We are still on our way to Mag Bay. It is 2300 hours on Sat. night and we are whipping along at 4.5 knots under a furled genoa. We don't want to go any faster or we will get into the next anchorage in the dark. Mungo is about 2 or 3 miles ahead of us and I am following their stern light.
I wanted to tell you about the last town couple of towns we were in. The village in Turtle Bay was very interesting. None of the roads went in a straight line, they met at odd angles and you never knew if you were on a street or alley, everything was all mishmashed together. The streets were all dirt, and dry dirt so all the houses and the plants were covered in a fine dust. There was a great variety of housing from the basic hovel to a big 2 story store that was bright yellow (we bought groceries there). It was very different shopping in a language you don't understand. Most of the stuff you could figure out from the picture on the cans, but there were all sorts of stuff in bags without labels like beans and spices and dried stuff that I wasn't sure what it was.
The next town we went to Ascunsion was quite different. Apparently it was company town, there was a large building that we think was a cannery. The town was all laid out on a grid, streets at right angles to each other and there were fancy sidewalks down the main street, that had wheelchair accessible entries. There was also a boulevard down the main drag that had flowers and palm trees planted, the dust was under control, there was more room between houses and they much better looked after than village in Turtle Bay. We did more shopping here wandering in almost every shop we saw, in the clothing store about 50% of the clothes were in plastic bags. We had a conversation of sorts with a few men that were sitting on their porch. They had sea weed drying on the ground, we found it was "sargazo" and the fellow indicated it was for the roof, when we inquired "Donde es la tiendra" (Where is the store) we got a torrent of Spanish followed by hand signals indicating 2 blocks this way and 3 blocks that way. There was a great deal of laughter after we had gone about 100 yards so we probably made each other's day.
I am planning on putting another position report in once Barry comes on shift so you should be able to figure out how far we have sailed in 24 hours. Hope all is well with everyone, someone e-mail me and let me know who was in the Grey Cup and who won!!!!