We continued up the coast to Agua Verde yesterday. A big three pronged bay with a small desert fishing village to get off the boat and stroll through. As we were walking a grandpa came out of one of the houses and called the rest of his family over. There were two babies the same age as Lowe. They all commented on how big he was. The home was just a cement block structure with maybe two rooms, but had a lot of shade outside where numerous mattresses had been laid out and were being used in the late afternoon heat. And man was it hot. Ouest couldn’t walk on the sand, and Lowe just oozed sweat in the carrier pressed up against Ali. We had a nice time exchanging pleasantries, declined their offer to sell one of their kids, and then continued our tour of the town.
We found the tienda where our cruising guide said we could “reprovision.” The store wasn’t open, but when somebody saw us walking past the owner suddenly came running out to open the door. Inside we found that reprovisioning may have been an overstatement. There were a dozen tomatoes, a handful of potatoes, two spoiling bananas, and that was about it as far as fresh food went. There were also some cans of tuna, corn flakes, and jars of mayonnaise. This was most definitely the first store I’ve ever been to in Mexico where you couldn’t find a can of Coke. Coke is everywhere in Mexico. It’s like bottled water. None of that here either. We bought a few tomatoes and a can of mango juice, let Lowe crawl around on the floor in the shade, and then pressed on, headed back to the water.
On the boat last night Lowe took a digger off a window, slicing open a gash under his chin. It’s exactly the same spot Ouest now holds a scar, and also where Ali has a scar from a long ago bicycle crash. It runs in the family.
This morning Ouest was anxious to get back to the playground we’d seen yesterday. It had a swing and a teeter-totter planted smack dab in the middle of the desert. So we took off early before the heat had kicked in on high to “swing to the sky!” We also grabbed our old high chair and a few baby toys and brought them by the house with the babies. The women were all out already and the grandma took our gifts with a very carefully pronounced thank-you in English.
At the playground I was pushing Ouest on the swing when I turned around to find a police officer standing ten feet away in the shade of a small tree. He seemed to have appeared from thin air. We talked about the weather and then he wandered off to patrol the town I guess. Seems an unlikely place to need a full-time lawman around.
We didn’t do a whole lot today. Swam. Moved the boat a few hundred yards to a much prettier anchorage with less swell. Swam some more. Showered, and went to bed.
We are about out of water. Our big tank ran dry this morning so I opened up the valve to the smaller tank number two. We’ve been burning through the water at a pretty good clip with all this heat and all the swimming. Two rinses a day each has been the norm. Couple that with the piles of dishes that need doing every day since we are without restaurants, and well, it’s a recipe for water over consumption. We’d been able to avoid talking about watermakers for a while now, but it is once again on the table. Watching water usage is just not one of those things you can be too strict about when there are two kids onboard.
Tonight the family we dropped the baby stuff off with all came out together on a boat to give us a package of freshly made flour tortillas. “For baby,” they said. So good we all ate them plain the rest of the night.
