Best place for provisioning for St Martin -Panama-Tahiti

[DebF]

We will soon be in St Martin and will transit Panama in early/mid May to head for Tahiti and then NZ.
Where do people recommend as the best well priced place to stock up on 3+ months of non-perishables?
Is it reasonably priced in St Martin or it is worth going via the BVI? Alternatively what about at Panama?
Thanks for the help.

[mikefp60]

St Marteen is ok. Dutch side. Expensive though. St. Thomas is better. Best we have found anywhere in the carib is Puerto Rico. Get a Costco membership. From Palmas Del Mar, where they have $27 a day rental cars on site, you have everything you can imagine within about 10-30 minute drive. Costo, Walmart, Kmart, Home Depot, Best Buy, West Marine, Grainger, hardware, clothing, electronics, mechanical work. I was in heaven! Instead of spending all day getting a part and an hour installing it you spend an hour getting it, an hour installing it, then go play for the rest of the day! It’s also a very nice place to visit.

Mike
S/V Vivo

[Paul L]

From Balboa on the Pacific side of the Canal you have access to very good shopping. The best thing to do if you are not staying long is to hire one of the cabbies by the hour ($10-12 per). You can get names for cabbies from local cruisers or the Panama City Cruisers Guide (up on the PPJ Yahoo group). Panama City has PriceMart(big box store like Costco), Riba Smith grocery(high end US stuff and more), large US style malls, a great vege market, multiple chandleries, etc. Also, it is easy to ship items into Panama.

[barnakiel]

We stocked up in Panama but we should have taken the goodies from the West Indies (e.g. we could not get good tea in Panama while it is easily available in Martinique, etc..).

If there is something you cannot go without, buy it where you find the produce/quality you desire. All else can be had in Panama.

FP was expensivish but we had cheap bread, butter, flour and rice there - I bet they were subsidized by the central govt in France.

b.

[DebF]

thanks for the information

[levm]

If you need to provision in St. Maarten then do it at Grand Marche. Their prices are reasonable and selection and quality is good
Use the store on the Dutch side they will deliver it to your boat if the order is large enough free.