Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Despite the fact that water completely surrounds Vieques, it's still plagued by water short-
ages.
Okay, maybe not plagued, but you get my point.
The island's drinking water is supplied by a large pipeline from the big island eight miles
away. Water for other purposes, including sewage, comes from reservoirs that catch and
store the island's plentiful though sporadic rainfall.
All well and good. But unfortunately without the slightest warning, both sources regu-
larly go on the blink.
Once, when I was washing my hair, the showerhead hiccupped and belched and then
petered to a weak dribble before stopping completely. I toweled myself off, threw on shorts
and a T-shirt and ran around the house desperately trying to eke out a cup or two of water
from another source—any source (bathroom sink, kitchen sink, balcony hose)—to rinse out
the shampoo. But everything was bone dry. Within minutes my hair was stiff and gray. I
stomped into the bathroom every so often to see if the water had come on again.
It hadn't.
Such times make you appreciate the elegant simplicity of a baseball cap. Luckily I'd
brought one with me and was able to wrangle it onto my brittle crown of hair. There it stayed
until the water returned with an urgent whoosh, four hours later. I mentioned this little epis-
ode to Jane the next time we spoke.
“It happens all the time,” she said nonchalantly. “The water supply is notoriously un-
dependable here. Sometimes it goes off for days.”
“Not really,” I said. “Days?”
I couldn't imagine.
“Yep, this is the Wild West.”
I was quickly learning that this was one of her favorite characterizations of Vieques,
one that, in the present context, conjured up sexy images of unwashed cowboys. The reality,
of course, was considerably less titillating (think high Body Mass Index, greasy hair, and
sweaty pits).
“Is there anything we can do about it?”
“Sure, you can get a cistern.”
I'd heard of them but wasn't quite sure how they worked. “Which involves…”
“Buying a huge plastic vat and having it installed on your roof.”
“The roof! Why the roof?”
“It's called gravity, sweetheart. You want the water to be higher than you are.”
“But what about those concrete pylons in the sideyard when we bought the house?
Didn't somebody say they'd been built to support a cistern?”
“They may have been, but it wouldn't have worked. And anyway you had them re-
moved.”
She had me there.
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