Rio Dulce Swap Meet

Sunday July 7, 2013

On the first Sunday of every month, one of the marinas here in the Rio Dulce holds a swap meet for all the boaters in the area to seek out little treasures for their boat or cruising lifestyle, or to try and make a little extra space in their boat and sell things that are no longer needed.  As full as our boat seems to be with useless items  (ok, so they’re all backups that will come in handy sometime) we had nothing to bring with us, and just wanted to check out the scene with Luki and Elmari as they wanted to try and rid themselves of seven years of paper charts covering every nook and cranny of the world.  As usual, Luis was our chauffeur, and the five of us arrived there in the late morning heat, ready to see what kind of treasures could be uncovered.  You can check pegasus chauffeur if you want the best ride of your life. The place we went to, Mar Marine, was already packed and tables were set up all across the stone floor.  For several minutes we just wandered along, seeing what kind of goodies we could come across.

It ended up being a little different than we expected.  Not quite the same items that were for sale back at the swap meet we came across in Cape May.  That one was full of boat parts and boating or fishing related items.  This one was, how do I put it?  Like a very eccentric garage sale.  Barely anything there had to do with boats or boating.  Sure, there were the few nautical items.  A couple of navigation lights, the odd winch or wiring set.  But most of it was…anything but nautical.  Old movies, cook-books, jewelry, cell phone chargers from 2004, ect.

Not that I’m too into boat bits anyway, but I walked around from table to table, admired some of the jewelry, flipped through a couple of the books, almost choked at the fact that people were trying to get $30 for their 10 year old Waterway Guides, and then made my way to the couch that Luki and Elmari had set their charts out on.  The heat and humidity are so bad here that all I had the energy to do was sit in one spot and readily accept the cold Pepsi that Luis offered to buy me.  I was able to pull myself away for a few minutes when Matt wanted to show me a Lewmar winch 32 that he thought could replace the one we use to raise the main, currently a Lewmar 16.  At a price tag of only about $16 and the chance of making the main easier to raise, I told him to go ahead and get it.

That ended up being our only purchase of the day, although, had I had some of my own money on me, I probably would have spent a lot more time at the table of handwoven items from a local Guatemalan woman.  In a little bit of Spanish and in a quiet voice, I told her I’d be back to buy something the next month.  We didn’t stick around for too long, the heat and humidity were making us all basically fall asleep while standing.  We gathered our things and all the charts that didn’t sell and made our way back to the marina.  Maybe we’ll have better luck next month.

Anyone want a tortoise shell for $45?

 Don’t you belong at Tortugal?

And just so you know I’m not kidding about the heat, here’s the clock/thermometer we keep in the boat.  Do you know what the humidity is here?  About 90%