While we were at Bluff House Marina on Green Turtle, Peter and I had occasion to wish we had followed through on our plan to learn some Spanish. Tied up at the end of the dock near us were two 25-foot cuddy cabin fishing boats with two Hispanic men aboard each. A third boat belonging to a couple more Spanish speakers was also tied up at the Marina. They were obviously having problems with one of the twin engines on one of the two boats. It was the source of much heated conversation and gesturing, none of which was understood by us.
Suddenly one of the guys came up to our boat and started to converse with us in some sort of Spanglish we could barely make out. It seemed he wanted some kind of spray for the engine. We asked him if he wanted to dry it out or maybe try some WD-40, but he couldn't understand us and he walked off to get another person to translate. Another of the guys walked up to our boat who looked like he might know English, but when he started to speak we could understand even less that he said. Finally, the two decided after conferring that they'd try our WD 40 and we lent it to them.
For some time, they continued to work on the engine and then took off for a test run. Oh, Oh, we thought, what about our WD-40? Maybe we'll never see them again. We looked at each other realizing how little Spanish we knew, the colors, the numbers, cerveza, si, no, etc. Finally I came up with something like Donde Este mi WD-40, but wasn't sure that would really fit the bill.
Some time later, the guys came back, but no one brought back our spray. They all left the dock. "Watch this," Peter said. He walked over to the boat and casually spotted the WD 40 on the crippled vessel. the motor had seemed to be running a little better and it appeared that the guys were through with it, so he snagged it back. The next day all the guys came back out on the dock for more conversing and gesturing. Finally, one came over to us and told us, that guy your spray half hour... Oh, we already have it, said Peter with alacrity. That's Ok. The guy looked a little puzzled and walked away.
Because of the weather, it appeared that these six guys were stranded at Green Turtle. They hung out throughout the weekend, occasionally leaving for a short while on the ferry or in the boat that was working and then reappearing. They sometimes dangled a fishing rod over the dock, but never caught anything. By the time they left, today, Valentine's Day, everyone on the docks was familiar with them. We thought maybe they had come over to do some fishing, but the consensus on the dock seems to be that they were most likely engaged in a bit of smuggling.
Once the weather cleared up, we decided to head back up to Manjack for a day or so, to do some more exploring. The next cold front won't get here until Sunday.
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