Ali’s dad and I went out to the boat today and took it in to fill up the diesel. It’s only a couple hundred yards but I took it extremely slowly because of the shallow bars scattered throughout the lagoon completely unmarked. There was one yellow buoy about fifty yards out from the dock and I went ahead and assumed that it meant for us to stay outside of it and then swing straight in from there to the dock. I mean, a straight line into the dock seems logical enough right? Wrong.
A water taxi driver started waving at us and I knew immediately what he was telling me. We were going super slow already so I just slipped us into neutral and watched as the depth finder jumped from fifteen feet to five. We slid to a stop in the mud, put her in reverse and backed out to the deeper water again.
Since straight in wouldn’t work I figured there must be deep water between the nearby marina entrance and the dock so I started to head that way, but despite trying to retrace the route we took coming into the lagoon two weeks ago I ran us aground again. It’s a soft muddy bottom lagoon, so as long as we were moving slowly we could always just back right out again, but still, this was getting a little ridiculous. This time I waited until a local boat came by and waved to them. The driver knew without a word what I was trying to do and motioned for me to follow him. I was going so slow that it took a good five minutes of his time to lead me to the dock. I had a handful of pesos ready to thank him with but he simply waved and sped off.
Normally I wouldn’t talk about a trip to the gas dock, but this one was unique. Unique to me in that they charged a thirteen percent docking fee. Thirteen percent of your fuel bill! Insane. Another six percent if you planned on charging that fuel. The girl working the dock explained this to me but all I caught was the six percent fee. The thirteen percent I didn’t catch on to until afterwards when she tacked on close to five hundred pesos to my bill. Obviously this is not the place to get fuel if it can be avoided.
Anyway, we filled up, reanchored, and that was the end of Al’s big sailing adventure. He’s the only person in either of our families even remotely interested in going sailing, so I promised him we’d hire him on the next time we have a passage of a few hundred miles. He can’t cook and he knows not a thing about sailing other than what he’s picked up from reading this site. So, still nothing. But he’d be worth having along just so I could continue beating the hell out of him at cribbage.
There are these little rides in town that have become a part of our nightly ritual. At this point there is no getting around it. Ouest won’t even leave the house without two pesos in her hand. She clenches that fist shut for the twenty minute walk and even a bomb going off wouldn’t loosen that grip. As we walk along I ask her what she has in her hand and she triumphantly raises that fist and announces, “Money!” She’s so serious about having those two pesos that tonight when we were getting ready to leave and nobody had two pesos I had to rustle up two five peso coins instead. But it’s not all about her either. She insists that Lolo sit next to her for the ride as well. Such a good sister.
