Bits and pieces…

…of our life.  So we returned to La Cruz, sweet La Cruz where I did some boat maintenance and Bev flew to D.C. to assist her youngest daughter who was going through a shoulder surgery.  Bev is an expert at shoulder surgeries having had two of them herself.   

One of the boat projects was to patch the dinghy.   

We continue to patch our lives together just as Beverly patched her favorite bed sheet, with pieces of duct tape and bits of whatever else fits the bill.   

Our 18 month young Raymarine Chart plotter (MDF in Ray speak) went on the fritz.  The unworkable solution was to send it back to Ray in the States.  We needed one to make our way back up into the Sea of Cortez so with the good help of Pieter Karstern of Marine Vallarta right here in La Cruz we were able to purrhase a replacement unit  that will become our back up unit once our original MDF hopefully gets fixed by Ray.  Pieter went above and beyond for us, we owe him a debt of gratitude.  

So the marina was a good place to work during the day and to relax in at the end of the day. 

And there is fresh tuna at the local fish market right off the boat.   

Bev’s long time friend Gail came down from Colorado for a visit. 

We sailed to Yalapa. 

And then rowed up a little river in our dink. 

There were homesteads along the river, some of them with pastures that held horses and mules.  We were thrilled at one point when a horse came charging down the river past us, kicking up a big spray of water as it flew by. 

Later we searched for and found a little family run restaurant that I’d heard good things about. 

The owner’s dogs entertained us until our meals arrived. 

And during the meal too… 

We sailed back to La Cruz the next day.  In spite of some Mal-de-mer Gail is sharp and a quick study so quickly picked up on all aspects of sailing.  The breadth of her maritime mastery become apparent later when I found her passed out on the floor well after midnight in a local sailors dive with a fresh tattoo and a new piercing.  I don't know what happened to Gail, she seemed like such an upright and level headed woman before she went sailing.  They say that the sea can change a person...  I just hope her parents aren’t reading this blog as it probably would be better if she told them herself.  Wink and a nod…

We all enjoyed Sunday Market together. 

Later we went snorkeling out in the bay. 

The visibility wasn’t that good but it was still nice to be out swimming.

On the last day of Gail’s visit we were having breakfast in the cockpit, watching a pair of whales cruise thought the anchorage just two boats away when it appeared that one of the whales had collided with one of the anchored boats.  It appeared to be diving under the boat when suddenly the boat rocked violently in the calm waters.  Later on the way in to shore we stopped by that boat to see what they experienced and the skipper reports that he had been on deck watching a mother & calf swimming around his boat when the calf hit, causing no damage but raised quite a cry his wife and two daughters below when it happened.  

After a nice visit we put Gail onto a bus headed to the nearby airport and now we are starting our preparations to head north up into the Sea of Cortez something we’re both excited about and very much looking forward to…

A Punta Mita sunset makes it look like the whole world is on fire.  It was an incredibly beautiful sunset that lasted just a brief moment before it was gone for ever.  Such is live… 

Sailing in the Age of Jets

Sailing on the HMS Rose in 1998

One central aspect of the floaty world of boats that has never changed ever since I was a little boy is how amazing it is to carefully guide several tons of boat out of a tight harbor, out into the open ocean where one then raises yards upon yards of white cloth up, up, up to grab the wind right out of sky, to drive that boat and her crew right out through the waves, onward like some great carriage, driven by a large team of horses...and when you are driving and being driven like that, harnessing the heavens and riding the miracle of buoyancy, there is an incredulous and implausible feeling that one could go on and on forever like that and, and, and at the same time, that prudent sailor, romantic that we all are, totally in love with this feeling, knows in the back of our minds that this could also end in a fraction of a second for any number of usual and unusual reasons…and somehow that makes it all even more precious and so we sail happily, even blissfully onward...

Luna Maru in 2004

The first time it happened to me I was about 10 years old when went sailing aboard a family friends 37’ ketch Destiny, out of tiny Pokai Bay on the east side of Oahu.  We headed straight out to sea in water so clear that you could easily see the bottom topography go by as we sailed over the reef.  So vivid was the visual effect that I asked the captain if there was any danger that we might hit the bottom.  He chuckled, gave a brief smile and assured me that there was no danger of that as were were in 60’ of water.  Once I was able to relax and then took the helm I got such a big thrill that I can still feel it today, over half a century later.  And that was just the first time, it got better and better after that.  

Gypsy heading out of Annapolis in 2008

Sailing, besides being good for one’s sprit and soul, it’s also good for our planet and, and, and it’s the safest and most cost efficient way for individuals to cross an ocean even today in the age or rockets and jet planes.  It occurs to me that if the general population wasn’t in such a great hurry to cross oceans that sailing ocean liners would provide the same doubled benefits of being good for our souls and our planet and all things considered, may very well be more economical too.  Moving forward into the future is all well and good, in fact it’s absolutely necessary but that doesn’t mean that we have to do away with ancient, tried and true technologies.   

Sailing Malo off the coast of Oregon in 2016

Speaking of appropriate technologies and our planet, I just saw an encouraging video about some exciting ideas and a new initiative to help deal with the expanding problem of plastic debris that is choking our oceans:

Our living planet is a lot like our bodies in that they both need two essential things to survive; 1) clean water and 2) clean air.  It’s that simple and our oceans are most essential to supporting those two necessities of survival.  Love our planet, respect and tread lightly upon her and we may just survive as a species for a few more centuries, or not…

Jet travel in the season of sailing is…

La Cruze anchorage

…a completely uncivilized way of traveling.  It took us 5 months to travel 2,200 amazing miles by by sail.  A very human, civil and pleasurable rate of travel.  I have just traveled home and back. 5,000 joyless miles in 10 days by jet.  It took a couple of days for my soul to catch up with my body both ways.  I’m back in the floaty world now, back to going around barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt, going 6 miles an hour rather than 450.  And while Dorthy was right about there being “no place like home”, there is also not place quite like Mexico either.  I am truly blessed to be able to enjoy both, just not at the same time.

The Lobby at Paradise Village

The staff at Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta was extremely helpful, friendly and proficient but the place was over the top and just not us in many ways.  So we did what most cruisers do when things aren't just right, we sailed away...that's when the fun started again.

Now granted is was just 6 miles that we sailed, the distance from Nuevo Vallarta to La Cruz, but what a great romp in the waves it was.  When we left the marina the wind was only blowing just 6 kts but it quickly picked up to 21 kts and Malo was loving it.  It was so great to be sailing again as Bev and I took turns driving the boat and sharing the joy.  And then just as quickly as it came the wind died just 1/2 mile from the La Cruz anchorage.  So we fired up Mr Reliable, AKA Mr Rumbly, AAKA Rumble Fish, our beloved M35 Universal engine and motored the remaining distance to anchor.  

Malo is now in the La Cruz marina; Marina Riviera Nayarit and Bev is on her way to D.C. to shepherd her daughter Ada through shoulder surgery.  Meanwhile I'ill be working two list; one of boat maintenance tasks and the other of fun things happing in La Cruze over the next 10 days.  

The anchorage at Punta Mita