Potable water availability in the Bahamas?

[PaintedKite]

[Sorry for duplicate post. Originally posted under "Provisioning."]

We will be cruising the Bahamas for 3-6 weeks in Feb/Mar '21, and we're wondering about the availability, generally, of good, potable water.

We're on a 37' boat with plenty of storage and no watermaker. And we generally don't drink from the tanks, reserving that water for cooking, flushing, showering, etc. So it'll be bottled water for drinking.

The two of us generally drink about a gallon of water (plus beer, sodas, Pellegrino, wine, etc) per day.

What I'd LIKE to be able to do is to leave FL with half our total requirement (say, 15-20 gallons) pre-purchased, then get the other half along the way, in the form of buying bottles, refilling our bottles, catching rainwater, etc.

So whaddya say? Is this feasible? Or are we better-off making it a priority to pre-purchase a greater % of our total requirement?

[BrianInBoston]

If you have room aboard, I would certainly just bring more with you from Florida. The Bahamas chain extends several hundred miles with many of the outer islands deserted or sparsely populated with no markets. You could target a stop at the big markets at Marsh Harbor or New Providence for replenishing water, but the smaller places will have mostly RO or manufactured water, the best you could hope for is Zephyrhills spring water, certainly more expensive than what you could have just bought at the Publix before you left.

Also a gallon a day between two people may be a little short. In the Bahamas most meals will be aboard so lots of cooking, add teas, coffees, lemonade etc and it adds up. I try to reserve the boat tanks for showering and washing. It is not easy or cheap to pull over and refill your water tanks once you're out in the boondocks.

[Amapola]

We found water from the marinas in Marsh Harbour to be sub-standard.