Saturday, May 26. We awakened about 9:30 still feeling a bit sleep deprived. I made a nice breakfast / brunch of sausage (real American Johnsville Breakfast Sausage) and pancakes with VT Maple Syrup. After that we felt better (In the short run, food substitutes for sleep fairly well.) I hailed Mr. Bush on VHF and agreed to meet him in his office @ 2:00PM to clear in. Deb collected our laundry and I took it in to Miss Barbara who said we could get it back Monday evening. I stopped at Bamboo and used their computer stick to access internet and refresh my memory on how to recharge my Comcel stick. While I was there, I asked Orville about my outboard and, yes, he had a friend that he thought could fix it. Probably tomorrow. He works, so Sunday is good. He will let me know. From there I went in to town (Dink still works – spits out water – at high rpm. So as long as there is no STEAM, I don't think I am doing any harm to use it.) I went to the pharmacy and recharged my phone and then immediately entered the code to transfer the charge to internet. Since I also got “bonus” minutes, this leaves me with time on the phone to make local calls as well as internet. We had some Pesos left from before, but not enough to buy the amount of diesel we will need, so I hit the ATM next. I then met with Mr. Bush and presented him my papers. It cost $120US total(he much prefers US$.) for both in and out. Not bad. A very successful morning and back at the boat by a little after 2:00 (I had gone to Mr. Bush a little early.) Back on board, I first filled the tank from our 4 spare jerry jugs. Twenty gallons brought the tank up to 2/3. Another 20 will probably fill it, and then 20 more to refill the jugs. That means two trips in to town and taxi to filling station as the nearest dinghy dock to the filling station is a bit of a walk and would take two trips each time. Taxi is better. While I was filling the fuel tank, I turned on the watermaker to fill the water tanks. But it didn't work. I heard an all too familiar “chirping” sound coming from the watermaker while I was pouring diesel but trued to convince myself I was wrong. Sure enough, when I checked, there was no “Pure Water” being made and the gages showed no high pressure. Grrrr. After I finished with the diesel, I changed all the filters on the watermaker – the intake was pretty gross, but the others looked fine. Same results. There are two fairly easy repairs that I can do (tomorrow, I'm still too tired today), and they claim this usually solves the problem, but my faith is not high after all the problems we had with this last year. It is strange. I know watermakers like to be used rather than sit, so I had specifically run it for quite a while prior to leaving to make sure it was working well, and it was. We have used it a bit more than usual on this trip as we gave water to both Silver Sea (they do not have a watermaker) and Salida (their watermaker was on the fritz, making un-Pure Water), but that should have helped, not hurt. I don't know. I sent another email to Sea Recovery to see what they say, but I am discouraged. Maybe I should have bought a different brand. Lorenzo & Joyce on Eileen Farrell, an old converted shrimper, suggested we get together at Bamboo for dinner so we went in about 5:00. Real (her actual name is Oreal), the owner, was sitting at a table picking chicken for a special chicken salad she was making for a group of 20 this evening. We got a couple beers (Deb walked around to the inside of the bar and got them out of the cooler) and joined her at the table. We chatted as she worked. We told her that both Silver Sea and Salida made it safely to the Rio. She told us that her daughter's birthday is this week. She will be 12, she wants a laptop computer for her birthday, and wants to be a doctor when she grows up. She served us our second round of beer. Real is worried about how she will pay for college and medical school. She is also considering having another baby. Orville does not have any children of his own, though he is great with Real's two, so he wants her to have another with him. She wants to lose some weight first (“Only 40 kg. Maybe I'll go to Bogata and have that stomach balloon thing done.”) They are also considering moving to Canada. Their application for visas was just approved, so they must decide soon. Real has a relative living near Montreal and if they moved, they could make more money than they can here and the children would have a better chance at education. (Real herself went to college in Bogata.) Orville had to run in to town to get a few supplies (“I'll cook dinner for you as soon as I get back.” ) and Real had to go into the kitchen to finish preparing her salad, but Lorenzo & Joyce arrived about then so they joined us as Real left. What a great experience! Sitting in this cool restaurant (it has a poured cement floor but is totally open with a tin roof supported by bamboo framing. It is on the water with its own dinghy dock.), talking about life with the owner as she picks chicken. Lorenzo & Joyce turned out to be interesting people too. He is from “Manhattan and San Francisco by way of Jackman, Maine.” and worked as a contractor. The Jackman stint was as a “raging hippie.” They bought their boat in Louisiana. When the price of gas went up and the price of shrimp went down, the owner turned to gin and ended up losing the boat to the bank which happily gave it to Lorenzo. It was a disaster, but they have fixed it up and now live on it quite comfortably. They are headed for Bocas for hurricane season. We enjoyed swapping stories over an excellent dinner – they had calamari, Deb had curry shrimp, and I had garlic crab claws. Then it was home for an early bedtime. Tomorrow, hopefully Orville's friend can fix the outboard and I can fix the watermaker.