Same Sea Yet Another Boat

It did not take long for me to find another boat looking for crew to cross the Sea of Cortes.   Wendaway is a Norseman 447, and skipper Mark is taking it to Puerto Vallarta, leaving this afternoon or tomorrow morning.  His wife is in Canada for Christmas and he and I and one other person will be sailing it across over the course of a week, stopping in Isla Isabella en route.  If I have time I will make another post before I leave, otherwise, I will not have email contact until we arrive at PV.

Back in La Paz

There is something comforting about returning to a port that you know – a bit like coming home.  Pulling into La Paz yesterday on a sunny Sunday Baja afternoon, I found myself looking forward to catching up on email and visiting to my favorite ice cream shop.  Our buddy boat had arrived ahead of us and they were there on the dock to catch our lines, much like the good old days when family were waiting as you walked off the jetway.

Don and I really enjoyed our trip down.  As a measure of our compatibility, I note that I did not crack a book ONCE (except the cruising guide).  Conversation with my last skipper was so difficult that I retreated to reading whenever I was not engaged in cooking, cleaning, helming or anchoring.  The good part about that was that I learned a lot reading about weather forecasting and sextant adjustment! 

In the course of our transit, Don and I found all kinds of things to talk about, tease each other about and set up on the boat.   We alternated between sailing and motoring, based on wind or timing.   The sun sets here around 5:30 and nobody sails at night – given the fact that aids to navigation are few and far between, and Mexican charts are sketchy at best, people rely on cruising guides and visual navigation, and hustle to get anchored up before dusk.  Our second night out, our buddy boat caught a skipjack on a handline and invited us over for potluck – I brought a guacamole rice salad and we all watched the sunset over La Paz from Isla San Francisco 40 miles away.

Don and I have very compatible eating habits, which made mealtime fun and easy.  I had bought a 15 pound bag of oranges for $4 in Loreto, along with a kilo of tortillas and lots of tomatoes, avocadoes and fresh goat cheese.  We don’t seem to tire of quesadillas for lunch…what a treat to have avocadoes every day!

Back in La Paz, I visited some friends and began looking for the next crewing opportunity, because Don will be staying in La Paz until he goes to Indonesia in February.  There is a ‘morning net’ on the VHF in the marina when people check in, compare information and offer items for trade.  It’s a fairly small community with many boats returning year after year, and I am learning how to check references on skippers who may want crew.  I put the word out on the net that I was available for crew and quickly had a return call from a skipper looking for a third person for the crossing to Puerto Vallerta.   We will be leaving on the 27^th and expect to take a week to do a leisurely crossing with stops en route to fish and check out the wildlife.

In the meantime, Don is happy to have me stick around for a while, helping him with a few projects and ensuring that he has something better than trail mix for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Pretty much everyone is hunkered down here in another ‘norther,’ watching their windexes hit the other side of 30 knots and whitecaps washing over the decks.  It’s so strange to be in winds like this without an accompanying downpour!

Same Sea Different Boat

I am not sure why, but I really like going to Laundromats.  I think it may be because it is a way to step out of life on the road and sit in one place and read, write or meet new people.  So I always volunteer to do the laundry, a chore others don’t seem to enjoy, and here I am in the marina in Puerto Escondido doing that.

I left the boat I was on in Puerto Escondido.  The boat was great and the sailing and exploring was fun, but the skipper was not a lot of fun to be with.  I won’t go into all of the details here, but we had agreed before we left that either of us could say that it was not working at any time, and I invoked the escape clause when we got to Puerto Escondito.  I was never unsafe, but I learned some things I should look for and test for in the next crewing situation.  (Aside from good marine head maintenance).

Puerto Escondido is just 15 miles from Loreto, so I took a cab to my house and then went right to the store of some friends for a welcome hug.  Then I checked the crew lists on Latitude 38 and read about a guy who was driving to Loreto and needed crew from there.  I sent him an email on Saturday, got an answer back on Sunday inviting me to meet on Monday back in Puerto Escondido.  I met him, toured the boat, talked about expectations, and liked all three immediately.

Then I had a few things to wrap up vis-a-vis the sale of my house, which is now complete - and I have now moved aboard Minggat, 5 days after arriving here!  Don and I are really having a LOT of fun - we banter back and forth and it feels really comfortable...a lot like being back east with my Dad and siblings!

He has an Islander 36, a good solid boat, and he is an engineer, so he has a bunch of 'gadgets' on it – I am really enjoying poking around and seeing some of the things he has done.  As I usually have to do when I board a guy's boat for any time, I am cleaning the galley and the head as a first priority.  He is VERY appreciative of that and my cooking and since the boat is the ONLY place I like to cook, it is a win-win.  He is very happily married but his wife is Indonesian and has visa issues so she is in Indonesia now.  Yesterday we had lunch with a couple that he met in the yard with which we will be buddy boating back to La Paz.  They too are a LOT of fun, so I can foresee some fun potlucks and more banter. It is going to be a great trip and one that will erase the less comfortable aspects of my last crewing experience.

As they say, cruising is about working on your boat in exotic locations.  Don is just putting the boat back in the water after 2 years on the hard so we are working out a lot of kinks – one outboard turned out to have a non-engaging prop and the other took some warming up, but bit by bit we are preparing for a Friday departure. 

Life on the Sea of Cortes

 Provisioning in Mexico

As first mate, one of my major responsibilities is provisioning – buying food for the boat.  Having sailed the BC coast, I’m used to stocking a boat with the assumption that groceries will be few and far between.   The little tiendas we will find on the Baja side of the Sea of Cortes will be even less well stocked, so it will be important to carry enough food to basically get us through a few weeks.   So, here in La Paz, I am planning for a month when I shop.

Which would be easy in the states, when I know where to go for what, and how the stores are organized.  It’s another story here in Baja. Shopping here is much like shopping in the US in the 70s before people started demanding food without added sugar.   Things I consider staples for the boat: sugar-free crunchy peanut butter, raisins for oatmeal, turmeric for curry, simply do NOT exist here.  On the other hand, food is amazingly cheap, and there are many new fruits and vegetables to experiment with.

I started by shopping at the local grocery, which was actually fairly well stocked.   Then I headed for the Chedraui, the Baja equivalent of Fred Meyer.  There I was thrilled to find coconut milk and brown rice, but when I got to the checkout, they were unable to sell me the coconut milk because the system did not have the price in it anymore!  So they set the cans aside and sent me on my way without them.  Undaunted, I went back today and headed for the ‘costumer service’ desk where I explained the situation to the ‘jefe’ who solved the problem by charging me the price for coconut cream.  There is always a solution in Mexico is you are persistent, patient and pleasant about it.  But, I was left to wonder what will happen to all the cans I did not buy.  Will they ever be able to be sold?

It took me several trips, but finally the boat was provisioned and everything stowed away.  I’m looking forward to experimenting with jicama, chayote, green chiles, queso fresco and other local food staples when we are underway.

For Thanksgiving dinner we went to the house of the director of the Spanish school and had a fabulous meal.  A few of her friends, some other students and some GREAT food.  One of the men skippers a 150’ yacht for the owners from California and he had many complimentary things to say about the industry and workmanship of the mechanics he has worked with here.  People here can’t just go to Home Depot to replace something that is not working: first, because it is not THERE and second because it would cost too much.  This explains the amazing ingenuity and resourcefulness that I have seen, especially related to things mechanical.

Leaving La Paz

While at the marina, I continued to attend the Tuesday and Friday salsa classes, and was very sad to say goodbye to the group and the instructor.  However, I did finish my piñata and bequeathed it to the language school for their Christmas party.

A few other observations and adventures from my last days in La Paz:

Making money just does not seem to be the major driver here.  As an example,  the boat has five AGM batteries that needed to be recharged.  We found a likely store and I called them and explained what we needed (en español!) and they told us to bring them on down.  So we lugged 5 batteries up the dock, into the rental car to the shop.  For us, lifting ONE was an effort.  But the charging guy hauled them out of the car two at a time, hooked them up, charged them for 8 hours, and then hauled them back into the car, and when we asked the price he said, FREE.  Incredible.  Of course, we did end up buying one battery from him to replace the one that was too low, but the FREE quote was before we made that decision.

Ran into a little trouble with the law when I accidentally went the wrong way on a one-way street one night heading back to the boat in my rental car.  I was pulled over by the flashing red and blue lights, with a very friendly officer who let me know that I had committed an ‘infración’ and would need to give him my license until I showed up at the police station to pay the fine on Monday.  Since we were planning to leave on Sunday, this was not welcomes news!  I explained that to him, profusely apologetic for my mistake as a visitor driving a rental car, and he cheerfully explained that I could simply pay now and be on my way.  Of course, there would be no receipt (and not record for insurance purposes) but we both parted happy with that arrangement.

Cruising at last

Monday, November 29, dawned sunny, with light airs; after fueling up and last minute preparations, we were down the long narrow channel along the southeast side of the Bay of La Paz.  The boat was low on water and the skipper wanted to check out the watermaker, so we motored to our first anchorage while the water maker did its thing.

From there we have been working our way north up the east coast of the Baja peninsula, stopping in various coves and inlets.   We had a couple of excellent days of sailing and I got to see the wind vane in action.  Since the boat has the same vane that I just bought, it was heartening to see how well it kept the boat in relation to the wind – all without a sound.

North of Isla Espiritu Santo is a rocky outcropping of two islets that are essentially a sea lion nursery.  The islets drop sharply into the water, forming a perfect spot for snorkeling, and tour companies run people out in pangas from La Paz so that they can swim with the sea lions and watch the tropical fish.  We anchored just off the islets, wriggled into our wetsuits and joined the other snorkelers.  The sea lions were on patrol and swam up from the bottom to check us out: they are bigger in the water than they appear from the boat!

We got stuck in a cove named Puerto Los Gatos for five nights while we waited for a “norther” to subside.  ‘Northers’ are the prevailing winds in the Sea of Cortes in the winter, but this year they seem to be coming in earlier, colder and stronger than past years, according the other cruisers.   They come in for a few days, generated by high-pressure systems in the western US, and accompanied by steep short waves that make northing very uncomfortable. 

We put out a lot of extra chain and the boat tossed and rocked in winds that averaged 15-20 knots in the sheltered anchorage, with gusts of 25 coming over the hills we were hiding behind.  We could see the white caps racing by in the sea outside and the surf on the rocks at the entrance gave evidence of the energy that would have been opposing us if we had tried to continue north.

Unfortunately, the ham operator in California who provides the daily weather forecast for the cruising network was out of commission for several days due to some kind of coax failure.  And so, every morning, we turned on the single side band with the hope of hearing when we would be able to move on, only to find that Don was still AWOL.  While we could see that it was not a good time to leave, we were hoping to get some kind of forecast.   Finally, on our fourth day, Don came in with the good news that the high pressure system over Idaho was moving on and we’d soon be on our way as well.

What do you do when you are stuck on a 34 foot boat for 5 days?  Well, as any boat owner knows, there is always a project to catch up on, lockers that could stand a re-organization, or things that need fixing.  I love to row, and taking the dinghy ashore to burn garbage or do some beach combing was a good way to get some exercise.  Rowing from boat to shore, I crossed the gusts and then I could tow the dinghy along the shore into the wind and row downwind back to the boat.   Or I could row against the wind and make the exercise last longer…the rowing equivalent of a lap pool.

The language school had given me a book on Mexican history (in Spanish) and I worked my way through that, broke out my sextant and practiced taking sunsights, made my way through another book on weather forcasting, and sorted through my pictures.  It’s kind of like being stuck at home in a snow storm – except that I am still in shorts and sandals and the sun is shining.  I always love sitting in the cabin at anchor while the boat tosses and turns, and doing it in Baja feels just as snug.

Unfortunately, on our third day here, the marine head (toilet) jammed.   Since I was the last one to use it, the honor of unplugging it was mine.  And, unfortunately, there is generally no way to unplug a marine toilet without literally taking it apart.  I had done that twice before (once on each of my boats) but only to replace the two main valves as part of routine maintenance.  In those cases, there was nothing (AHEM!) ‘plugging’ the apparatus.   So this was going to be a first for me, and, with the head now reassembled, one that I hope never to repeat.

I was baffled as to the cause of the clog, since I have never clogged a head in 15 years of boat ownership.  Marine heads are remarkably reliable if you remember two cheap and easy rules of maintenance: a regular dosing of vinegar to keep calcium deposits from forming, and a dose of oil to keep the seals pliable.  

Once I had it apart, the cause was clear: a chunk of calcium the size of a nickel and twice as thick that had reached critical mass, broken off and plugged the duckbill valve.  Other chunks were clinging loosely to the valve mechanism, just waiting their turn to wreak head havoc.  The boat’s owner was new to the oil and vinegar routine, so, in truth, it was not me who should have been taking it apart.  I extracted payment in the form of a 2 gallon shower (instead of the usual 1 gallon) and a margarita at 2pm instead of 5.

We finally woke up on Thursday, Dec 8 to the blissful sound of NO WIND (hard to believe that sailors might find that blissful!) and headed to the fishing village of Aqua Verde, making water all the way, since we had run through most of our tank while we were held hostage by the norther.  We hiked the ¾ mile into the ‘village’, a cluster of simple cinderblock homes with corrugated tin roofs and the occasional palapa, where we found the ‘tienda’ with a very helpful proprietor who had our number from the start.  “Quiere Cerveza?”  (Want beer?)   How did he know that we had run out 4 days before?  I was astonished at the cost: $24 MX (less than $2) for two cold beers in a village that is 25 unpaved miles from the highway.   We arranged to come back the next day with the dinghy for a fresh chicken and some fresh vegetables.  

Life is clearly hard here in Mexico.  The global financial crisis that hit the US housing market has reverberated here in fewer gringos buying property with second mortages.  Tourism is down because of the press about the drug wars, even though the drug wars don’t involve people who are not in ‘the business’ in some way.  And apparently the fishing (the major industry in the coastal towns) has been bad this year, which adds insult to injury.    Yet all the fishermen seem to have huge new outboards, and we wonder if they are subsidized in some way.

There is much about cruising here that feels as familiar as South Sound sailing.  The mechanics of sailing, anchoring and living on a boat are the same. But, there is much that is different:

o      Watching the arid landscape slide by in colors as deep and rich as any I have seen in nature.  The high iron content of the soil gives the hills a blood red hue against which the line green cactus stand in stark relief.  Coupled with the brilliant blue sky and the aqua waters, the depth of color is stunning.

o      Hearing the slap of fish on water, expecting to see a salmon and realizing that they are rays flapping their wings against the surface.

o      Having to make water, since the opportunities to refill tanks are few to non-existent.  Since the water-maker is engine driven, this means motoring when sometimes you would rather be sailing.

o      Anchoring in sand in 10 feet or less …and being able to see the anchor and all the chain!

o      Listening to the silence at night.   I thought that British Columbia coast was remote, but sailing in the Sea of Cortes is even more so.  There are tiny local villages, but they are few and far between and supplies are not abundant.  In the anchorages, we have had only a few neighbors, and sometimes have been the only boat.  I am not sure what you would do if you had engine trouble, but it would be a much bigger issue than in the US.

o      Star-gazing!  Far from the lights of any town, the stars are brilliant against an inky sky.  The constellations at this latitude are slightly different than the ones we are used to: the big dipper is below the level of the hills and I have to use Cassiopeia to find the North Star.  I’ve been practicing with my sextant, and the clarity of the night sky makes it much easier.

o      Tuning into the cruising net in the morning.   Cruisers underway often tune in to a morning net on the Single Side Band, sharing location, routes and information about weather or port check-in requirements. 

o      Cooking with Mexican ingredients…Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix is made with corn flour, the beans really do need to be picked over for rocks, and the cheeses are very mild.  But we’ve discovered chayote, a new favorite veggie, and we are becoming addicted to jicama julienned with orange slices, lime juice and my homemade chile powder, now made with real freshly dried ancho chiles!

o      Not seeing ANY seaweed of any kind.  Compared to the veritable forest of kelp, sea lettuce and nori that washes ashore in the northwest, I am struck by the lack here.  Tidepools are virtually devoid of any familiar flora or fauna – no starfish, no crabs scurrying for cover when I turn over a rock.  Curious.

Life after Graduation from Spanish Class

It’s time to update my blog when I get an email from Dad wondering if I am OK!!!   It’s been a while between posts, mostly because I was too tired at the end of each day last week.  I am now on the boat and, after two days of decompression, am back in English mode.  Being on the dock is a huge culture shock after three weeks of immersion.  As the dock gates slam behind me, La Paz seems like a distant memory.  I am not sure which is the alternate reality, but they are worlds apart.

Backing up….

We had rain about ten days ago!  Those who are reading this might wonder why that’s worth mentioning.  But here it’s cause for celebration since they've had no measurable rain for three years!  The timing for me was not good, though, because I was on my way back from Loreto, when I gone to check on the progress of the sale of my house and to visit friends.  The trip up was uneventful and I passed the 4-hour drive listening to Mexican ‘country western’ music.  It was heartening to realize that I could make out more than half of the words.  Once in Loreto I had to help my tenants figure out how to start the hot water heater – they speak NO English so our conversation was conducted solely in Spanish, and I was thrilled to see that they were not looking at me with the look that says “what on earth are you trying to say???”

The rain started on the way home in my rental car, and I slowed down, mindful of slick roads after long dry spells.  Turning on the wipers, I quickly discovered that the right hand washer blade was lacking the bracket that held it to the washer arm…and was about to fall off if I continued to use it.  But, if I took it off and ran without it, the arm would scratch the window.  What to do?  One thing that has always impressed me about the people who live here is their resourcefulness, so I scouted around for something to tie the washer arm to the blade.  Stripping a decorative cord from my purse, I lashed the two together in good Girl Scout fashion and was shortly on my way.  When in Mexico….

Last week, the tempo of Spanish classes increased when I was assigned to a group class for 4 hours a day and a private lesson for one hour daily, instead of the 3 hours of private lessons I had in my first two weeks.  I was really excited about that because I would be able to learn from the mistakes of 3 other people, not just mine!  And I would be  ‘in Spanish mode’ for more of the day.  

Good plan, except for the twice-weekly salsa class, the piñata class, and the nightly walk downtown for an ice cream left little time for all of the homework we were assigned.  Going home provides little respite, because the family speaks Spanish, and I don’t want to miss any opportunity to learn how to make tamales or roast tomatillos to make salsa verde.  It’s hard to describe how tiring it is to be talking at the same time that your brain is working in the background to upload words to your mouth.  And by the end of each day, I had little energy for blogging!

The good news is that I really can understand much much more of what I hear.  When I first arrived, whatever anyone said sounded like one long word with no spaces….and now I can hear the spaces!  And I can put sentences together using virtually all of the Spanish tenses, including present and imperfect subjective, tenses rarely used in English.  I am pleased with my progress, but I am ready for a break to let it all settle into place. 

As a closet etymologist, I continue to enjoy the nuances of the language.  Two in particular struck me this week.  One is the word “Ojalá”, a word that is used to introduce the expression of a wish, usually in subjunctive tense, as in “Ojalá that we can be underway in a few more days.”  The word has no literal translation in Spanish, but as it was presented in class, I wondered about its roots…and was not at all surprised to hear that it had evolved from the Arabic expression for ‘God willing.’  So the language, even here in Mexico, carries the traces of the Moorish occupation of Spain in the end of the first millenium.

The second linguistic curiosity is the fact that there is a single verb in Spanish for ‘to wait,’ ‘to hope’ or ‘to expect.’  All three concepts are captured in one verb ‘esperar,’ and the intention is derived from the context and inflection.    However, those of you who have ridden Mexican busses know that this makes perfect sense, because as you wait at the bus stop, looking down the street for a bus that the schedule leads you to expect, you are bound to hope that it is going to appear!

Coming from a job where my focus was on improving efficiency, you might wonder how I tolerate the bureaucracy…but I often remind myself that the Dalai Lama said that all sorrow in life is due to expectations.   Only gringos expect things to go quickly in Mexico, and life is much easier if you adopt a local perspective.  A friend put it well when he pointed out that ‘mañana’ does not really mean “tomorrow” – it simply means “not today.”  So when you ask when your car will be ready and the mechanic says ‘mañana’, you don’t get your expectations up too high.

For example, in Puerto Escondido two weeks ago, my skipper spent a week waiting to put his boat in the water.  There were a few “mañanas” to get his boat to the front of the line, and then the day he was supposed to go in, the travel lift broke.  Once the lift was ready, he was having trouble with his engine, and had to ask them himself for another mañana. But he made it, and is now in La Paz, working on a radio install as I type.  Although sailing the Sea of Cortes sounds exotic, many say that cruising is simply working on your boat in exotic locations!

The marina here looks much like any in the US - except that there are NO derelict boats.  All of the boats seem to be cruise-ready and none of the people on the dock communicate in any language but English- an abrupt change for me.  I spent yesterday organizing and cleaning the galley and inventorying the supplied.  Today I am busy putting together a provisions list, and on Wednesday we plan to rent a car to run around town bringing batteries to be recharged, getting groceries, buying permits to visit the marine park and otherwise preparing the boat.  Thursday we plan to join a few people at the language school for a small Thanksgiving dinner, and then get serious about packing to leave, hopefully SUNDAY.

Baptism by Culture

My immersion is not just in language – per my previous post, it is cultural as well. Some might say that I am not just immersing myself in Spanish – I am drowning myself!   But every opportunity to speak the language is an opportunity to learn more about the culture as well as build my vocabulary.   For example Monday on the way home, passing the Casa de la Cultura, I saw an ad for piñata classes, offered in Spanish, of course. ¿Porque non?  So I went into the office and introduced myself, paid the $100 MX (US $8.00) and started right in. 

This made for a long day on Tuesday – Spanish from 8:30-10:30, piñata class from 10:30 to 12, Spanish again from 12-1.  A trip to the bank to change travelers checks, 2 hours of Spanish homework, dinner with my homestay family, and salsa class at 9:00.

In piñata class, I learned all the words for balloon, glue, wrapping paper, tissue paper, bucket, and verbs related to making papier mache….as well as the history of the piñata.  According to the instructor, piñatas evolved from an old Italian decoration, called a “pignatta” that came to Mexico with the conquistadores in the 1600’s.  The Italians got the idea from the Chinese, gracias a Marco Polo.  Who knows where the Chinese got it from, but the lineage persists in that the Spanish word for ‘tissue paper’ is ‘paper from China.’  My instructor says the word ‘pregnant’ evolved from the concept of something filled with good stuff….and its slang origin is the reason it was not a word spoken in ‘polite society’ for so long.  Very interesting.  

The first day, we created the papier maché ‘bodies’ which we left out in the ubiquitout Baja sun to dry, while today we built the bases for the 7 ‘horns’ that represent the Seven Deadly Sins.  In Mexico, the Chinese-Italian concept was blended with catholic teachings and endures today…those Jesuits and Dominicans found all kinds of ways to reinforce their message!  There was lots of joking about the 7 sins, the instructor claiming that he could not list them all because he only remembered the ones he had committed.  There are 5-6 people working on the piñatas, apparently all employees of the Casa de la Cultura, and their task is to make 50 of them to sell as fundraisers for the Christmas time.   I am quite a novelty to them, and they are appear to enjoy teaching me as much as I enjoy learning spanish from them.

Saturday I revisited the park where the astronomers hang out, and got an impromptu lecture on galaxies, black holes and lunar phases, further padding my vocabulary.  I’m getting much braver about ‘guessing’ when I don’t know the right word – so many words in Spanish can be created from a similar English root and a Spanish suffix such as ‘-dora,’ ‘-ista’ or ‘-ito’ ---and I am finding that if I pronounce the root as I would in Spanish and hesitate just a tad, the helpful local listener will add the right suffix – an ad hoc Google translater!  

And Sunday, I noticed an announcement for a free presentation of Hamlet - again, en español.  As one who sails to Vancouver just for the Shakespeare festival, I HAD to see this!  Try to imagine Hamlet in simpler language (the translation was done in a way that even I could understand most of it!) supported by melodramatic music more evocative of a soap opera than Stratford on Avon.  Hamlet, described frequently as 'loco' throughout the presentation was clearly NOT the protagonist in this recasting!

Insights into the culture

One of the benefits of learning a foreign language is the insight that it permits into the culture.  Most tourists to Mexico don’t venture far off the Malecon, visiting the beaches and restaurants that cater to English speakers.  Interactions are limited to ordering beer and arranging dive trips, and not being able to read the signs prevents them from learning much about what is going on in town.  Having lived in several other countries, I really believe that a visitor can not really appreciate the culture without learning the language.  I remember well soon after I moved to Japan, when I finally was able to read enough Japanese to see that moneylenders were proudly offering housewives the chance to buy a washing machine at ‘ONLY’ 30% interest – rates that to us would be usury.  This really allowed me to see the difference in money management between Japanese and American families.

Similarly, learning Spanish has already opened many windows for me into Hispanic culture.  For example…as Bill (my fellow student and housemate) left for his plane, he bequeathed me with his stack of Spanish language magazines…reading material for the beach.  One of his magazines featured Justin Bieber prominently on the cover, so I figured that it was targeted at an age group whose level of Spanish might not be TOO difficult for me.  Yet, the first article I encountered was an article debating whether women with angry facial expressions were that way because they were sexually frustrated!   So Justin Bieber must appeal to a different set than I expected…or the Bieber set is worried about things I did not expect a 14 year old to be concerned with! 

Another example: three of us got tickets on Thursday for a show presented by a local amateur theatre and dance group.  Consistent with the Day of the Dead celebrations, the story concerned a card shark who is dying of thirst in the desert amid a bevy of dancing cacti (of various sizes due to the various kids inside them).  As he faints of thirst, a Catrina appears (the vampily dressed skeletons associated with Day of the Dead) to teach him some lessons of life and show him the errors of his drunk and dissolute ways.  The two of them amuse the audience with witty repartee and a charming card game in which they each cheat shamelessly on the other. 

Once the Catrina’s lessons are learned he falls asleep again and awakes expecting (as did we American watchers) to find that all is now resolved and forgiven.  Yet, the dancing cactus are revealed to all have skulls in place of their faces….revealing him to be truly dead and amusing the heck out of the all (Mexican audience,  The three of us (the sole Americanos there) were immediately struck by the fact that the equivalent US show (think Scrooge) would have expected a ‘happily ever after’ ending.

Last night, 5 of us went to a beginning Salsa class downtown….which started at 9 PM!  I was pleased to find that I could understand at least 80% of the instructor’s directions (admittedly, a lot of it WAS uno, dos, tres….cinco, seis, siete….), and three of us will be continuing while we are here in La Paz.  JAs in the US, there were many more women than men in the class, but Tino the teacher did not allow the women to pair up – rather he had the men form a line and the women rotated into and down the line.  The two men in our group grumbled good-naturedly about not having had a break for the entire hour, while we got to sit on the sidelines for a few minutes.  Photos of the class to come on Tuesday.

The immersion begins

The air-conditioned bus trundles smoothly down highway 1, leaving the station only 5 minutes later than advertised.  As advertised, it’s a very modern affair, clean and air-conditioned  - no goats or chickens – even some fairly recent DVDs. Highway 1 is only one lane each direction the entire length of the Baja, though, and the driver does not hesitate to tailgate the slower trucks in anticipation of passing as soon as there is a big enough opening.  I think we were less than 10 feet from one of them!

Arriving at La Paz, it is just a short taxi ride to the home where I will be staying for the next two weeks – a lovely villa with walls at least a foot thick and hand painted tiles on the floors and walls.  The owner tells us that the house is over 100 years old, and was originally the main home for a hacienda that occupied the entire block, before the property was subdivided.  Right from the start ‘hablamos espanol solamente’ and I am heartened to find that I can understand virtually all that my hostess and the other student here (Bill) says, although I still need to think longer than I would like before responding.

After dinner Bill and I go out for a walk on the waterfront, where La Paz comes alive.  In 80 degree weather, over the course of our promenade, we encountered a science fair, a wedding, a bingo gathering, salsa dancing complete with prancing shark mascots, a concert, and an astronomy club.  The "astronomicos" invited us to peer through their telescopes to see the moons of Jupiter, the Andromeda galaxy and an incredible closeup of the moon and invited us to return on any given Saturday.  Planeo volver!  (I will return!)

As I post this, three days of classes are behind me, and I am feeling the brain-fatigue that comes from an overdose of mental stimulation.  I spend 2.5 hours in private Spanish only lessons each morning and there is generally a bit more time spent hanging around the school chatting less formally with instructors.  The school arranges for some cultural activities each week and we are lucky to be here for the Day of the Dead, a HUGE latino-american festival.  Our cultural presentation in Spanish yesterday covered the altars that families build to remember family members who have died, and we participated in building one to commemorate Steve Jobs. 

Yesterday we visited the cemetery with an instructor and then spent several hours at the city-wide festival where folk dancers and skeleton-costumed comedians entertain the audience, elaborately dressed Catrinas wander the crowd, and vendors hawk tamales and other fiesta food. 

Bill and I were fascinated by the Catrina competition.  There were 12-14 entrants, including children and adults, faces painted to resemble a skull, dressed in very flamboyant gowns over arms and legs swathed in black nylon embossed with white bones.  After parading across the stage, the entrants mingled with the crowd, posing for photos like ghoulish Goofies, and vamping shamelessly.   Although all were dressed in skirts, Bill and I agreed that one of the entrants could not possibly be a woman.  But since Death makes no distinction due to gender, we assumed that there must be no rules that the person under the costume had to be male.  Today the winners will be announced, and we are looking forward to seeing if we've got our money on the right one.

La Paz is a charming city – it keeps a very low profile in the Baja, unlike Tijuana or Cabo, where high rises, traffic and police sirens are more the norm.  There are few buildings over two stories, and the waterfront is a family affair.   As the sun sets, and the heat abates, the Malecon fills with strollers, skateboarders, street vendors and stargazers.  Sailboats ride at anchor in a sea streaked with scarlet reflections, and pangas are pulled up on the sand after a day of fishing.  The colonial Spanish heritage is evident in the cast iron scrollwork, and bougainvillas bursting from big planters.  All that’s missing to evoke a Seaside Spanish town is the song of a canary.  

My Spanish classes are challenging...and come with homework.  I'm finding that I can truly understand a bit more each day.  While our instructors pace their delivery to the students' level, the average person on the street does not...and I am finding that the spaces between words are getting much clearer.  It will be interesting to see how much more fluent I feel in another two and a half weeks.  I'm quite optimistic.

Underway at last

At last, I feel like I am finally underway on this ‘adventure.’  Moving out of my house, moving onto the boat, managing all of the last-minute issues that cropped up as my departure date got closer, has left me little time to think about the ‘next stage.’  But, finally, I am sitting at the ‘bus station’ in the little town of Loreto in Baja, with a ticket to La Paz. 

Sonrisa all buttoned up

Sonrisa (my boat) is buttoned up for the winter and will be sitting in her slip waiting for my return   The regular bills are all on auto-pay, my car insurance is cancelled, and I am anticipating walking off all of the good-bye breakfasts and lunches that filled my last few days in Olympia.

I finally left Olympia on October 27 and flew to Loreto to see the boat that will be picking me up in La Paz in a few weeks.  The owner of the boat had left it ‘on the hard’ in Puerto Escondido for the summer and was in the process of opening it up, putting the sails back on and running the halyards back through the sheaves so it could be put back in the water.   The boat is a well-found Crealock 34 and the layout inside is very much like my own boat – so I should have little trouble finding my way around once I learn where he keeps everything.   It has a number of pieces of equipment I have never used (solar panels, water maker, single sideband radio), so I expect to learn a lot about them as well.

Rocksan on the hard

But that’s for three weeks from now…now I am headed for La Paz to study Spanish in a three-week immersion program.  I’m feeling fairly well prepared and have been practicing my Spanish for the last few days here…I think I must be improving because people respond to my attempts in Spanish now, instead of immediately shifting into English – so I must be SOMEWHAT intelligible and they must think that there is SOME hope of their being understood by me. 

Sunset outside Loreto

And I continue to look for any opportunity to learn.  I stayed at a hotel near Puerto Escondido on Thursday night and found a copy of La Ensenanza de Buda (The Teachings of Buda) on the bedtable.  The left hand page was in English and the right in Spanish, written at a level that seemed manageable for me.  So I asked the hotel if I could buy a copy to study from (a refresher in Buddhist precepts being a serendipitous side-effect) and they made me a ‘presento’ of the book.  So that will keep me busy on the bus!  

The view from the bus windshield - a reason to focus on the book!

I will be able to discuss the Eight-Fold Path and the Four Noble Truths in Spanish to anyone who will listen!