16 January 2022 - Bahia Tortugas is the first relatively populous place we have come to since we left Ensenada. In the guides it promised all the amenities of civilization: grocery stores, water, fuel, internet access, and we craved them all.

On the first day, as we were still setting the anchor, Geronimo came out and pulled alongside in a panga (a small open motorboat) to ask if we wanted a ride into the town. We asked him to come back for us the following day, which he did.

Geronimo guided us around the town, to the house of a family to use the internet (which was through their cell phone and painfully slow); to a couple of grocery stores, and carried the case of beer for us; and then he took us back out to our boat in his panga. He charged us 600 pesos or about $32, which was pretty high. But I had no issue with the cost, this is one of the few ways people way out here have of making money so if visiting boats leave a bit, that is a good thing in my book and I will not haggle.

We tried looking up one of the folks who is listed in the guidebooks we used. When we called Isabel she was in San Diego and said she and her husband had closed down their tackle shop years ago. She did, however, arrange for us to meet her nephew Arturo to use a faster internet connection. It turned out that Arturo was part of the family that runs a restaurant featured in the guidebook by Heather and Shawn. Isabel and Arturo and his family were all extremely gracious and helpful. Near the end of our stay, when we ran into Arturo in the grocery store, he volunteered to drive us to the hardware store to get a part we were looking for. Geronimo hauled our 60 gallons of drinking water out to our boat and then stood by while we poured the many plastic containers into our tank, then he took the empty plastic bottles to dispose of for us.