Christmas in Nuevo 2013

Imagine losing your job.  No Obamacare, no unemployment, minimal family to help in the area, six kids with one on the way, and no steady income to count on in the future.  Imagine having to take kids out of school to work for pennies, so the family can eat.  Imagine having long term pain from a car crashing into you.  Imagine the stress of wondering how to support your family.  Unimaginable.

That describes Pedro,  Rosa and the kids.  Pedro goes out early morning to fish, with one or more of the older kids and they race the catch home.  Rosa then goes out in their neighborhood  with the smaller kids, and sells the fish, door to door.  We recommended Pedro to other cruisers for boat work, as well as having him work on our boat.  We are running out of work, but with the new outboard (used) that we bought him, Pedro is able to fish.  He used to row himself out into the Bay, now he cans sleep longer and get to the fishing

We feel that they are family and despite the  awful poverty, they have such an incredible richness of spirit, we are blessed by them.  They may worry, but they laugh and know that somehow it is going to work out.  But the worry after a while grinds anyone down.  So we had a party for Christmas.

Presents, Robert cooking a turkey and the trimmings, everyone playing with the toys and the older ones having a poker fest and lots of laughing on the boat.  We  stuffed ourselves and then went to play soccer.  Futbul.   With our own rules, and Pedro yelling out different plays to the kids.  I was referee.  Rosa and the girls were the audience.  We laughed and laughed some more. 

                                                              

Robert and Rosa getting ready to serve the turkey.  He also made mashed potatoes with gravy.  I made a stuffing that was apple, onion and sage - pretty good after all these years of red wine, sourdough  and spinach.  Along with the fruit salad, I made a salsa of pineapple and a green chile, chopped up with red pepper for Rosa, who really likes hot sauces. None of that was left....not cranberries, but definitely popular with the blandness of our American food.



Ice cream after the soccer game.  The younger three boys really got into playing, while the older one, Joshua (Hosoy) was more laid back.   Goal posts were laid out with string and Robert and Pedro were goalies.

Now, this was a great Christmas.  While not our regular family, it is family and a family that decided to just have fun and forget everything for a day.  It was literally magic.

Sebastian, Adolpho (El Toro), Rosa, Joshua, and in fron, Natalya, Crystal and Daniel.

 

My birthday day.....

the haircut is Jean's fault  - but it is great for boat life.  Robert found the restuarant had Mexican style pulpo cocktails.  We later went to our beach and sat under my birthday beach umbrella for a bit and went to a local restaurant for more shrimp.  I think we should celebrate for a month or so. 

Bucericas in the morning to buy laydown dresses to replace the ones that went back east.  Lots of bargaining and fun, as well as a Mayan replica mask and shrimp for  birthday lunch.  Straight across the bay are lovely houses that we rented years ago with Linda one year and Jean, another.  La Cruz is on the left where about 40 boats are anchored outside a pretty nice marina.  There is some probllem with the marina - blamed on the economy, but a lot of La Cruz boats have come into Nuevo,  with owners shaking their heads at the conditions.  We love Nuevo.. 

 

The lagoon/marina area is the reason whiy.  This is one of the small cottages across the way from the marina.  Nuevo is based in what used to be a lagoon;  dredged mostly and filled with channels and crocodiles.  The cottages all have docks with huge boats out front, but it is a lagoon, and it is notable for the crocs and bugs in the spring.  We take dink rides around the channels to see how the real people live. We see this every time we look across the channel.  Not too shabby a way to spend a birthday.  That and bitch at AT&T as we were not getting the birthday calls....they are supposed to be local calls to and from the US...well, email worked and I felt loved.

 

Our life in Nuevo.....

We went upriver, or up estuary, to find the crocodile sanctuary and ran aground.  Thinking that being in a rubber boat with food, aka, the dogs, we poled our way out of there real fast until we could start the engine.

 

When we were in San Diego, we met a man on the dock who said our boat looked familiar...he had either raced against it in Hawaii or knew of it as Shockwave.  Further conversation had us, Hawaiian style, as being almost related!  We had a lot of mutual acquaintences and/or friends.  Our friend Barbara in Santa Barbara had attended a luau given by Russ and his wife On Lopez Island in 2006.  A woman who had worked for Barbara in Hawaii was one of Russ and Jonelle's neighbors.  Barbara had sent us photos of Jonelle's work as a printmaker, and it turns out that I had sailed on her ex husband's boat in Hawaii.  This same sort of thing happened when we ran into someone backpacking in Haleakala....and it is very Hawaaian.  It also means you don't get away with anything if you live there. 

So went to Eddie's for dinner:  coconut shrimp and margaritas.  I will never have more than one of Eddie's margarita - take a look at the size of it in front of Russ.  The people alongside Robert sailed across the front of us with a lovely blue spinnaker a few days out of Turtle Bay.  We took photos - sort of a grim day, but they elegantly sailed on a latitude as we tried to make a longitude.  The wind was so fluky, they must have thought they could zig zag across the squall.   This is also when I had hair.  It is all Jean Orsini's fault.

 

how the mighty have fallen.....

It doesn't look 102' long until you see one of the crew on deck.....

For saile, at Paradise, across from us:  Chimera, 102' long, built in 2002 with , er, ummm, upgrades in 2008.  Alloy - Robert said it could be titanium, but I think alumiunun.  Roller main...I'O will be for sale, also - but maybe the new owner of Chimera needs a dinghy.

 

We were awakened early with the boat acting like a jumping jack.  Big waves (not to us Hawaiians) were coming in with big tides and wiping out the beach.  A few years ago a storm brough in huge waes that wiped out many of the turtle nests that were close to the hotels.  You can see that mornings here are magic...as well as afternoons, as well as evenings...but the jerky sleep of the couple days of semi big waveswas quite interesting.



Across the channel from us were these America's cup boats...I had asked a dealer in NZ, via EMail, what they were doing here...I imagine they have been stripped or someone had the great idea of having a regatta.  We used to watch  Stars and Stripes, years ago in Hawaii when Connors had them at the fishing dock.  They would scare hell out of us when we were out sailing moff Honolulu with crazy Rodney in his 27':  swoosh, get the hell out of the way.  Rodney was usually stoned and simply would say we were on starboard and stare blankly and the onrushing giants.

 



Finally on the way to Nuevo....

Fonatur/Singlar had a slip for us that was great...the pool was cold, the weather hot and muggy which was an almost tropical storm right between us and Nuevo.  We were there for five days in which both Barbara and Frank managed to get a bug.  They had been adventuring.  The photo shows the channel on our way out to sea and El Cid on the left.  Scary channel, even in the daytime.  They have to dredge constantly.

The island offshore was great for lining up the channel ....Both Robert and Frank were set to head south inside the islands, but I suggested they go outside:  sun in their eyes, the chart not visible, and they were just being anxious to get the hell out of the place where we had to sit and wait for weather.  We looked at several weather sites several times a day....and finally decided to leave.

Barb and Frank had made flight reservations for Sunday....she is wearing a muumuu that Linda brought back from Hawaii for me....and has figured out that the Hawaiian's knew something about cool garb.  I was below with the dogs most of the time -we motored constantly from Mazatland.  Twenty seven hours hours of that noise.  Thank heaven for the radar as we were moving around the shrimp fleet a lot at night.

As ususal there was the nonloving tension of finding the harbor entrance....and then to find that Pedro didn't work there any more.  The next day we sat on the dock where he was doing a bottom job and gave him a huge surprise when he came up. 

We are now on A dock, waiting for a slip at cool B dock to open up.  As Anita used to say....life is good.

A bit of heaven

After a lovely fast, hot motor, we tucked into the harbor at SAn Jose Del Cabo.  We had entered another lovely harbor that was so different from the craziness of Cabo.  But hot.


It seemed as if half the Baja fleet had either been here or arrived after us to escape expensive Cabo.  A norther in the sea of Cortez was keeping us all close in for a few days.

 

The ususal tension of finding the "right" entrance had us pretty crabby, but the sight of the masts and a panga going in by the beach helped us get in.  This was where Robert ate something awful that did him in a few years ago.....

We left after exploring the art center of the town...we want to come back some day and spend a good bit of time...colonial architecture of which this computer is not allowing to be put in the blog.  Frustration.

Half way to Nuevo, in the middle of the night, Robert woke me and said we were turning around and heading to Mazatlan.  Ugh.  The sky was full of lightning all across the horizon.  That was the beginning of a tough day for all of us...long, trip into Mazatlan.

We entered the harbor in the dark, went right to it and tied up at El Cid.

Look at the happy guys.  I had just told them we were moving from El Cid, who wanted us to stay a month, to Fonatur, up the channel, where we had been two years ago.  Tough beans.  Now, to rant.  It seemed that every time we docked or anchored, there were words.  What the hell is so important that yelling is part of the process?  Not one thing.  The boat isn't sinking.  We are not racing.  But yellng and hurt feelings seem to be the norm.  I finally flipped and said that in the more than twenty five years we have owned the boat, it seems I have been doing it all wrong. Screw that.

More on the trail of nirvana



Early morning In Cabo after the mad rush of the fishermen.....

 


A wide open bay at Bahia Santa Maria......we danced at anchor.

 

leaving Cabo San Lucas on a flat, calm day...we motored 17 miles to heaven - San Jose Del Cabo.  Well, it was hot....but a delightful place.  The town is an historian's dream and an artist's colorny to boot. 

On the Bajahaha Trail of bruises, tensions, and beautiful bays

The Rally goes from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas.  We had everything from rain, hot sun and calm to some semi wild water and had to slow down near Cabo due to slipping alternator belt.  We were able to find a slip after we found a few boats in our assigned slip, and fell into a full nights slumber for the first time in days.  Well, not so full as a fishing tournament was underway and there is no limit to how fast anyone can go.....all umpteen of the fishing boats, rocking us into wakefulness.



sunset at sea



 

The Anchorage at Turtle Bay - a small fishing village that turned out to have turned out to be a major rip off from two years ago.  The beach party/potluck had the Grand Poobah yelliing at us to just take small portions.  We took a panga  to and from the boat - getting panga bits on the hull.  It was a wild ride into the estuary at full throttle...thru the surf - quite exciting.



The Best Little Marina Ever



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 Sun Harbor Marina had a computer/exercise/gathering room with wifi, computer and printer for resident andf guest use, as well as the most elegant  bathrooms I have ever seen.  We met a friend of a friend from Hawaii and called Barbara to tell that there was "history" in this rally.  Great restaurants nearby.  Linda came down and I got to stay across the street with her at the Best Western  - good thing as she organized the last of the shopping.  Horrible to leave friends behind!



Congestion and then some.....and sort of grim weather waiting for the start.



Our crew, Barbara, Frand and MacGregor.....



Our escort out of Point Loma Channel - he came awfully close at times - all 160 plus boats in the parade out the channel were doing their best to get out of the way.  We went out into rain, fell in some windless holes, had the autopilor act up but kept going, all nervous and uptight.  The stress of getting ready to go did not wear off easily for a few days and then we had the interpersonal stuff that seems to vitally important.  Egos belong somewhere else.  Ah.  Where is the glamour?



Frank on watch in unsettled first day weather.  We had three strange sailing days to Turtle Bay - dropped the anchor and went ashore, without dogs.  Had to do laundry.  I couldn't stand the noise and went back to the boat for some peace.  The land was rocking and rolling - so might as well stay aboard.  OUr dinner ashore was delicious but a major ripoff and a disappointment that the residents would talke advantage of the Baja fleet.

Summer of 2013

Remember when your teacher said to write a paper about what you did all summer?  Below is a synopsis  of our's.

 

 

 

Marina Village early one morning on the way out to fish with Steve.....

Steve's Boat - the Bald Eagle....from Alcatraz.  Great fishing boat, great skipper - we would put a hook down and always something would bite, including squid.  I found out that squid ink comes out of clothes...but tastes awful.  Anywhere from one to six squid would come up on a special hook arrangement, all shooting ink.  We would see Orcas, seals swimming in formation (honest), dolphins, sunfish....and always caught fish.

A boat tour around Newport Harbor:  Janice, Evan and Aaron .....we saw incredible huge yachts and some that were floating wigth divine help.  Windward Passage was moored across the bay, without a mast.  That boat has such Transpac history - my brother fell off it during a party at the Ala Wai - and he was wearing a blue tuxedo.  Lord, the 70s.

A short trip up to Edison Lake, at 8,000.  Con Ed was letting out so much water that we had to hike to the shore.  Thunder and lightning storms every afternoon:  hail covered the ground.  Our tent was so wet we slept in the van with wet dogs.

 

Sad scene.  A fire broke out across the lake, and we had a nervous night's sleep after the helicopters dumping water left it burning.  We went home.  Jim is selling the resort, no water in the lake, the damn place is burning down....who knows when we will get back there or when a snowpack will fill it again.

 

Mark came to visit - on the one of the happiest days in a long while.  He was put in charge of driving, docking, sailing...everything except cooking.  That may be Robert also at the helm - trying to read?????

We had a great sailmaker cut down one of our spinnakers in Mexico but never got to fly it....this was magic on little wind.  We were doing up to 6t plus knots with a 3knot breeze....I'O moves!