02/12/12 - 2/18/12

2/12/12 Santiago: Lazed around in the morning. At 11 we dinghied in to Playa Boquita and took a cab to the church in Santiago. It’s a very nice church, all open air, which does allow for little surprises like birds and dogs. The mass was one of the best I had been to, good music, it was just nice.

The Terry and I walked for awhile in Santiago, near the church. The streets were crammed with shops and with people. You could find almost anything you would need: street food hot off the griddle, little sidewalk stands laden with fruits, veggies, fish, meat, shoes, clothes, music drifting over the whole scene. It was really fun to walk around. This area of Santiago is off the beaten path, so no gringos. It was festive, full of families and we really enjoyed it. After the taxi back we spent the rest of the day reading. I’m in the middle of “Guernica: A Novel”. Tomorrow we’ll probably head back to Carrizal.

 

2/13/12 Santiago to Carrizal: Left Santiago (Playa Boquita) in the morning, went to Carrizal. Counting us and Endeavor, there are only 5 boats here. We set a stern anchor for the first time, because of the swell coming into the anchorage making it very rolly. We have an anchor off the bow as usual, and one off the stern which allows us to point into the swell, reducing the roll. Makes for better sleep at night. I finished reading the book Kathy gave me – Guernica. I really enjoyed it and it makes me want to know a lot more about the Spanish Civil War. I’m now reading Harts At Sea, Sailing To Windward. It’s just been published, I got it free from Amazon. It’s written by a first-season cruiser wife, giving her perspective cruising the Caribbean. It’s fairly good. Watched On Golden Pond. I meant to watch Sometimes A Great Notion, but got my movies mixed up.

 

2/14/12 Carrizal: Happy Valentines Day. I did a lot of laundry today because I got a bit behind with all the rainy weather. Now, counting us and Endeavor, there are only three boats here. It’s been too overcast to snorkel, so reading and laundry were the order for today.

Brian Wade’s dad Richard has been taking care of Brian’s boat, s/v Wades Aweigh. Brian, better known as Lawnboy, was down here all of January, but has decided to ship his boat back to Everett, but because of work, he has his dad onboard to see that the boat gets shipped on the barge to the states, and Lawnboy is back home working. Today, Richard headed over to Manzanillo from here in Carrizal to meet the barge. He was gone about an hour and we hear a Mayday over the VHF.His engine had quit, he couldn’t get it started, and was a bit near some rocks. So Rick and Terry jumped in Rick’s dinghy and went over to help him. It turns out his impeller failed, the engine overheated and quit. An easy fix, but a scary situation for a 70+ man alone on the boat.

 

2/15/12 Carrizal: It’s been cloudy and cool here for the last 5 or 6 six days. We are ready for some sun and snorkeling, but it’s not going to happen today. A 32’ boat, s/v Patience, came in and anchored today. We spoke with them, Dave and Susan. They have circumnavigated, are from Norfolk, VA (she’s from Australia). Nice couple.

It gets boring to write, (and doubly boring to read) a log like this that only reports what our daily activities are. I have always meant this as a place to put on paper my thoughts and feelings in additions to a journal of our days. Somehow, with my weak skills I hope to honestly capture, for myself mostly, what cruising means to me, the good and bad, the boring and magical. I want it all here.

Every day I give thanks that we are here doing this. But what precisely makes it such a blessing? It’s not a luxurious and carefree lifestyle, that’s for sure. It’s often hard work, inconvenient, frustrating, somewhat dangerous, and strange to be living in a foreign county, away from family and friends.

I remember as a child, before we had TV, before phones, growing up on the ranch, being constantly outside. Never ever bored. Will I be able to please my parents, will I get in trouble for something? Will they fight or get along today? Then I would be distracted by the smell of newly mown hay, or leeches in the ditch we waded in, or throwing feed pellets (cotton cake??) at swallows nests in the barn. Life had fears and delights, but was very very simple. I feel like that child again, never fully in charge, blown by whims and powers beyond my ken. Trust or be terrified. Which will it be?

* * * * * *

I’ve come up with a little reading list for Lent: Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, Transformation In Christ by Dietrich von Hildebrand and A Cry of Stone by Michael O’Brien. I might add to the list later. I’ve already started Orthodoxy. Here’s an excerpt:

I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas.

…But if you imagine that he felt a fool, or at any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant emotion, then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the rich romantic nature of the hero of this tale, His mistake was really a most enviable mistake; and he knew it, if he was the man I take him for. What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again? What could be better than to have all the fun of discovering South Africa without the disgusting necessity of landing there? What could be more glorious than to brace one’s self up to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, that it was really old South Wales.`

…it is necessary to follow one path of argument: and this is the path that I here propose to follow.I wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering the double spiritual need, the need for that mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom has rightly named romance.

…nearly all people I have ever met in this western society in which I live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.

And some more:

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic.

He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency.

If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them.

His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.

Mostly that’s where I find myself—in twilight, one foot on the earth and the other in fairyland; in a mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the mystical and the mundane. The difference I guess, is that I now have much more time; time to observe the twilight, to mark it, to turn it round and ponder all the angles and shadows. I feel like I’m having a second childhood. And therein you see, is the blessing.

 

2/16/12 Carrizal: Had Sydney over and we made chocolate chip cookies today. She loves it that I make ‘huge’ cookies.

I was thinking today that I have no idea what my siblings are up to these days. Sometimes it feels so indulgent to blather on and on about my little life in this blog, as though I inhabit the center of the universe. I miss all my sisters and brother and wonder all the time what’s going on in their lives. Maybe they can each start blogs like this and we can all keep up with each other in our little secret world. Or maybe they will send me some emails . I would love that.

2/17/12 Carrizal to the lagoon in Barra de Navidad: Complacency on a sailboat is not a good thing.  We left Carrizal this morning after no preparation at all. As a result, we got out of the calm little bay and were surprised to find extremely lumpy seas and winds (on the nose) 20-25 knots. We spent the whole day beating in these waves and winds, which of itself is not a bad thing, the boat handles it with no problem. But we had kosher salt dumped all over the floor below decks, also used coffee grounds spilled everywhere, a wave dumped water down a partially open hatch, small appliances and junk was flying down below, and we forgot to bring our boom in, so we also looked really ridiculous going along. What normally would have been 4 hours took 6 hours. We have learned our lesson. Sometimes we embarrass ourselves.

 

2/18/12 Barra (sunny and smog free!): Ting ting, ting ting. Every morning in Barra Navidad, the cheerful little bell announces the presence of El Horna Frances (The French Baker) right outside. He delivers fresh baguettes, croissants, little tarts, quiches and Danish right to your boat. About 8:30 he announces to the fleet his arrival in the lagoon over his VHF radio. He delivers orders he received from the previous day, and then offers the extra goodies he’s made to whoever pipes up first on the radio in response to his arrival. He cultivates his thick French accent for effect, but speaks perfect English. The Almond Croissants – ooh la la! Ting ting, ting ting -  what sweet music to my ears!

We grabbed a taxi yesterday and headed over to Melaque to go to the Hawaii store for hard to find items. As we were whizzing through downtown Melaque I spotted a building that had a big sign on the front: Ëuzkadi” was all it said. I have no idea what it is. I mean to check it out the next time I’m in Melaque. We also went to the Carniceria Ury here in Barra and loaded up with the fabulous bacon, steaks and hamburger he sells.

Then later in the day we had an adults night out with Rick and Gina, and also Ben and Molly from s/v Jace. We had a blast. You can find a link to Ben and Molly’s blog on my Harmony’s Wake Blog. It’s called Doolittle something or other. They are a great family, have two boys, 10 and about 6 I think.

2/5/12–2/11/12

2/5/12 Barra de Navidad: Today is Super Bowl Sunday. We pulled up the hook in Cuastecomate and made the 5 mile trip back to the lagoon in Barra Terry dinghied me into town for Mass at noon. Different priest today than last week. He did quite a bit of improvising during Mass. At the end he had all the kids come up to him, and he blessed them, while they sang a song, clapping in rhythm, very cute. It’s then that I noticed the little Indian children, so poor, most with no shoes, one little guy was buck naked from the waist down. Their mothers then went up retrieve their children. They were all dressed in skirts of very bright colors, tiny little women, but again, you could see how poor they are. I had my kindle with the Spanish order of the mass, and it helped a lot. I could actually do the responses in  Spanish instead of English like I’ve been doing.

In the late afternoon the panga taxi (Taxi Aquatico) activity in the lagoon increased dramatically, as all the Americans went to the Sands Hotel to watch the game between the Patriots and the Giants. Instead of going with Terry, I went over to Endeavor and spent the evening with Gina and the kids. Gina made bread pizzas and we watched the movie “Seven Pounds”, a very intense and provocative movie starring Will Smith. Very very good movie. I will watch it again. Our little Ün-Super Bowl party was a great success.

2/6/12 Barra: Today is a Mexican holiday, Constitution Day I think. Banks and many stores will be closed or closing early. We had planned to go the beach on the other side of the golf course with Endeavor, but ended up not going because getting over there involved a hotel shuttle from the resort, and it just got too complicated. Endeavor came over to Harmony and we ate the brownies I had made, chips and drinks

2//7/12 Ensenada de Carrizal: Rick, Terry and I dinghied into town to do a bit of provisioning before we head out of Barra. There is a fabulous meat market here, just a small but immaculate  -and unique little shop. The owner has cleverly frozen most of the meat -  chops, steaks, chicken breasts, bacon etc. He then slices it on the spot to order. I loaded up with 2 kilos of bacon because it looked so fantastic, 2 kilos of hamburger (not frozen), 2 full-sized boneless chicken breasts, and 1/2 kilo of some very fresh chorizo (not frozen). The total was 380 pesos, about $30 for about 12 lbs. of various meats, all excellent quality – not bad!  It’s hard to find great meat in some of the smaller towns like Barra. There’s another meat market here, but it doesn’t look nearly as clean and well-run. In many places the ham looks completely gray and dried up, chicken is very yellow, and because of Spanish names for the cuts it’s a guessing game to figure out what is what. So when you find a place like this little market, you stock up. Buying meat that’s already frozen really saves on our power consumption too. After the meat market, we went to a little tienda to get eggs, bread, potatoes, and other veggies. In most little shops in Mexico, you gather the produce you want and take it to a separate little counter where it’s weighed and priced, then go to the main counter to pay for it and the rest of your purchases. They sell eggs by weight, and you have to bring your own egg cartons. I knew this before we came to Mexico and had bought these plastic egg boxes that protect them in the dingy ride and work for storing them too. We go through a lot of eggs, and it’s always a guessing game to make sure we have enough on board, because we have no set schedule and never know for sure when we’ll go shopping again.

We left the lagoon at around noon an  headed for our favorite little anchorage – Carrizal, about 20 miles to the south. We are excited to be going back to a place where a swim or a snorkel is just a quick dive from the boat or a short row over to the rocks. We needed to make as much water as possible as well as take cockpit showers on the way down. Terry rigged up the solar shower for me in  the cockpit while underway, and it was so hot, I felt like I might need to add some cold water to it. Wow, what a luxurious feeling to have a hot shower. We saw a lot of whales on the trip, and anchored with seven other boats in Carrizal: Ponderosa, Seychelles, Full and Bye, Red Witch, Wades Aweigh (Brian’s dad aboard alone, waiting to ship the boat north), Harmony, Endeavor and one other boat I don’t recognize. It’s a bit crowded, but we are just so happy to be back in this tiny gem of a cove.

February 1st was our six-month anniversary of cruising and living aboard. We left Anacortes on 8/1/11. It has gone by in a blaze of speed, yet at the same time, that day we left seems like eons ago. Do I still love it? Yes! Are there things I don’t like about it? Yes! Do I still want to be here? Yes!

 

2/8/12 still in Carrizal: The water here is very clear, although not as clear as we hear it is in way up in the Sea of Cortez, where you can easily see your anchor on the bottom. The smog from the coal burning plant in Manzanillo must be blowing some other direction because the air is clear too! I hate the smog so much.

My morning task was to plan Terry’s birthday meal on Saturday. I settled on Close Roasted Pork With Ancho, Cinnamon and Cocoa. I’ll marinate it with a rub that is based on Mexican mole sauce (ancho pepper, cinnamon, cocoa, dark brown sugar), and I think I can slow roast it on the BBQ so I don’t have to heat up the boat. I’ll make a salad of black beans, cucumber, tomato and avocado, a side dish maybe of cous cous or rice,  and then Chocolate Cobbler for dessert. All of these are new recipes, which is what I always do for special occasions and that, in turn, always makes me anxious about a culinary disaster when you have guests. Oh well, it’s how I roll, always has been.

In the afternoon we took the dinghy over to the rocky shore and went snorkeling. We have a little anchor for the dinghy which we always make sure is set in a patch of sand so as not to tear up the coral. The coral is green, blue, brown, tan, and there are lots of colorful fish, huge angelfish, and lots of others I can’t identify. I really really wish I had a couple of books to identify the birds and fish in Mexico.

After BBQ chicken and baked potato for dinner, we watched Seven Pounds. Terry hadn’t seen it yet, and thought it was pretty good. He never wants to admit that “my” movies are fabulous

 

2/9/11 Carrizal: Laundry day, did a couple of “loads”(5 gal bucket). We went snorkeling again in the afternoon. More boats keep coming in here, how dare they??  There are now 12. It’s a bit crowded if you ask me, but those other boats never ask me. No one seems to know that I’m supposed to be the boss around here. It reminds me of when we were in Tenacatita and I got pretty sick and Terry had radioed for any MD who might be in the anchorage. He, as usual, identified us as Harmony. Well the next morning, Terry was ashore, and I was still on the boat sick, and this guy comes by on his dinghy, tells me he’s from the boat Harmony, and that he’s the “mayor” in the bay and that we should identify ourselves as Harmony Anacortes, because everyone in the anchorage thought his wife was the one sick when they heard us on the radio (run-on sentence, I know). I’m pretty sure he elected himself mayor, and probably stuffed the ballot box too. He made it quite clear that he was in charge, and invited us to a dinghy raft-up he hosts every Friday. I guess he holds court there, I don’t know, to each his little fiefdom, I guess.

Had steak for dinner then watched “Babel” with Brad Pitt. We couldn’t get the subtitles to work, and with most of the movie in Japanese, Afghani and Spanish, it really was babel! The Japanese part of the story was the most confusing, but we got the general idea….I think.

Got all settled in bed, almost asleep when it started pouring down rain. We had to get up and close all the hatches and ports. We took our time getting up to close everything because we didn’t think it was seriously going to rain. What a surprise. Then Terry broke the chimney on our little lantern that hangs on the wall, and I had to clean up the glass. We haven’t had any rain to speak of since November when we were in La Paz and we got drenched that night in the dinghy on the way home from Mass. It was an up-and-down night and neither of us got much sleep.

2/10/12 Santiago: Got up early pretty bleary-eyed from last night, fired up the boat and moved around the corner to Bahia de Santiago. The wind came up all of a sudden, 0-20 knots in nothing flat. It was a short trip, and we anchored in the part of the bay called Playa de Boquito. I’m cranky, can’t get my computer to print because the new laptop doesn’t have the right printer driver. Internet was available for half hour or so, then it was gone. I was getting very frustrated. So we went to town to stock up for the big b-day party tomorrow. We stopped at a little street side restaurant before we went into the grocery store (Commercial Mexicana) and the owner turns out to be a gringo (Paul) from Bellingham. He’s been running his little restaurant (The Captain’s) for 5 years. He left Bellingham on his sailboat because he’d been diagnosed with MS and wanted to cruise while he was still able. Got down here, lost 70 lbs, took up spearfishing, quit taking his meds, and is doing great! He has no symptoms except he lost some of the feeling in his feet.

 

2/11/12 Santiago: Spent the day getting ready for the little party we’re having on the boat for Terry. Endeavor came over and we had kamikazies, appetizers and then the pork roast, etc that I make. We were thinking of postponing a day because of the rain. It would have been crowded, hot and muggy with all 6 of us down below, but the weather improved and all went well. Endeavor gave Terry a knitted stocking cap that they got out of a half-rack of Indio beer. So we all decided that Terry’s Spanish nickname is Indio. It suits him and there’s no equivalent for Terry. He’s 60 now, so we were worried he might not want to stay awake past 7pm, but he made it!