After motor sailing 360 miles we arrived at Turtle Bay on Thursday morning at 5am in the dark. We were all so tired it felt wonderful getting more than 2-3 hours of sleep like we’ve been getting the past 3 days.
We didn’t know what to expect to see when the sun came up. This is the entrance to the town from the bay. We took our dinghy to shore and were greeted by several men and children wading out into the water to help us get the dinghy onto shore. One little boy took my back pack and another took my hand. They were such polite people. Once the dinghy was on the beach the men and all the children got in line to collect American dollars from us. It was expensive valet parking for our dinghy.
We wandered up a path to find the baseball game and along the way met a woman named Maria who said she would make us margaritas and another little hut had fish tacos. Needless to say, we were there for awhile and then walked to the baseball game where the kids were excited to get all the gear when the game was over.
We realized it would be helpful to learn some Spanish. It was difficult ordering something as simple as tacos. We had no idea what we were going to get. But our fish tacos were very good and so were the margaritas. The people in the village have been looking forward to our arrival. Maria told its more exciting than Christmas! The money they get from us is the majority of their income for the year. They sold us margaritas for $3 and tacos for $2 and made us welcome signs.
There is only one paved road in town and the neighborhoods are all dirt roads. The houses are passed down to the next generation without doing much improvements. They are very happy and friendly people despite not having much. We look forward to spending the day on the beach tomorrow meeting more locals.
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