything.
Things are so much easier in the US: One example from today is propane. To get our propane tank filled in the Bahamas was difficult, time consuming, expensive and exhausting (since it almost always involves hand-carrying the empty tank some distance to the place that might have propane that day and then returning later that day or the next day to pick it up and lug it back to the boat. Our 11 lb tank would cost between $20 and $40 to fill in the Bahamas and take a half day at best. Today I asked another boater if there was a place to get our tank refilled. He told me about an Ace Hardware up the road and offered to take me in his car. We were back in 20 minutes with a full tank and it cost me $7.40. Sometimes you just have to love the USA!
Bustling Crowds: There are so many people here, so much movement, and such a sense of frenetic action! The Bahamas exude a sense of calm and “tomorrow or the day after will be fine”. There is no hurry, ever. Here there seems to be a cacophony of noise and bustle that takes some getting used to.
Nature: There is so much wildlife here and variety in foliage. In our first day back, we saw dolphin feeding and frolicking, manatees lolling about, pelicans diving for fish and a huge variety of sea birds. In the Bahamas, we saw lots of fish, sea turtles, rays, etc near reefs, but not that much elsewhere. It seemed almost like a sterile environment outside of the reef areas.