The Luck of the Irish, Baja Style

Jack and I went into the FerreMar store in Loreto and they had a decent assortment of small cables, too small for us. They told us to try another place down the dirt road, past the cow on the right, just before the river. So we did..

We followed the directions and found a semi-trailer with an old Mercury sign hanging on it, all locked up. I went around the back, through the goats, chickens and dogs and found a very nice lady doing her laundry. Have you ever noticed how some Mexicans don't speak English a lot worse than others? Sometimes they mean it, and sometimes they are just being modest. Well, we spent the next half hour convincing her to let us into the trailer. Finally in, it was very hot inside the trailer but Jack and I found piles of cables to dig through. All too small. After another half hour, I was ready to give up when a Mexican man came in and started talking to the lady as if we were not there. He started digging through the cables as well. It was all very strange. He finally looked at me, and in perfect English said, "How long is it?". I said 28 ft. He replied, "Oh, I have one of those."

He then marched past me, out the door. We followed him around back, past the goats and chickens and into a Mercury engine graveyard and then into a large shop with brand-new, shrink-wrapped Mercury 200 outboards lying on pallets and lots of other boat stuff. He reached up on the wall and took down one gray cable and handed it to me. Volvo Penta 28' was stamped on the side of it. Used, but for 200 pesos I couldn't pass it up!

Patrick