Monday, May 28. It rained and blew (mostly blew) for most of the night. By morning it had stopped. Our water tanks barely registered the added rain. I called Aurelio and agreed to meet him at 10:00 although it looked like it might rain again. It didn't and he did, so we took the dink to the sand beach next to the commercial dock and pulled it up backwards so he could work on the motor. He dropped the lower unit and extracted the impeller. For those of you that don't know, an impeller is a paddle wheel that has 6 rubber blades that move the water. This had one blade and it looked about ready to die! Problem found. Now can we get an impeller? The Yamaha 15hp two-stroke is the work horse of all of Central America so surely someone on this island has a spare impeller. But who? Where? And how do we find him? Aurelio jumped on his scooter and went off in search. I stayed on the beach (like I had an option?) and waited. I talked with a local fisherman who had decided it was too rough to go outside the reef today to spear fish. He showed me his arm and told me the story of how a shark wanted his fish and got his arm instead. He had to beat it on the head with the butt of the gun to get it to let go of his arm. Then his friend hauled him into their boat (just a 24' panga). He saw the spear gun resting on the bottom. The shark was no where to be found so he jumped back in and retrieved the gun. Then he had a four hour ride in the boat through open ocean to get to San Andres to get his arm fixed, bleeding all the way with a tourniquet bound around his upper arm. Amazingly, they managed to salvage everything and his hand still works normally despite a bite that must have severed most of his tendons. We then talked about our families, the weather, diving and spear fishing, etc. In about an hour and a half Aurelio returned with the impeller. In five minutes it was back together and good as new. While he was working, I asked him about the possibility of getting water. “Oh, I can help you with that. I fill up some barrels and bring it down to the dock in my pickup. You tie up to the dock and we fill you up.” “How much would you charge per gallon?” “Oh, I don't charge you for the water. The Lord, He give it to me so I give it to you. You just give me a little something for gas for my truck.” Deal. Then he asked what brand my watermaker was. I told him Sea Recovery. “Oh, I am the local agent for Sea Recovery. I just installed a big one in a local hotel. Maybe I can help you.” At 5:00 PM we weighed anchor and motored in to the dock. The end of the dock is a huge concrete affair, not very inviting. It was still blowing 17+ kts but at least it would be blowing us off the dock, if only I can get to it without ramming it. I swung out and approached with my starboard bow. If we can get a line on, I can power back to secure the stern. There are always guys hanging out n any commercial dock and this one was no different. Several cam out to help. I approached faster than I wanted, but necessary to avoid being blown off. When we were way too close for comfort (but not close enough as it turned out), Deb threw the line and missed. I immediately let us be blown off and came around again. This time Deb's throw was better and the guy caught it and secured us to a bollard that would have held the Queen Mary. He left enough slack so that I could back around without hitting the concrete. It took all the port engine had, but slowly we came around and started pulling in to the dock by the stern. Deb threw another guy a midship line and he secured it to an equally large bollard on that side of the dock. We adjusted the lines so our bow was almost, but not quite touching - with Big Bertha (our giant fender) there just in case - and the stern was 5-10' off the dock. When Aurelio arrived, he had two 50 gallon drums and several smaller ones. Using a 1” ID hose that he brought, we filled the tanks. It took just over 100 gallons. While it was filling, Aurelio came to look at the watermaker. Now Aurelio is a large person and the watermaker is tucked into the lazaret by the port engine bay and he could barely squeeze in to look. I told him that if he thought he could fix it, I would remove it and bring the ETD in to him as he clearly was not going to accomplish anything in that space. He took down all the numbers and said he would call the mainland tomorrow to see if they had the parts and let me know. He asked how long we were planning on staying. I said originally, about a week; but without the watermaker we would need to leave earlier. “Oh, don't you worry about water. You have my phone number. Anytime you need water, you just give me a call. I'll check on the parts and call you tomorrow.” They cast us off, bow first then spring. We drifted away from the concrete, motored over to the anchorage, and re-anchored. Now we have a fully functional dinghy and outboard, a fully functional hookah, and enough water to stay and enjoy some diving. If the wind will only calm down a bit, we'll be all set. Things look a lot better today than yesterday. And possibly Aurelio can fix our watermaker. Life's good.