Being away from towns typically means being away from stores. The fishermen (and so far, they’ve all been men) and their families don’t have an easy way to find all the things they need.
So when two fishermen on a panga stopped by our boat to say hello and ask if we had any extra batteries for their navigation lights, we were happy to share. We asked them how many they needed, and that turned out to be four AA and four AAA batteries. No problem, we looted our spare parts stores and had plenty to share. The fishermen said thank you, and they told us they’d come back the next day with lobster for us.
As soon as the wind started to come up in the early afternoon the next day, we spied the fishermen coming back into the bay. They sped up to our boat and passed us 4 lobsters.
Four lobsters for eight batteries. Back in civilization, the value of a lobster would be a lot higher than the value of a pair of batteries. But here in Baja, value is measured differently.
