Eleven related households who cook separately and shop as one, wanting the month's supplies without eleven trips to a counter that is busy in the evenings.
The order came in two weeks before Ramadan, which is the only reason it could be filled. Dates, flour, oil, sugar, milk powder and tinned goods in quantity are not things an island shop can conjure in the week before, because the boat space is already spoken for by everybody else who left it late.
We brought it across two boats, made it up in eleven labelled lots and delivered them over two evenings.
Every year we tell people the same thing and every year half of them ask in the last week. If you are planning this, ask in the month before. The answer is almost always yes, and in the last week it is almost always no.