April 27, 2008 -- Layover at Evaristox

It's almost noon, and we're still sitting at anchor in Evaristo. This has been a morning for socializing. To start off, we spotted our new friends on the Moorings charter catamaran beginning their passage back towards La Paz. Not unexpectedly, they paused and we saw two people get into the dinghy. They'd obviously found the tequila and were coming over to return it. Sure enough, Dave and Ted motored over, holding up the bottle as they approached. We again told them how much we'd enjoyed our time together. Before they pulled away, Dave handed us a plastic bag which he explained contained some surplus provisions which they wouldn't have the opportunity to consume. We thanked them for their thoughtfulness, and bade final farewells. After they'd left, we examined the sack. It was as if they'd found a copy of our grocery list. The sack contained 2 six packs of beer, a loaf of bread, ketchup, peanut butter, juice, milk, mayonaise and several other goodies. They couldn't have selected more perfectly.

Our next visiors were a small pod of dolphins who cruised around in our little cove, numerous times. We got great looks from the bow of the boat in this crystal clear water. Then, while typing up these notes, the couple from Caberet came by in their dinghy to chat. We'd met them briefly at Isla San Francisco. We'll likely see them again, as we're on parallel course with them. Lastly, we noticed a sailboat motoring into Evaristo, and recognized it to be our friends Butch and Susan, on Rainier. I radioed them and welcomed them to Evaristo.

One of the main reasons we had come again to Evaristo was reprovisioning. We needed a few fresh things from the little tienda, but most critically, we needed to replenish our water supply. I figured we had perhaps only 12 or 13 gallons remaining, and I wanted to get 15 additional gallons. We remembered from our earlier visit that Evaristo has a water desalinization plant, which supplies the community with its drinking water needs.

We were just about ready to raise anchor and move the boat closer to the water plant when I heard a loud smack, out on the water. I thought it was one of the dolphins we'd seen earlier, doing a tail slap. A few minutes later I discovered the cause. A ray, about 2 feet from wingtip to wingtip, launched itself from the water, wings flapping desperately as it rose into the air. It reached a height of 5 or 6 feet above the water surface before falling back in with a resounding splash. Sandy came up on deck and we watched this ray, and several of his associates, make leap after leap. Finally, the rays settled down and we started out in the dinghy for shore. As we motored in we heard more splashing behind us. When we looked in that direction, we were astonished to see a dozen or more rays in the air at any given moment, over near the steep shoreline where we had previously been anchored. Rays were erupting from the water like popcorn bursting from an open skillet. Their apparent attempts at flight reminded me of old black and white film of early, unsuccessful attempts to build the first heavier than air flying machine.

We hated to leave the action, but were already committed to our provisioning chores, so continued on and anchored out in front of the water plant. Since today is Sunday, we weren't sure how hard it would be to find someone who could sell us some water. We first checked the tienda, which we'd found open on the Sunday afternoon of our previous stop here. The door was locked, and noone seemed to be around. We scanned the nearby houses for signs of activity, and saw some people in the yard of a small house a few hundred yards beyond the tienda. We walked over, and spoke to the man of the house. He quickly interpreted our need and pointed over to a palapa down by the beach. Someone there could get us our water. We walked down there and found a woman sitting in the shade of a veranda, working with some yarn. A few young men were clustered around the stern of a panga, working on its outboard engine. We approached the woman and asked about getting water. She put her yarn down, went inside, and came out with a key. We introduced ourselves, and she said her name was Anna. We walked together down the beach to the water plant, where she unlocked the gate and let us in. She opened the door to the main building, and inside was the immaculate machinery of a reverse osmosis water desalinization system. She showed us the valve, and helped me as I filled my collapsible 5 gallon water container. I told her I would need to take it back to the boat, pour it into my tank, return again for a refill, and then repeat the whole process a third time, this being because I only had one water container on board. She indicated this would be fine with her. Back at the boat, I grabbed some colored felt tip markers and ball point pens, which we gave to her for her kids' use. She appreciated the gesture. When it came time to pay, the 4 five gallon containers I'd obtained (I also filled our solar shower) cost a total of 40 pesos (approximately $4 US). This is the same price one would pay in La Paz, and a great bargain, considering the remoteness of this arid place.

As I was hauling my drinking water, 5 gallons at a time, out to the boat in the dinghy, I couldn't help reflect on some of the water customers in Leavenworth, back during my city administrator days there. Before the City installed water meters, some residential customers routinely used as much as 240,000 gallons of treated potable water per month in the summer. That amount of water down here would be worth over $200,000. I recall one customer who, after meters were installed, was incensed over having to pay for his excess water use, above and beyond the minumum monthly amount which was covered by the base billing. The amount we were charging then was $.49 for every thousand gallons of excess water. The feeling in town then seemed to be that water should be regarded as a free gift of nature, like the air, instead of a precious, limited resource which cost a great deal of money to produce and deliver with consistent reliability and purity.

I've begun to appreciate the approach to water here in Baja, where piped water is universally recognized, by visitors and local residents alike, to be clean but not appropriate for drinking. Everyone down here drinks purified bottled water. Water for bathing, washing, and irrigating is treated to a lower standard than drinking water, and presumable at much lower cost. Only water to be consumed is treated to the high standards appropriate for drinking water. Such a system would never be accepted back home, but it seems to work quite well down here, and everyone has a much higher level of appreciation for their drinking water.

Well, off my soapbox and back to the rays, which were still tearing up the water as Sandy and I made our final dinghy run back toward the boat. We decided to ride on out, toward the action with the camera. Rays were still leaping into the air in big numbers. We got fairly close, and she shot some promising video, before the rays stopped their performance. We were about to turn back when a few jumped close to shore. We moved over to investigate as a snorkeler from a nearby boat swam toward them as well. He lifted his mask from the water and exclaimed that there were thousands of them down there. We gazed into the clear water and could see a large, dark mass, perhaps 30 or 40 feet in diameter and length, moving quickly beneath the water. Occasionally we could see flashes of white, which were the undersides of ray wings as they flapped their way through the water. How I wished I'd had my face mask and snorkel with me. I'd have been out of that dinghy in a heartbeat, but it was not to be. Later in the afternoon, the rays paid us another visit, and I tried to get into my snorkel gear in time to swim with them. However, they were moving too quickly, and they passed beyond my range before I could get into the water. Maybe I'll have another chance in the coming days.

We had intended on moving north today, but unanticipated events kept popping up, and we wouldn't have been able to start until after 2 pm. By then an afternoon wind was blowing out of the northwest, so we decided to just hang here for the night, and get an early start in the morning.