In a previous post describing how much I love Cowes, I slandered Cowes chandleries by describing this as one of the (few) drawbacks of Cowes.
Well, that was before I really got to know Joliffe's, an ancient place going back to the early 19th century, which is much smaller than the big chandleries on the mainland like Force4 in Bursledon, but as it turns out, this is one of those places, like the word's greatest Ironmonger's, Hurst, which defies all the laws of efficient commerce by keeping thousands of SKU's of obscure items in stock which when you need them, you really really need them. And altogether, they have really everything you need, and will get anything else in a couple of days, and besides that, they have the friendliest and most knowledgeable staff.
They give their better customers discounts which means the prices are not significantly worse than
buying online, so I buy everything I can through them, and even let them order a lot of stuff instead of ordering it online.