By late morning of the third day the pump faucet refused to fetch up another drop from the tank. Brian broke out a bottle of mixed vegetable juice and we toasted our ordeal to the refreshing zest of lukewarm celery, carrot and onion flavored tomato juice. Temperatures soared into the afternoon � the man on the tiller subjected to the brunt of the scorching sun, the man on watch laying on deck like roasting road kill, the man below melting in a sweaty, swealtering half-sleep. We had all donned white or light colored clothing and covered our heads with wet (saltwater wet) bandanas to mitigate the worst effects. When time came round for cups of agua dulche water had rarely tasted sweeter.
An additional boon came when I opened the water tank on the off chance that some dregs were left that the tank's suction line couldn't reach...and was rewarded with a half gallon of pure, clear liquid. I uncoiled a length of hose and siphoned it full; there was just enough to do it three times. Each of the crew got a good, long drink.
Late afternoon heralded its arrival with a visitor. A small yellow jet came in low from the west. It banked, making a long arc that put Faith at its nexus and allowed the occupants of the plane to have a look down at us. Completing the half circle it resumed its course to the east. We waved and smiled and called out "Water! Drop us WATER!" But to no avail.....
Meanwhile, on the jet: A magnificently rich couple sits in the cabin sipping champagne on ice. Their ever present Perrier water bottles sweat glistening dew droplets on the table. "Dear?" say the wife, "Isn't that a little sailboat down there?" The husband cranes his neck to glance down at the sea, blinking out bright spots partly due to the angle of the sun, partly the champagne. "Oh, quite right," he intones sagaciously, "it's so small I almost missed it! Good show, Love. Pilot? Do be a sport and take us around their stern." The pilot's expression never appears to alter behind his heavy opaque sunglasses but he is quick to comply, reducing throttle and dipping the starboard wing. "Ah, of course! Gringos!" the husband nods as if this fact is in accord with some deep, unshakable truism. "They'll sail anything," he confirms. His wife, still vigilant, suddenly perks up: "Look at that, Dear, they're mouthing something....wah � wade � waiter? � oh, water! They must want some water! Oh, can't we toss them just a little something?" "Now, Love," replies the husband conciliatorily, "let them be. We don't want to encourage them to take packages dropped from just any plane that passes." He raises a judicious finger, "We must allow them the freedom to follow the Natural course of their habits. Pilot? That's quite enough I think...."
It was in the early evening that an event occurred to take our minds away from glaciers, thawing snow, desert oases, merging mountain streams and airlift water-drops: Eric caught a fish! For the previous nine days he'd been trolling a line behind the boat with an assortment of lures attached � an assortment because sharks apparently kept biting through the steel leaders. The contraption he'd rigged was a set of three bungee cords attached to some hundred pound test line. It's only problem seemed to be that a fish could get on the line undetected and the sharks would snap them up before we got around to checking the lure. (There are plenty of sharks in the waters we've passed through, and plenty more where we're going. You rarely see a fin or any other sign but they're about the only thing that will bite clean through a commercial steel leader with no more effort than a thin strand of cotton thread might require.) This time Eric was lucky enough to give his trolling line a tug just after a fish had gotten on. He triumphantly hauled in a Leaping Bonita � a shiny silver tuna relative weighing about five or six pounds. I got the privilege of cleaning the finny prey (and of washing most of the blood off the deck afterward) and Eric, our second mate and ship's cook, prepared a succulent fish stew with rice. He used the liquid we'd saved from our experiment the night before; double filtered and well boiled. We washed the meal down with a cup of water, then had fruit cocktail for desert. Mostly for the juice.
No rain fell that night. But now we didn't mind: the lights of Acapulco lit the sky ahead. We made the entrance to the great dish of a harbor early in the morning of the 13th. Brian called Doni for directions to her hotel as we passed the outer lights of the harbor mouth. The city lights sprawled in the hills around the basin like spectators in a gargantuan amphitheater. We felt rooted for.
Dodging the usual fleet of pangas going out to the early catch we marked the Acapulco Yacht Club, then found La Marina (the reputedly less expensive and extravagant one) just across the small bay. We came to dock just before the sun splashed the sky with the orange, red, blue and purple pastels of our first day on the Mexican Riviera. Buenas Dias!