#61 / 2005 Tour 3: Seven sailing reports

Report #1

#61

Life Aboard Ship

I have been saying for the last year or so that there is a relationship with the sea that I am longing for. I have romanticized it around the fact my father was a sailor. Daddy died when I was ten so for most of my life I only knew my mom. By going to sea I wanted to get more in touch with what I termed my masculine side, but really it is just a way to feel closer to the dad I didn’t get to have or know for very long.

So, here I am on the ship of which I have been dreaming. Mostly my job is to cook for Captain Rick and Joe. And after time a rhythm has developed onboard. I spend a lot of time reading tales of the sea and learning how to sail, braid an anchor rope, help hoist the main, or lower a jib sail.

We fuss over the deck above and below and keep it really clean because we go barefoot. One has to be so conscientious about hygiene here in the tropics as well because the tiniest little cut or splinter can lead to infection very quickly.

Sailing has its own language and it could take a lifetime to learn it all. I feel like I have in some small degree learned a little more about my father. There can’t be any slackers onboard a ship; you have to be thorough and get things right. A ship can be sunk just by flushing a toilet incorrectly.

We don’t have a lot of clothing on either, as it is very hot below deck and really sunny on deck, especially if we’re sailing and don’t have the tarp up to create some shade.

I bought a big scarf of cotton with a great painting of Frida Kahlo emblazoned upon it. A lot of time I have this wrapped around me Ava Gardner style. I feel like I’m in one of those travel movies starring Ava, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

When we come into a port, one of my duties is to stand forward, holding onto the mast, and keep an eye out for rocks, ropes, or anything else that might cause a problem for the boat as we sail in.

I have to pinch myself, standing there with one hand holding onto the mast, one hand shading my eyes as the breezes blow through my Frida Kahlo sarong, and my two companions and I enter a new port at sunset. Escorted by dolphins and sea birds, didn’t Daddy stand on a deck, just like this, coming in from the sea? Surely so.

Report #2

Life among the privileged

When Joe and I set out from Nashville for our trip south of the border we only expected to be staying in some squalid hotels by the bus stops, traveling coach. We hhad envisioned a train trip or two, bug got here and learned trains are pretty much a thing of the past for traveling south in Mexico.

So for us to wind up staying in villas, or living onboard a sailboat, or sitting pretty in hot tubs in world-class resorts is way beyond anything to which we would have aspired or even imagined.

You come into these resorts and they are stunning in their architecture, built from the base all the way up the side of a mountain. Usually the resort is a series of stair-step buildings moving up the incline. The ones we saw in each town were variations on themes of white stucco and red tile, absolutely smothered in flowering purple bushes and green palm trees.

Attendants are standing around everywhere and number two to one for each guest we saw. Because, unfortunately, most of these places look like they are running about a fifteen percent occupancy rate. I guess a lot of these villa-looking places are time shares. At some point someone must have thought cheap construction costs and beautiful beaches made for a great investment. But don’t let anyone talk you into investing in anything like this, because there are no takers. I guess the events of 9/11 curbed travel, or everyone was overzealous to begin with. Because the truth of the matter is that no matter how beautiful the villas and surrounding grounds, the bays are so polluted and the smog is worse than anything they used to complain about in Los Angeles. There are big industrial concerns near these resorts that belch out pollution that is unchecked by American standards. Sure, there are mountains out there in the distance, across the bay, but I never saw them.

By contrast, interestingly enough, all the marinas were running about eighty percent occupancy and the harbors are full. I hate to admit it, but our boat is pumping sewage waste straight into the bay and I am pretty sure the majority of these other boats are doing the same thing.

Report #3

I couldn’t help but notice a few other things as well. All these yachts of the wealthy with multi-membered crews don’t really contain any trophy wives. Most of the women onboard with these sea captains tend to be a bit on the sturdy side if you know what I mean. The only trophy wives I saw were married to the landlubbers that flew into the resort. They are positioned around the pools sipping pina coladas and are easy for me to spot after all my years working in beauty parlors in tony Belle Meade back in Nashville.

And the captains of these ships, what a bunch. I equate them a little bit to some computer nerds I have known (I can include myself in this group to a certain extent) who sit around and like to talk about all the computer disasters they have experienced. The captains like to sit and talk about their individual calamities.

In Peter Freuchen’s “Book of the Seven Seas” (highly recommended reading) he says, “After his hardships and dangers, the mariner enjoys being the center of a circle of admiring or spellbound listeners.”

brother, is that the truth. At Rick’s Bar all these guys sat together, usually the wives weren’t even included. They all sit around the same table and one up each other on disaster tales, deprivations at sea, and bold conquests of weather and recalcitrant machinery. They are really boring to anyone but each other.

Now, of course, I know nothing of these people. I gather they were highly successful men in their fields and once put out to pasture by the new chairman of the board they needed something to keep them feeling equally busy and accomplished. If you have more time and money than work, and you want to be busy, for heaven’s sake, buy a boat.

The endless “busyness” will never cease: ropes, sails, engine parts, crew problems, tides, weather charts, sea charts, preparation, preventive measures, the hull maintenance, cabin maintenance, it is absolutely endless.

And then you sit around in port with all the other sea captains and talk about it: your boat, my boat, his boat, the boat you had, the boat you want, the boat you’re going to get, the boat, the boat, the boat.

Once in port, again, there just isn’t that much to do if you aren’t totally fascinated with yourself. There isjust so much beer to be drunk, so many pina coladas to sip, so many gift shops to go to, and the little towns are so small and really quite sad in a way.

They are usually a short distance away from the resort because they aren’t as pretty and pristine as the resort catering to all those wealthy people. On land in most places Joe and I enjhoy encountering museums and libraries. We like to go to the cathedrals and coffeeshops, but most of this is in short supply along the Baha Coast we are experiencing.

I know if I spent any great length of time in one of these cities I would get involved with the community. I could see myself trying to help stock libraries with new editions or spend time out on the roads picking up trash and broken bottles. There was so much idleness involved in all this ambling along, after so long a time it started to get boring.

Rick wondered why Joe and I could spend so much time aboard ship while he was out working the shore looking for pretty women. But we were constantly reading and writing, practicing our Spanish, or memorizing our poems that we perform in unison. We didn’t have radios or TVs and not having to hear depressing news from America was a bit of a relief.

I thoroughly enjoyed going to the gyms and pools at the resorts, getting to talk to some of the yacht owners. But after two or three weeks we were getting restless. There is still so much for us to accomplish back in New Mexico – like finding a new home in Las Cruces – and we can’t make any videos or publish any newsletters until we get back to the van.

Report #4

Things I’m glad I packed

One of my biggest goals for the trip was to pack everything I needed for an undetermined amount of time in Mexico into one day pack. Joe packed a regular sized back pack suitable for campers. I did carry a small bag for my writing materials.

Having spent a few nights in strange hotels in Europe I knew it was a good idea to travel with something you can put on top of a bunk like a thin fitted sheet or the like. We considered that but on second thought I packed the serapes that Joe and I bought in Santa Fe years ago, mainly because I knew they could serve more than one function.

And boy did they. I can’t tell you how many times our serapes came in handy. On the bus they served as cover, pillow, back rest. We used them to sit on hard benches, as umbrellas to keep the bright sun out of our eyes, as towels on occasion. A sheet would never have been as functional or attractive during its use.

Joe has been using a magnifying glass to read with sometimes because his drug store reading glasses make little marks on the side of his nose. Otherwise we wouldn’t have had it with us. But the magnifying glass was in constant use for reading maps, labels, and most importantly for pulling out splinters.

I traveled with my $40 diamond dust tipped tweezers from Sharper Image more for beauty prep, but I needed them and the magnifying glass for pulling out thorns from cacti encountered in Big Bend and splinters from the boat deck. The tiniest little splinter can get infected swo quickly and they make your finger so sore. And twice, God forbid, Joe and I had to use them to get ticks off of each other.

I took a few books which were swapped out at Rick’s lending library. But the books are so clumsy and heavy. I was really glad I took a plain notebook and pencil. It is almost full now with the handwritten that I made prior to visits to the internet cafes. When I thought of something fun or noticed something unusual I jotted it down on the spot. I would never have remembered all the minutia of interesting points to type them up later. And when the way got boring I could always write something or make a sketch.

I’m also glad, although they were cumbersome, that I brought a little case of floppy disks to keep track of all my internet work.

What I didn’t need were those French platform heels that were completely unsuited for the beach, the boat deck, and the uneven cobblestoned streets of Mexico.

I probably could have gotten by with two complete sets of underwear instead of three – one white and two black – wearing one while one of the others dried out.

Boat life was hard on the clothes with the saltwater getting everything wet in the dinghy. I actually threw some clothes away to make room for the new things I bought.

Lastly, the debit card is by far the wisest way to access your money while traveling. Travelers checks are an unneeded expense these days. Joe carried a spare card for the same account in case I lost mine. And even if it did get lost it was unlikely anyone could figure out how to access my account.

I kept my card in a cloth, zippered bag attached on an elastic band that I kept around my waist, hidden under my clothes. My passport and other papers were there as well in a plastic baggie so they couldn’t get ruined by the seawater in case I fell off the boat.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure according to Ben Franklin. And I believe taking these cautious little measures really added to the safety and enjoyment of my trip. When you are prepared for the worst, it rarely happens.

Report #5

The Southern Cross

Since beginning this fascination with the sea that has come upon me late in life, one of my goals has been to see the Southern Cross. Daddy died so long ago, but I do remember him mentioning the Southern Cross while relating his WWII stories. I don’t think you can see it from Nashville, Tennessee, or if you can I certainly never saw it. So, while sitting with one of the numerous boat captains at Rick’s Bar one night in Aihuatanejo I mentioned that I wanted to see the Southern Cross some day before I died.

“All you have to do is look to the south early tomorrow morning,” Rick said.

I was shocked, surely I had to be somewhere more exotic, like Tahiti or something, to see it. But no, it was right here, right now. I got up and got on top of the villa the very next day and low on the horizon I discerned something I took to be the Southern Cross. The moment was practically anti-climactic considering what an odyssey I had expected it to be.

Captain Rick also pointed the configuration out to me early in the morning after we all had sailed all night. It was more dramatic to look at from the water than back at the villa on dry land.

And here we were living the life of Riley at all these world-class resorts, amazed, even though we were beginning to feel pretty empty.

I like Captain Rick. He is our age, fifty-something, and he loves the music of Leonard Cohen, as we do. we listen to his tapes day and night. But there were a few chinks beginning to unveil themselves beneath his armor.

Rick had four sets of crew bail on him for varying reasons before he got to Z town from San Francisco, his point of origin. He had sailed the last leg of his voyage solo. Sailors call people like that “single-handers.”

He was brusque and a bit rude at times, but he had so much to offer that Joe and I took this all in stride and we really were enjoying the trip.

Joe and I did not want to tempt fat in anyway while we were on this trip. I had heard too many stories about how you do not want t wind up in a Mexican jail and I certainly wasn’t going to give anybody a reason to put me in jail.

So, we were both quite proud of our upstanding character and demeanor, and somewhat disappointed when we didn’t get searched or questioned at many checkpoints we encountered along our way.

So at one stop, as soon as we brought the dinghy ashore, a native came up and wanted to sell some pot to us. I walked away. But not Captain Rick. No discretion.

I guess he felt immune because he had so many deputy and security badges that I thought he was a policeman of some sort or deputy sherrif back in the states. I had felt safe with him.

I was really surprised when he showed an interest in buying the pot. But I was in no position to argue the point, so I let it pass and just walked on. The situation passed, but later before we left town, he asked someone to sell him more pot to take back to the boat. I began to feel uncomfortable with Captain Rick.

However, out to sea, all this hardly mattered and I just forgot about the situation for the time being. When we came to another port and Rick ran aground on the rocks I never questioned his judgment or doubted him. And to this day I do consider him an accomplished navigator.

All the tales of sea are full of events where fate turns, crew members go mad, captains go mad, or somebody loses their liberty or their life.

Captain Rick had brought some good silverware from back home on his trip and the sea air had caused it to tarnish. Apparently he wasn’t willing to live with his mistake and decided to steal some new silverware “for the people.”

When he returned from the resort and proudly displayed it back on the boat, I exclaimed, “Petty larceny?”

That really set him off. He was angry with me and went into a diatribe of some long convoluted reasoning to justify his actions. I was so grateful and honored to be in such a nice resort and ripping it off was just something I didn’t have in my heart. So I was truly shocked.

“Mexican eyes are everywhere,” warn some of the travel brochures we had picked up along the way. And I was very doubtful that the captain’s actions had gone unnoticed. I didn’t sleep all night.

The next morning Joe and I were below deck when someone knocked on the hull of the boat. Rick was up in the cockpit and rushed below to say quickly, “Joe, come up and talk to this guy, I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

Joe went up and I stayed sitting at the table. I heard some friendly exchanges uptop and then Joe said to someone, “Passe lo,” which means “come on in.”

I glanced up and saw a young man with a shirt on ike the marina guys wear. I thought he was coming on to inspect the boat. I decided to go uptop and shake his hand in order to be civil and polite, but I was so afraid that my knees buckled on me out of sheer fright that authorities were boarding the boat. I couldn’t even get up the steps so I just stuck my arm through the hatch for a handshake.

As it turned out the young man was someone who knew Rick from an earlier port of call and was interested in getting a ride to Puerta Vallarta. There was no need to panic after all.

But when the captain and his new potential crew member took a walk I told Joe that this was not the way I intended to travel throughout the rest of the trip. We had put ourselves at risk through no covert actions of our own, and if the captain of the ship goes down, we go down with him. For me the boat ride was over.

So next morning we took some money out of an ATM machine, paid for our share of docking at the resort, and bid adieu to the privileged life we all had shared. We set out for the bus station and bought a ticket to Mazatlan.

Report #6

Mazatlan

Here we have encountered a large city, larger than Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa. This is the first time, along the playa section of this old town, where I have seen some historical architecture.

I saw “Once Upon A Time In Mexico,” touted on the Oprah show and went to see it because I was so charmed by the old towns in the action scenes of that movie. I was a bit disappointed not to encounter such towns on this particular trip. But we didn’t go to Mexico City and a few other places where I am sure this type of architecture is encountered. Next trip maybe we can see some pyramids and grand old buildings.

But we did get just a taste of this. We arrived in the Mazatlan bus station fourteen hours after booking out of Barra de Navidad. It was still a bit early, still dark actually, so we were biding our time until a few storefronts opened up and we could get a cup of coffee.

Also walking around the station was a long haired blond guy with a big backpack, simple hippie garments, and terrible sunburn on his face. I had him pegged as crew from a ship or something like that. Every time he walked up to our end of the station he glanced at Joe and me.

Over time he came and sat next to us. After a while we figured out it was because he realized Joe could speak Spanish and English. His name was Manfried and he was German. He had been backpacking across Mexico for months. Camping isn’t really a good option for travelers here and I guess he had spent a lot of time sleeping next to palapas on the beach.

Manfried spoke halting English and practically no Spanish so we all hooked up together in order to find out where the port was for the ferry that took passengers across the Sea of Cortez to La Paz on the California Baja. Joe and I were considering making that our next stop especially if the ferry was cheaper than the bus.

So come daybreak, we all gathered up our packs and set out on a bus. It was so good for Joe an me to be back operating as a team again, not having to wait on someone else. On the boat we were dependent upon the captain to get ashore or to get back to the boat. We often just had to sit around like some sad troupe of hangers-on waiting on him to make a decision to leave. Or we had the option always to swim to the boat, but with all those visions of sea snakes in my head, that certainly wasn’t going to happen. So it was liberating and exciting to be back on track with our own agenda.

When we got to the ferry, it wasn’t open yet. Manfried was still interested in La Paz, but Joe and I decided against it when we learned it would cost three times more for the ferry than a bus. So the three of us set out on a stroll until it was time for our new friend to return to the ferry office.

From the ferry port we headed up a steep hill and of course the first person we encountered was a boat captain out walking his dogs. He was from Seattle, a sax player, who lived six months in Mexico and six months onboard his ship. We spent some time with him in idle conversation until his two dogs started harassing a woman who was holding her poodle dog aloft to keep ti tout of the jaws of the captain’s dogs. He moved on and we began a climb up the hill.

Gringo joggers passed us and greeted us in English. We felt encouraged and kept walking by the seashore as we climbed further up into the town.

Manfried shared that he had been on a commune somewhere for a while with a healing shaman. He was single, didn’t like computers, and was a true “will of the wisp” gravitating to whatever town or experience caught his fancy. I found it amusing to hear him haltingly discuss in English how he was on this “healing” journey as he lit up his cigarettes and puffed away. It was Sunday and before long the church bells commenced.

We walked around for a few hours, found a bakery and shared some pan dulce on a park bench. Her I did get a feel for some old Colonial architecture in Mexico. I don’t know how old the town was, but is stood in sharp contrast to all the newer towns we had experienced before

After another half hour of walking we finally tracked down the church bells to a little outdoor market alongside a beautiful old cathedral. Here we lost Manfried as praying didn’t seem to appeal to him. Joe and I went in and gave thanks for getting us out of Barra de Navidad without being arrested for petty thievery.

Later, we found an internet café opening up that only charged ten pesos an hour. Rick was six times more expensive than that. So I typed away quite a few hours while Joe slept on a park bench.

By the time I came out of the café it was afternoon and we headed to a pizza parlor. Joe finally indulged me. I wanted pizza the entire trip, but it wasn’t readily available. Joe said it just wasn’t right to come to Mexico and eat pizza. But at long last I got my pizza fix and it was time to hop a bus and head back to the central bus station.

Report #7

The last bus trip

Buses are the predominate means of travel in Mexico and by now I have ridden on quite a few. They present a few challenges and at least one luxury.

The buses here, not city buses but the excursion buses, show movies just like the airlines. Each bus has anywhere from two to twelve monitors so everyone on the bus can watch the movie. We saw some really good ones and a few really stupid ones. But for the most part I looked forward to them. Usually the movies were in English with Spanish subtitles. This gave us an added advantage of learning more informal Spanish phrases as we were bineg entertained.

But the greatest challenge on the bus is using the bathroom. I tell you it takes strength and endurance you can’t imagine. As it is anyplace in Mexico, there simply is no toilet paper. You carry your own, and God forbid you have spaced out and forgot to bring some.

If you can imagine, the pot on the bus may or may not have alid on it, but it doesn’t matter because you wouldn’t sit on it under any circumstances. The stench is unbelievable. Either the thing si so full, or so covered with feces where people have missed their mark, that the odor is almost unbearable, or a chemical has been put down there that is so abrasive to breathe that you literally have to shut your eyes and hold your breath because it burns so bad.

But breathing is only the first challenge. The roads are so bad, so bumpy, that you can be literally tossed six inches out of your seat from the impact. The bus bounces along furiously and lists dramatically on the curving roads, unless you are on a major highway. There are two handles overhead that you absolutely must hold onto with both hands to keep from falling down.

So then you are stuck with the dilemma of first getting your panats down or your skirt up, to be held in place. Then holding yourself aloft by the handrails, andif it’s nighttime you’re in the dark, you have to imagine where the hole is. You have your knees wedged together to keep your pants from hitting the dirty floor or you have hour skirt or hem of your dress in your teeth to keep it off the seat.

Should you get lucky and hit your mark, if what you’re emitting has any substance to it, there is the unpleasant matter of having the contents splashed back up on your bare behind. Then as unpleasant as that is, you still have to maneuver around with one hand to get to your toilet paper and clean whatever you can manage to clean with one hand. I well advise anyone to make note of where you dispose of the toilet paper when you enter the stall because you will never figure it out in the dark after you shut the door.

I just don’t know how the old folks do it. Certainly my mother would never have managed it, she wouldn’t have been able to hold her body weight over that hole.

We usually wound up with seats in the back of the bus and after twelve or fourteen hours of sitting near the toilet you simply can’t breathe anymore. Once I put perfume on my bandana and work it bandit style just so I could continue to breathe.

So, I plan to fly the next time I go to Mexico, or only travel towhere the expensive train will take me.`