Saturday

Each Saturday there is a public market on the pier. Other cruisers had joked that it's a "bring your flashlight" kind of market, and that it's all over by 6am... I wasn't sure how serious they were, thinking maybe it's a running joke played on newcomers. Anyway, I wasn't about to miss it because we're all out of fresh fruits and veggies, so I dinghied ashore in the dark at 5:30am this morning. Things were bustling and going fast! There were several tables with eclairs and home-baked goods, two trucks selling stalks of bananas, and 2 fruit and veggie tables. One of them was selling produce that had come in off the supply ship the day before yesterday. They also set up in front of the local grocery store each morning. They had carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, kale and cabbages. A small cabbage is $4-5 usd! The other vendor had a table about the size of a card table with home grown fruits. I got 2 pamplemousse (sp?), which are VERY large grapefruit, and 5 mangos for about $3.50usd - a good buy. I also got a stalk of bananas. You don't see stalks of bananas for sale back home. Picture a bunch of bananas. Now picture a 2" diameter branch with those bunches arranged all the way around it in a near solid ring. Repeat that every 10" along the branch and you're getting the picture. For $5usd I got a stalk with 3 rings of bunches, I figure it's about 15lbs of bananas... and it was by far the smallest stalk he had! Good thing we like bananas, as they'll probably all ripen at the same time!

Yesterday was laundry day. There's water hoses available on shore for the fishermen to wash with while they clean their catch each morning (it's not safe for drinking, and rather brown but fine for washing and showers). Each time we went to shore we'd bring our (4) 4 gallon buckets and haul them back to the boat full of water. We've got a big rubbermaid bin that we soaked a "load" of clothes in soapy water overnight and agitated by hand occasionally, then rung it out and packed it in the bin to take ashore to rinse. The rinsing is accomplished by lining up 3 buckets full of water. A handful goes in the first bucket, gets sloshed around, then rung gently and put in the second bucket, repeat for the third, then rung as well as possible and stacked in a bin. When the first bucket of water gets pretty scummy, it's dumped out and filled with clean water and becomes the third stage. The second becomes the first and the old third becomes the second... (We're really going to appreciate having a washing machine when we get home!) The clothes have to be packed in a bin with a lid because it'd sure be a shame to get a saltwater slop in the dinghy and have to start all over again with the rinsing. Back on the boat, all the clothes are hung on the lifelines, rigging and temporary clotheslines. We look rather festive with all the colored "flags" hanging! We should have brought more clothespins, tho! It's SOOO much easier when there's lots of water available than when we're using our precious freshwater supply from our tanks. From now on we'll have to jug all our water out in the dinghy to fill our tanks when good water is available... it doesn't take long to learn to conserve when you have to carry every gallon. -Pete