Patillas kept us interested for far longer than we expected, with green jagged hills and thin beaches, plenty of birds and a little bit of water wildlife. We were into letting the propulsion battery charge and not rushing out to the next port, but mostly? We liked it there.
We were a couple-few days in when we realized we were running out of some basics. The town beach was about a half mile east-southeast, but the only convenience store was much closer to the north. It would save us both rowing and walking if we could just…
James spied something that looked a lot like a concrete staircase up the hill on the north side and, sure enough, we were able to beach the boat and get up to the two-lane highway that serves the area. Yeah, this is fucking awesome.
The walk was not long but it was nerve-wracking as highways without edges tend to be. We picked up some groceries and I (Dena) tried to charm the guy running the place with my Spanish. The shopping was more successful than the charming.
A tree ripening a thousand mangoes had let some go in the wind and we picked the least damaged up to bring back to the boat with us.
Unfortunately, the convenience store was a real one-stop-shop and had more space dedicated to plumbing parts than pills and James can’t do without his old-man-prazole. We dedicated ourselves a few days later to stretching our legs again, this time heading into Patillas proper for some drug store and supermarket action.
It was three and a half miles into the green hills TOTALLY AWESOME SHOPPING COMPLEX and I am so glad that we remembered to bring water. Once we got past the winding coast road to the straightaway that led away from the water, we had a large grassy area for our walking. Easy on the feet and safer by far.
Then it was shopping in the ice-cold drug store where we actually sought out the pharmacy waiting area just to get our wits about us. It’s tough going from so-hot to so-cold! Out of there, snack, out of there, supermarket. And that’s where we fucked up.
We shopped like people who were going to get a taxi back. Heavy sodas, rum, canned goods, along with the light bread and such, all paid for and loaded into our backpacks before I asked the cashier how I could get a cab back. Her eyes went wide and she looked at a coworker, which I assumed was about my spanglish but was actually about the fact that it was…Sunday! No taxis on Sunday, dude!
I (James) cannot stress how insane this island is on Sunday! All of the classic gas guzzl’n perfectly painted, cleaned, and dressed nightmares-on-wheels driven by the knuckle dragging third, fourth, fifth generation owners come-a-drooling out for their weekly reconnoiter and petroleum suck-fest. The 4, 6, and 8 wheeled monster-fucks are closely followed in line by the strangely respectful queue of early-model grey white dudes, and their wives or “special friends” or VayKay pick-ups or what-not on their sexy rented late model (good ‘ol fashioned ‘Merican Made) Indian cruising motorbikes. For our entire hike to the downtown shopping complex, it was non-stop traffic and a carbon monoxide ventilator just for the two of us.
We got some good vittles, a bunch of provisions, and libations…sunrise, sails up, peace out!
We silently sailed off the hook (one of my, James’, favorite things to say) under mainsail alone and that’s how Cetacea took us to Salinas. We had scrubbed and scraped the hull in Patillas and I guess we did a pretty good job because Cetacea leapt to the challenge. Once we entered the Mar Caribe, we were once again at home, downwinding in our one big ocean.
