Wrong place, wrong time

Sometimes we do things we're not proud of. He was, after all, just in the wrong place at the wrong time and if he had been the kind of cuddly creature that inspired the "awwww" factor instead of the "eeeek!" response, he'd have been treated a lot more gently. We might have even kept him as a pet.

Fuzzy he was, at least the fat, round derriére. Not as hairy as some of his cousins, but enough for us to definitely identify him as a member of the dreaded Theraphosidae family. He somehow cornered himself, only a foot away from the Capt's chair, this morning and sat there for quite a while, hoping he was invisible.  But he wasn't.


"Get rid of him!" I cried, doing my Lady MacBeth impression. And so the Capt zapped him with a bit of bug spray, enough to stun him, then trapped him on top of a file folder, beneath a coffee cup. A brave man, my Capt. He carried the beast outside, left him in the brush at the fringe of the golf course. He was still moving — in fact he covered quite a lot of ground before we lost sight of him. I wished him well, hoped he'd recover from his poisoning and hereafter, remember to stay out of houses.

Digame*, Ricardo

Mexican summers lull me into a perpetual siesta, augmented with lots of reading. My brain is a finely tuned, somewhat obsolete computer that must be kept in a climate-controlled environment or it goes into sleep mode, leaving me semi-comatose (and bored). Now summer's half-gone, and I've made almost no progress on my big goal: to improve my Spanish. I missed out on an intensive (and cheap!) course at Colegio Americano that took place while we were away on the boat.


With no teacher to demand my best performance, I have to nag myself into making progress. However, I have resources. Yesterday I started working with flash cards on SpanishDict, a website that has emailed me a word-a-day for months. Mexico Bob swears by flash cards and set up his own Cornflake System, but SpanishDict's flashcard system goes a step further with its Listen feature. A deep, mellow voice pronounces each word, complete with accents in the right place, running the vowels together like a regular native-born Spanish speaker. (Of course, Bob has Gina to do that for him.) 

I've named the voice Ricardo, after the actor Ricardo Montalban.

Comprehension is my greatest downfall, due to those run-together vowels. I could ask people to please write down what they're saying,  but such inconvenience would be a real conversation-killer.  These flashcards include a Recall level that requires me to type in the correct word when Ricardo says it, complete with accents. With a push of a button I can hear it as many times as I need to. I was scoring pretty high before I got to Recall, but I had to do the office supply topic over three times before I scored 100%.



The flashcards are organized by topic, such as days of the week, food items and colors at the easy level, to office supplies (medium level) on up to parts of the body at the hard level (this includes everything from hair follicles and eyelids to knees and belly button!)  I can print the cards out, too.


There's a Recognition level that shows a Spanish word and multiple-choice translations in English, timed so you have to stay on your toes.

My favorite flashcards cover common expressions such as, "Me saca del quicio." El quicio is literally a door hinge, so I'm assuming the rough translation is, "It makes me unhinged (or crazy)." 


If I'm feeling competitive and take the time to log in, the website will keep track of my results and list them along with other students on a Leaderboard, ranked by score.


One thing I really like is that each verb comes with its article, so you learn right away whether it's masculine or feminine. 


The site also a has complete Spanish/English dictionary, which is handy to keep open when I'm reading Mexican newspapers such as Expreso. And beyond individual words, you can translate an entire phrase.


Did I mention that SpanishDict is free?

*Digame = "tell me."

Bees and jetskis, grottos and dolphins

Home at last, and I couldn't be happier to walk in the door, flick on the minisplit air conditioners and stand under the shower without worrying about using up a meager tankful of water. I was so contented even the three scorpions in my kitchen couldn't ruffle my feathers.

The crossing over the Sea of Cortez was for the most part a train ride, with no wind, flat seas and a steadily rumbling diesel that never let us down. Of course, that meant also the inescapable smell of diesel in the cabin, which brought on a low-level queasiness and discomfort that I could only escape by sitting out on the foredeck in the hot sun. But I just kept swabbing myself with fresh water and Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap, and reminding myself I'd be home soon.

After almost three weeks of travel we were ready to get back, so we didn't "gunkhole" up the Baja coast as we'd originally planned, taking five or six days to visit spots I hadn't seen before, but only made three stops after leaving La Paz: Isla San Francisco (just off the tip of Isla San Jose), Puerto Los Gatos and Agua Verde, both on the Baja mainland.  All offered very easy dinghy landings with no waves so the four-legged crewmembers got to go ashore every day. They could hardly wait to get off the boat.

Since it was a weekend, San Francisco was swarming with big motor yachts loaded with families and their water toys: kayaks, inflatable floaters of various descriptions and one jetski...um, personal watercraft that wound its noisy way around the little bay like an angry hornet. "What if we all had one of those?" I muttered. "What would this place be like then?" What I liked was the rocks along the shore that looked like pillars of ancient ruins carved out of peach-colored sandstone.

Next stop was Puerto Los Gatos (Port of the Cats) with its characteristic colorful stratified rocks. My camera didn't do justice to all the colors — peach, green (copper), cinnamon, dark red, pearly beige. I also spotted another feature that always intrigues me: little grottos along the water's edge. But late in the afternoon after our siesta we found dozens of bees in the galley, attracted to our fresh water. Using mosquito coils we drove them out, then put up our screens, and that was the end of our time outside. It was a siege that lasted until after dark.

A short hop further up the coast we landed at Agua Verde (green water), one of the anchorages I'd never visited and always heard about. It's aptly named, with its agua as verde as it gets in Baja! But when we went ashore we found beetles of some kind that bit our ankles and drove us back to the boat. The yachters' guidebooks don't mention these pests, so perhaps it's a seasonal thing.

We had talked of going on to Escondido for ice and to top off our water tanks, but decided neither was important enough to delay the 24-hour run across the Sea of Cortez and home. I think the boat was starting to close in on us a bit. So early Monday morning we set out for the overnight crossing. With no breezes, the temps soared and we were only able to keep our cool by training our 12-volt fans on ourselves and keeping our movements slow and minimal, like a couple of oceangoing sloths. I managed to get all the way through Wilbur Smith's "Men of Men," part of the Ballantyne series about Africa in the Victorian era.

At sunset we sat on the foredeck and I marveled at the colors of the sky and the sea and tried to capture them with my camera. To our left where the sun was setting, the water and the sky was gilded with breathtaking gold and pale pink, and to our right it was all blues and lavenders and silver grays. We watched for the green flash, but a haze along the horizon may have obscured it from our view.

The most exciting event was when a superpod of dolphins passed us, stretching out for miles, and several came to take a ride on our bow wave. I've been trying for years to photograph them and only succeeded in getting gray dolphin-shaped blurs, but this time I found the right setting and was thrilled with the results! Thanks, Sue, for the tip.

 

My favorite things in La Paz

La Paz has improved a lot over the 13 years since I first came here, and today it's considerably cleaner, more attractive, safer and has more to offer. Of course, arrival of the cruise ships was a motivating factor, but I do like what they've done with the place, especially...

...the Malecon. Storms had torn up the tiles and walking here was risky 13 years ago. The whole walkway has been redone, a 100% improvement

Mermaid and Dolphin, one of several beautiful sculptures along the Malecon

My favorite La Paz Malecon sculpture is this old sea dreamer

Photos of trashcans? Well, yes...these are ranged all along the Malecon, and I admire them because they encourage kids to dispose of their litter. And separate trash, too, by organic and inorganic. Don't know if anybody actually does it, but it's a good idea anyway.

Shady streets! Not all of them boast these beautiful mature shade trees, of course, but I applaud whoever made the decision to let them thrive.

The Municipal Pier where cruise ship passengers first leave the boat is beautifully landscaped and welcoming.

Take a stroll down the Municipal Pier, and you can see all the lights of the waterfront reflected in the water. Qué romantica! 

 The entrance to the city dock, where the cruise ships land, bears the legend "La Paz, Port of Illusion." 

La Paz has a fine, albeit small, mercado, much better for produce than the big stores. It's obvious the vendors take pride in their displays and their merchandise. Prices were better, too!

Tomorrow we sail north, having already delayed our departure two days because we like it here so much. I won't have Internet access for a few days. We'll be stopping here and there along the Baja coast. I'll try to get more photos as we go, and post them when we get home.

A rosy cloud over La Paz

Yesterday, my birthday, exceeded all expectations and reached the realms of the magical. We are in La Paz, one of my all-time favorite cities, in a small but very civilized marina a couple of blocks from my favorite part of town. Our trip went without a hitch — OK, maybe one rough night and a little queasiness, but I haven't been on the boat in over a year so it was no surprise.

But we've been blessed with an unseasonably cool break in the weather, with fresh breezes all day, and comfortable mornings and evenings.

Map of Baja California Sur, shows the capital, La Paz, and the numerous islands on the eastern side of the peninsula, some of which we'll visit on our trip north.

Our neighbors in the next slip are a couple from Portland, OR who live year-round on their boat and would be heading for Central America except that the husband just had a quadruple bypass. They have been the best of neighbors, quiet and yet friendly, lending us their gate key because we got here Saturday too late to check in. The Capt let slip to them that my birthday would be Sunday and the wife came over and presented me with a beautiful handmade beaded bookmark, knowing I'd treasure it as a fellow book fiend.

Yesterday morning we provisioned at a huge market, the CCC (pronounced "say-say-say"), then asked a cab to get us to a good bakery (indulgence already on our minds) where we bought polverones and orejas (Mexican cookies). Back at the marina we stopped in at the Club Cruceros library, which although not as extensive as our own back in San Carlos was at least separated by genre, mas o menos. I grabbed a copy of Roddy Doyle's "A Star Called Henry," about (among other things) the birth of the Irish Republican Army in Dublin. Spent a good part of the day immersed in his wild and crazy prose, and playing guitar camouflaged by the dull roar of our air conditioner in the V-berth.

Our neighbors had recommended El Patrón as an excellent restaurant for a birthday dinner, and it was close enough for a few minutes' walk. The street near the marina used to be a mess back in '98 (our first year here), with broken concrete and asphalt, dust and trash everywhere, but now it's well-maintained and pretty much trash-free, a miracle considering there was big crowd viewing an exhibition of Volkswagens, complete with live music from a local high school band clad in neon lime green.

El Patrón is situated overlooking the Virtual Marina section of La Paz Bay, where boats are anchored with the full approval of the Port Captain and enjoy a number of waterbound services including water delivery and trash pickup. Our first year in Mexico,  we spent almost a month anchored in that area, so close to the beach we could have swum to shore.

The Capt had ribs and I went for the coconut shrimp with reduced orange sauce, both outstanding. When the waiter took away the rib bones to box them up for our dogs, he seemed to be gone quite a while. But then he appeared with a fat slice of cheesecake, topped by a single candle, and two musicians were right behind him, to serenade me with "Las Mañanitas," the Mexican birthday song, as well as another couple of birthday songs I'd never heard before, and winding up with my favorite ballad, "Sabor a Mi." I confess, I probably embarrassed the Capt when I started singing along, but I couldn't resist.

Then we strolled down the Malecon, checking out the vintage and pimped Volkswagens of every description. Sunday evening is when everyone in La Paz turns out to do the same, apparently, on foot, in-line skates, bicycles, bikes towing baby carriages... all enjoying the breeze off the bay. We stopped for ice cream at La Fuente, everybody's traditional favorite. I was reminded just why I'm so infatuated with La Paz. More than any place I've seen in Mexico (so far) it seems to me to have an almost European feel to it, and in spite of annual maulings by a series of hurricanes it still looks beautifully maintained, with a sense of pride by citizens who love their city. It probably doesn't hurt that La Paz is the capital of Baja, and the home of the governor.

Of course, I'm still in a rosy cloud. The whole world looks pretty good to me at the moment.

The only bad news: my aged laptop can't take a charge because the cable broke off inside the port, and I will have to use the Capt's until we get home. Postings and photos will be sporadic, especially since we're also going to be anchoring at a series of remote islands over the next week. The plan is to be crossing the Sea of Cortez to our home port next Sunday. But you know that old saying about cruisers' plans: written in the sand during low tide.

Thanks so much to all my cyberfriends who wished me Happy Birthday. Your wishes came true, it was a most happy day, and I have enough left over to last me all week.

Feliz Cumpleanos, Ringo!

Tomorrow we sail, in accordance with advice from our weather guru Don Anderson, various weather websites and the belief that, as far as we know, everything on the boat is in working order. We've fueled, provisioned and tidied up, so it's time to haul in the docklines and get underway. If all goes well, we'll be tying up at the dock at Marina de La Paz on Sunday, my birthday. And if it's miserably hot and the Capt gets the air conditioning going in the V-berth, I'll be celebrating a Berth-Day, with a good book and some jamaica lemonade.

Chica, six days after her surgery, is chasing the ball and walking on all four legs. 

Yesterday we had lunch with Nancy and Paul at an outstanding little restaurant in Old Town (sorry, Nancy, I've already forgotten the name, maybe you can help me out in a comment). The Capt came along this time, more than willing after a week of grody chores in the engine room to take a break and socialize. Nancy's become a serious baker, and she gave me a loaf of her excellent ciabatta bread, as well as three books she said she had enjoyed...now I can't decide which to read first. Mil gracias, amiga!

 Paul, Nancy and the Capt

The restaurant owner is Nancy's baking mentor, a Mazatlan native who developed his skills far beyond Mexican food. The ambience is Lunchroom Casual, and the lunch menu simple, but what we ordered was superb! I had a roasted vegetable sandwich on fresh-baked ciabatta bread with goat cheese...wow! It was one of the best sandwiches I've ever had.

Speaking of birthdays: If your schedule doesn't conflict, tomorrow at high noon you can grant Ringo Starr's birthday wish as he celebrates his 70th. Just make the peace sign and say "Peace and love." That's all he's asking for, according to an interview with the New York Times. You'd think anyone could go along with that, but somebody somewhere will object.

Here's Richard Avedon's soulful portrait of Ringo from way back in 1967.

Not exactly "Stuck in Lodi"

Marina Mazatlan

Since we first sailed down to Mexico in 1997, we've probably spent more time at this marina than anywhere else on the coast. It's changed a lot since then, and gotten expensive with its glitzy condos and fancy restaurants, but more than once we've sat out weather and taken refuge here for repairs for a week, a month, two months... There are worse places to be stranded.


This time, we had planned to be here three days, then off to Baja, up to Santa Rosalia and then across the Sea of Cortez and home. But Señor Neptune had other ideas. Big seas are coming up, and it's predicted the port here will close for at least a day (maybe Sunday). Winds are expected to be too light to sail, but the waves will be formidable, not a good combination. So we're waiting it out. It's been overcast and breezy here, with temps around 86 degrees, and a little light rain in the evenings.


I had breakfast in town yesterday with my fellow blogger Nancy and her husband Paul, giving us a chance to catch up on each other's lives (stuff that doesn't often appear in our blogs)


We took Chica to a vet we've known since 1998, and consulted him about her leg, and next morning he operated, inserting a piece of nylon to help keep the patella from slipping, or luxating. Then he painted the entire leg a gaudy pink, but we'll forgive him for that. She's taking an anti-inflammatory and glucosamine, and he says she should be running around chasing balls in a few days. She's wearing a heartbreaking hangdog expression and flopping down every chance she gets. The bill: $1500 pesos, less than $150 USD. Oh, and he wants her to go on a diet, says it'll help if she's lighter on her feet. Funny, I didn't know she was overweight. Duh.


Just by accident, the Capt found that the end of the fuel line was dissolving into a mass of black tar, which didn't bode well for the connection to the tank or the condition of the fuel. Left undiscovered, it could have meant some crippling deposits in the engine and some major downtime at sea.


Yesterday I did most of the provisioning, though I plan to load up on more canned and dried goods, since we have no refrigeration, and may have no access to ice or water for as much as a week.  Places we might normally be able to buy necessities could have closed down for the summer by now.  If all goes well, we can replenish in La Paz, another of my favorite Mexican cities.

L

La Paz

This morning while walking Chica, I got reacquainted with Marta, a Colombian veterinarian who lives with her Canadian husband in a nearby boat. She doesn't speak much English, so it's good practice for my Spanish. Snuggled inside her tote bag was a grey tabby kitten that was destined for adoption by a nearby condo-dweller. Marta's been busy vaccinating, neutering, feeding and looking for homes for the dock cats, and she warned me about rat poison the restaurants have been setting out along the walkway.


She disagrees with Dr. Rafael's estimate that Chica can use the leg in three days, says it should be more like eight. She brought me something to help heal the incision faster.


I decided I could view this delay as a bonus vacation. So, poco á poco, we prepare this boat and ourselves  for an adventure. I'm just wondering what other surprises Señor Neptune has for us.