Welcome to ‘The Aquarium’

I just got whacked upside the head with an “I am a hypocrite,” moment.

For a long time I’ve been struggling with how to tell a story about our first encounter with a live coral reef on our Mexico sailing trip. Short of the obvious asinine adjectives of unreal, over-the-top, unbelievable, surreal, etc., I haven’t come up with a way to talk about  what I saw because there really wasn’t a story. We came, we snorkeled, we saw, we were impressed, we surfaced, we hefted ourselves into the dinghy and we left.

Not much of a story there, but the the beauty of what we saw at this place–aptly named ‘The Aquarium’–is worth more than a mention. We spent two hours suspended weightless above this bustling “sea society.” And I spent another three hours as a silent observer of the underwater world along a nearby rocky shore.

The first draft detailing our Tenecatita, Mexico snorkeling experience ended up more like me standing on a soapbox haranguing the negative impacts of mankind on the coral reefs of the world. Blah, blah, blah. Then challenging everyone to put on a mask and fins, stick their heads underwater and witness both live and dead coral reefs firsthand in order to fully understand this delicate ecosystem.

Gack. I think I just threw-up in my mouth after re-reading that. Enter the ‘whacked upside the head’ moment.

As much as I love words and stories, sometimes a video can make a bigger impact and create a longer-lasting impression.

To sum it up: there’s not many of these places left. And, to be honest, in all of our snorkeling experiences in Mexico thus far, this was the first time we saw live coral. Green and red coral do not carpet floors of the coastal waters where they once did. More often than not we see few to no fish and dead coral skeletons when we snorkel. Take a few minutes and see a paradise that we are all very close to losing, and think of one thing you can do in your own life to help save this world.

Buy me a beer and I’ll tell ya another story…this time about a crazy paddler I met.

Afraid of the dark? It’s the things that go bump in the morning

The question I get most is: “Do you ever get scared out there on the ocean?” Yes, I get scared. The next question usually is: “What’s the most scary thing that’s ever happened to you out there?” My answer: night.

After 32 years and a few thousand miles on the open sea, I am still afraid of the dark. It’s not so much the dark itself. Nighttime can be magical with the reflections of the moon and stars dancing on the water, and there have been times when I’ve lost count of the shooting stars flying across the sky. It’s what I can’t see that brings out the worst in me and my skipper.

But I’ve found that’s what vodka tonics, macaroni and cheese, and dolphins are for–a mellowing drink, some comfort food, and large animals to scare you out of bed in the morning.

The point at Chamela extending into the water. Note the barely visible rocks on the left of the image.

Using the wind to race the sun is a losing proposition. When the wind is at your back and you’re going with it, it’s called a “going downhill,” and we were on a terrific downhill sleigh ride in a 36-foot sled on our way to Chamela. The only problem was the fiery orange ball to our west was about to disappear over the horizon and the chart in my hands still showed us to be three hours from our destination.

We try our damnedest to not come into unknown anchorages at night, at least not anchorages with known adventure-ending submerged rocks. But sometimes our damnedest just isn’t good enough, and this was one of those nights.

The moon was a late riser and as much as other cruisers say, “use your radar,” radar doesn’t do a great job of painting the tips of pinnacle rocks that barely pierce the surface of the water. The navigator (me) must give a command performance with no margin for error and the skipper (Kevin) must trust the navigator if he wants his reward of a vodka tonic and a bowl of mac n’ cheese.

Big chunk of an island directly across from the submerged adventure-ending rocks. No lights on it at night and no marker bouts around it.

We don’t yell at each other when we’re scared. We use loud firm voices. Most of all we trust each other. Because it was pitch black and we didn’t have good line-of-sight points on land, we had to go with what we knew. We knew the depth in the middle of the entry is 95 feet deep. We knew to the right there’s a huge chunk of an island with sheer cliffs. We knew to the left there is a point of rock that extends out into the entry with the last rock just beneath the surface less than a quarter mile from the island at the right.

Kevin slowed the boat to a crawl abandoning his running joke of “hit something hard, I don’t want to limp away from this.” I stood next to the mast with my eyes straining to make out the island having memorized the depths on the chart.

“Depth?” I’d yell out. Kevin would respond. Ninety-five. Ninety. Eighty-five. Seventy. We passed through the danger-zone unscathed. We needed to make a 90-degree left turn when the depth hit 65 feet. Now all we had to do was not hit any other anchored boats who may have forgotten to turn on their anchor lights, and just nose Sunrise into about 30 feet of water and drop the hook.

Kevin ghosted the boat to a stop at 25 feet and the windlass spit down our anchor – a shiny 35-pounder with 50 feet of chain and about 100 feet of nylon rope. He backed down hard to set it deep in the sand.

“Made!” I yelled as the bow dipped as anchor set and the engine could no longer pull the boat in reverse. I practically skipped back to the cockpit and into the galley to liberate the vodka from the icebox. Kevin set our anchor drag alarm, which beeps if the boat moves more than its three-tenths of a mile allowance.

“Hell of an evening.” We toasted each other and dug into the gooey goodness of our macaroni and cheese. This vodka tonic chased by mac n’ cheese habit started when we first left on the adventure a couple thousand miles ago. Whenever we have a big accomplishment–finish a long crossing, set the anchor in the dark, etc.–our first meal comes from the Kraft box and the VT washes it down.

We went to bed shortly after that, exhausted.

A fish near the surface with one of the naughty dolphins below rubbing on our anchor line.

One of the many things you never want on a boat is to be woken up by the boat herking and jerking on its anchor. It’s when you feel that unnatural motion both of your eyes fly open and you say out loud, “What was that?!”

Before we could climb over each other to get out of bed, we heard what sounded like jacuzzi bubbles being turned on under the boat, and then the boat jerked hard again.

We dashed up on deck thinking the worst. It was just getting light and I was mumbling my Hail Mary mantra praying the boat wasn’t about to wash onto the beach. (Remember, we set the anchor in the dark and didn’t know the topography of the bottom…did it get deep fast or was it a gradual slope…were we close to the beach or farther out in the bay….did we drag and the alarm not go off?)

The boat was jerking more now and we both ran up to the bow to look at the anchor line. The water was crystal clear and we could see the anchor wedged in the sand 25 feet below. But between the anchor and the boil of bubbles coming up were five enormous dolphins all using our anchor chain and rope line as their own personal itching post.

This dolphin is rubbing his belly and soon after wrapped his tail in the line and pulled the boat sharply. The fish is still hanging out around the line too.

We were dumbfounded. I’ve seen dolphins thousands of times but never have I seen them rubbing their backs and their bellies on our anchor line. They weren’t spooked by us, the two hairless monkeys, hanging our bodies over the bow to get a better vantage point on the itching game. The dolphins dove and surfaced while keeping at least one part of their bodies touching the anchor line. They wrapped the slack of the anchor line around their tails and chased after their friends with our boat in tow – aha, that’s why we were herking and jerking!

Hours passed. I made breakfast, we ate, and still the dolphins towed us around and blew their bubbles. They seemed friendly so I decided to get in the water and swim with them. I put on my snorkel gear and dove deep down the anchor line. As soon as they saw me, they split, but the evidence of their hours of play was still fresh.

“Dolphins! Where are you?” Ceal tried to go swimming with pod, but they all disappeared. Note the clarity of the water!

Dolphins are known to be playful and mischievous. All those hours of rubbing the anchor line was no exception. I dove down and noticed they had started unravel the splice where our chain and nylon rope come together. They had also tried to untwist our three-strand rope in a couple places!

A little while later two ladies in kayaks paddled out to us.

“Are the dolphins still at your boat?” one of them asked? They had watched the tell-tale herking and jerking of our boat from their home on the shore and now they wanted to swim with the dolphins. We got out the binoculars and spotted the playful pod about a quarter mile away and the kayakers set off to meet up with them. Things quieted down after that, and the dolphins only yanked our chain a few more times that morning.

We spent the next few days anchored there in Chamela recovering from all the activity and wondering what would happen the next time we weighed anchor and set out toward the horizon. In all that wondering, we did know three things for sure: it would inevitably again get dark, there would be more vodka tonics, and I had four more boxes of macaroni and cheese in the pantry, but there were no promises from the dolphins.

With a tail slap and one last jacuzzi bubble blow, this dolphin was on his way. Adios amigo.

Like this “tail”? Buy me a beer and I’ll tell you another story.

Great escape from the Old Man Vortex a.k.a. Banderas Bay

The last straw came on a Thursday night, December 6. We were within hours of escaping the Old Man Vortex, and the girl at the fuel dock said “no tengo nada.” What? You’re the fuel dock, this is what you do, you’re open, you clearly are working at the fuel dock…how does a five-star marina with a fuel dock not have fuel?

When we returned to La Cruz de Huanacaxtle in mid-November, we wanted to be ready to exit Banderas Bay and the greater metropolitan Puerto Vallarta area for points south around Thanksgiving. But, instead, the Old Man Vortex–my alternate name for Banderas Bay–sucked us in for two weeks longer, and now no fuel. I was watching as our window for an necessary nighttime departure was closing. The fuel dock girl said she’d have fuel in the morning. That would mean an entire extra day of chomping at the bit.

Just about ready to leave the slip and head out to the La Cruz anchorage

“I gotta get out of here!” I told Kevin. “Get the jerry jugs off the deck and load the on the bike trailer. I’m riding to the gas station to fill them up.”

What drives someone to volunteer for the suicide mission of dragging 10 gallons of diesel and two gallons of unleaded behind a bicycle for two miles at night on a busy Mexican highway? The same rationale that causes someone to come up with derogatory nomenclature for a mostly benign body of water. The Old Man Vortex eventually grated on me. Hours of sitting on the bow of the boat in the blazing sun using an awl to sew our headsail and having to answer every old man who walked by and asked “Whatcha doin’?” Seeing an old men reinvent dinghy locomotion by using an umbrella as a sail. But, before all this there were a few enjoyable moments on the bay. Here’s how we spent some of our time before the great filling station escape.

Just after uttering a string of profanities that would make the saltiest of dogs blush, Ceal continues to sew hand-sew the headsail in 90+ degree weather.

After days of electronics repairs, Kevin and I were finally able to leave Marina Riviera Nayarit and set our hook in the nearby La Cruz anchorage. Moving the boat from a slip to anchor is much harder on the people than the vessel. The people forget about the constant motion of the ocean and have to re-learn daily activities, like cooking or sleeping, without a stable platform.

Our “sea legs” returned quickly and we decided to venture to the anchorages on the southern side of the bay.

The south side of Banderas Bay is positively tropical with coconut tree-lined beaches and verdant jungle-covered mountains. Its beauty is due partially to its remoteness. There’s a puebla (small town) on this side of the bay that just received electricity for the first time in the early 2000s. Unfortunately, for cruisers like us, there are very few places to anchor. The band of beach is just a brief intermission of the mountain and the water drops off from waist deep 10 feet off the shore plunging to 100-500 feet just beyond the shallows.

It took us several hours to sail toward Mismaloya, a location made famous by the frequenting of

The entrance to the narrow cove of Boca de Tomatlan.

Hollywood stars like Liz Taylor and Richard Burton following the filming of “Night of the Iguana.” Though the beach was gorgeous, it wasn’t a safe place to anchor the boat due to the large waves breaking on the beach. Instead we headed south and slowly nosed into a long, narrow cove called Boca de Tomatlan.

We were almost into the breaking waves on the shore at Boca before the depth sounder said 40 feet. I was supposed to be on rock patrol at my perch on the bow, but grew rather animated pointing toward the depths when the biggest Yellowfin Tuna–probably five-feet long and 100 pounds–I’ve ever seen came up to the surface. Did I mention I was supposed to be on rock patrol? Yeah…my wild gesturing nearly gave the skipper heart failure. Needless to say we spun the boat around and got out of the tiny cove, and I learned that pointing out rocks is much more important than pointing out tuna if there is no fishing gear in the water.

The tranquil anchorage of La Cruz at sunset.

After a fruitless search for anchorage at Las Animas and Quimixto, we defaulted to our plan to go to Los Arcos. We had heard there were mooring balls at the famous sea cave location just outside of Puerto Vallarta and in spite of the swell that was coming in we thought we’d be somewhat protected on a mooring. For those wondering, the sea caves are beautiful and the snorkeling is excellent. What is not excellent is being on a mooring and bouncing like a bobber in the waves. Sometime before midnight, both of us green, Kevin dropped the mooring line and I motored us as fast as our little 24-horse power engine would go back to the calm waters of La Cruz.

The next day we did find what we were looking for – that deserted beach, crystal clear water in a

Paradise found. Crystal-clear water and a white sand beach. That’s Sunrise at anchor in 20 feet of water.

private cove with an acceptable anchorage. There’s no name for this place, other than paradise, and we spent the day rubbing our boat’s belly (cleaning the bottom), playing in the waves, and finding beach treasure. The cove is located about halfway between La Cruz and Punta de Mita on the northern side of the bay.

The surf came up a couple days later and we got to do one of our favorite things: anchor the boat, jump off its bow with our surfboards, and paddle into the surf break at Punta de Mita. Anchoring out at Mita is very cool, but even its coolness does not exclude it from the clutches of the Old Man Vortex. It was here where we were treated to the old man in action using a beach umbrella to power a dinghy.

Old man using an umbrella to power the dingy at Punta de Mita.

If we were looking for a sign that it was time to put Banderas Bay to our stern, the umbrella-powered dinghy was it. We’d seen and heard enough–more than I’m even coming close to explaining here–that made riding a bike overloaded with flammable substances seem like a reasonable and rational decision.

Soon after the fuel haul, we were underway. We rounded Cabo Corrientes, the southern boundary of the Old Man Vortex, sometime around 3 a.m. The sun peaked over the Sierra Madre mountains a few hours later, and Sunrise was well on her way to taking us into the next chapter of our southbound journey – far away from Banderas Bay and on to Mexico’s Costalegre.

Buy me a beer and I’ll tell a story about being woken up by dolphins and swimming with them.

The dog ate my computer in Barra de Navidad

Rosalie. An adventurer. A philanthropist. A friend.

Rosalie on Dawn Patrol at Playa Saladita.

The first time I spotted Rosalie, the sun hadn’t gotten up yet. Surfers call it Dawn Patrol, the 30 or so precious minutes of gray light before the sunrise. We were at Playa Saladita, a semi-remote surf riders paradise in southern Mexico.

There are small few of us females that can be found frolicking like Gidget, and I felt a twinge of excitement as I paddled toward Rosalie. She was sitting in the line-up with her florescent zinc-oxide sunscreen on and her Mexican surf instructor nearby.

Meeting new friends at age 30-plus is nothing like the playground days of yore: walk up to a peer attempting to set a record on the swings and then shyly asking, “Wanna be my friend?” No, these days it’s a cautious dance of “how’s it going?” or “how long you gonna be here?” etc, etc.

Rosalie is  from the  “still waters run extremely deep” tribe, and from the minute we met, I knew there was much more to her story than just a random Gringa catching waves in before the sun came up.

We exchanged small talk and pleasantries for several days until it was time for me to fly back to los Estados Unidos. I gave her my email address and hoped she would write. She was fascinating to me.

Rosalie ripping a wave.

She did write. From snowy New York City, her home at the time, I received her first message upon arriving, by sailboat, into Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was the first time I’d been able to check email in more than two weeks. Oddly enough, she was going through a “break-up” with her life much like the one I had just been through. Should she take off for a year or so and surf in Mexico? Should she take a leave an absence from her career?  Writing is a glorious form of communication because it allows two people to build a friendship quickly.

I am a bad influence but a good friend. Yes, you should leave your very-high-up-the-art-world-food-chain career in New York City (please note that I have no idea how awesome Rosalie is because I have resisted “Googling” her, but our mutual Texan friend has, and all he can do is say, ‘oh yeah, she’s major league in the art world.’) And, of course you should move to Mexico to surf, and then, by all means, you should come to visit us at our place in Maui, too.

It’s not all of my doing, but you know what? She did it. We wrote extensively through it all until the day Kevin and I picked her up in our borrowed pick-up truck at the Kahului Airport in Maui. That’s when I knew, for reals, that Rosalie is much more than a chick in the Dawn Patrol surf session.

When you’re trying to dig, but not be too obvious about it you have to take lots of mental notes. One of the things that Rosalie referred to randomly was volunteer work she had done in Kenya. My journalistic radar turned on and the satellites linked up when she talked about Africa. Here was something much more than meets the eye.

I was right. In mid-November, just before Kevin and I left to return to Mexico, we cozied up around Rosalie’s dining room table and she told us about Kenya.

What started as an escape from the holiday doldrums–that two week stretch from pre-Christmas to post New Year’s Day–turned into a years long relationship with eight orphans in a remote Kenyan village for Rosalie.

Four years ago, she arrived as a single, white woman on a night flight into Nairobi, Kenya. Rosalie’s journey had been arranged through a handler, who had never before been to the village or orphanage where he was sending Rosalie. There, in the darkness, a Kenyan man was at the airport to pick up Rosalie insisting that he take her to his apartment because it was too late to leave for the remote village.

Children overlooking the remote village of Tumaini in Kenya.

Rosalie went with the man. All the fears you’re likely thinking right now – rape, kidnapping, human trafficking, were all going through her head at the time, but she trusted him. They went to his apartment where she stayed a restless night in a room with two of the man’s female relatives.

It took a day by bus from Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, to make it to Kakamega, the crossroads that led to the village. After the bus ride it was a 45-minute ride by matatu to Kakoi Corner, then a 20 minute minute walk into Tumaini, the location of the orphanage. There was no electricity. There was no indoor plumbing.

That’s when Rosalie met Rose, the founder of the orphanage and school in the village.

Children at the Tumaini village.

At this point in the story, Rosalie brought out her computer and dozens of pictures. The children of the village filled in the blanks of the story. Their large, deep brown eyes, and buzzed haircuts said it all. I wanted to reach into her computer screen and hug each one of them. I started to cry. I saw Kevin’s eyes start to water and Rosalie began to tell us more.

She told us about the kids who would ham for her attention saying, “Tee-cha! Tee-cha!” as she sat in to teach a class at the local school. She told us she read a story about Martin Luther King Jr. to the children and they didn’t understand why he was such a big deal to African Americans because they –thank goodness–had never experienced the racism that once had gripped the United States. They believed that MLK Jr. was actually a king.

Rosalie showed us a picture of her holding a little girl who hadn’t said anything since being brought to the orphanage. And then there was the little boy, HIV-positive, whose eyes said it all at the moment the camera happened to capture.

It is a heavy reality, but it is lightened by the love and life the children breathe into the world at the school and orphanage. Rosalie has been back to Tumaini four times in the past four years. She’s given all the money it took to build a police station/jail, which is called Rosalie House. She has raised funds to build seventh and eighth grade classrooms. Her friends have helped with funds to continue to build the school and orphanage. Rosalie hopes that some day there will be enough money to build the children a library.

Rosalie and children at the ‘Rosalie House.’

Rosalie is planning to go to Tumaini, Kenya again around Easter 2013 to work with Rose and do the very important work of spending one-on-one time with the children. Never underestimate the power of hugs and human touch.

Shortly after we had seen Rosalie’s pictures of the Kenyan children and we had said our goodnights, I laid awake in bed thinking about those images and the suitcases of stories each of those children brought with them to the orphanage. I was moved. Meeting Rosalie was much more than another chick in the surf break, her volunteer work resonated within me.

It’s interesting in a round-about-way how a chance meeting with a stranger in a foreign country can carry enough weight to change your lifetime itinerary. Before meeting Rosalie, I had written all of Africa off to Somalian pirates and post-Apartheid provisional zones. You couldn’t have gotten me to even think about venturing to the continent. But now, after hearing Rosalie’s stories and the work she has done, I can’t wait for my opportunity to join her there.

One-size does not fit all when it comes to defining an adventurer. Had I not taken a few minutes between waves, I would have never known that New York Rosalie was actually a keen adventurer and life-changing philanthropist on another continent. I treasure my friendship with her, and am reminded by it, daily, to always reach out to new people. You  never know how or when they may change your life.

I won’t be asking for a beer on this one, but rather, a donation for the children of Tumaini…see below. 

Rose Bugusu, the Tumaini orphanage founder, with Ble.

If you’re interested in learning more about Tumaini, Rose Bugusu (the founder of the orphanage) has set up a page with Global Giving and has an opportunity to have a permanent page on their website if she’s able to raise $5,000 total through a minimum of 40 people before Dec. 31, 2012. <http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/educate-aids-orphans-in-africa/>

Global Giving <www.globalgiving.org> is a US based non profit that accepts donation money for international charitable organizations. It allows people in the US to easily donate money online by credit card or paypal and get a tax deduction. 

If the $5,000 goal is met, Global Giving will give a permanent page to Tumaini on their website, which will mean there will be greater visibility on what donated funds are being used for in Tumaini and Global Giving will issue regular updates on fundraising progress.

Finding a BODY and enjoying endangered species soup

Note from Ceal: We visited the Matachen area in January 2012. I’m all about being real, but sometimes I’m chicken. I didn’t want to publish this until enough time had passed, and we were far enough away that I was sure the good citizens of San Blas wouldn’t take up pitchforks and torches to find me and cut off my arms and call it a suicide for printing the good, the bad, and the ugly truth about eating endangered species and loving it.

The flotsam didn’t have arms, but it was wearing underpants. There were crocodiles. The ice cream truck drove on the beach continuously playing an earworm-worthy version of Alley Cat. Kevin stuck his head in a 1700s canon while at a historic Spanish fort. And, who knew sopa de tortuga would taste like pork of the sea?

Hello Lumpy! This fence is keeping me from being dinner.

Yet for some reason, from the beginning, I loved this place.

Remember the scene in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl when Captain Jack Sparrow says, “Tortuga.” and Mr. Gibbs lights up as he repeats, “Torrrtuugaaa!” and then all hell breaks loose? That’s most of what you need to know about San Blas and Matanchen Bay.

Matanchen and San Blas, in the state of Nayarit, Mexico, aren’t going to appear in the bold print of Fodor’s Travel Guides or The Lonely Planet guidebooks, but if you happen to be within 100 miles or so, they’re worth a visit. San Blas is about 100 miles north of Puerto Vallerta on Mexico’s Pacific coast.

We didn’t find any fancy-white-napkin restaurants (we weren’t looking very hard), but did find amazing camerones (Spanish word for shrimp) and ice cold beer at Ricardo’s El Calamar restaurant. Red Lobster’s Endless Shrimp is like a limp-fish handshake compared to the menu at Ricardo’s beachside haunt near Matanchen village.

Dinner at El Calamar Restaurant in Matanchen Bay. Ricardo’s shrimp are the best!

The restaurant itself is a simple place: plastic chairs and tables with bright plaid table cloths. The entire structure is lean-to style open-air palapa made of tree branches and palm fronds. There’s a cinder block hearth fueled by propane, and that’s where they pound and cook the freshest tortillas I’ve ever had. Typically I’m skeptical of establishments that lack running water, restrooms and refrigeration, but I made a week’s worth of exceptions for Ricardo’s shrimp creations.

Spending less than $15 on a dinner for two–plus multiple beers–never tasted better. Empanadas, camerones rancheros, you name it, Ricardo could make it. Best of all the shrimp were uber fresh–the guys were netting them just off the shore in front of the restaurant!

Then came the endangered species soup.

One of the things Mexicans do well is making you feel welcome, and, in this case, part of the family. Ricardo’s family was celebrating his father’s birthday and one of the “special meals” his father requested was sea turtle soup. Once I got over gut-wrenching guilt that wafted from the steaming bowl set in front of me, it turned out endangered species soup is pretty darn tasty. Maybe that’s why they’re endangered?

This restaurant also was the location of the earworm incident – take a listen.

Matanchen does two things, shrimp and banana bread. Really, that’s all. The main village of Matanchen has no less than a dozen stores/bakeries and all those places sell is banana bread. No doubt the bread’s a delicious and sweet treat, but don’t even think of trying to buy the bananas they have hanging near the counter. They won’t sell them to you. Apparently it’s more profitable to put the bananas into the bread than to sell them to a fruit craving gringo.

The freshwater spring swimming hole. Just beyond Lumpy awaits.

Less than 10 miles from Matanchen is the town of San Blas, population 8,700. The road to get there traverses mangroves that surrounding the entire area. We were on bicycles riding from Matanchen to San Blas and had a close up view of the prime crocodile habitat. Later we paid for a mangrove tour that showed us just how many lumpy reptiles were lurking. Apparently, after that, I felt confident enough to swim in the La Tovara springs feeding the mangroves. I know, sounds crazy now, doesn’t it? But, there was a rusty, half-immersed chain link fence to keep the crocodiles, caymens, and huge snapping turtles at bay. Totally legit, honest.

There’s something special about San Blas. The now aged and weathered cathedral bordering one side of the town’s square once inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem The Bells of San Blas. The town was founded in the 1500s, but the fort, cathedral and Spanish-styled cobbled streets were built in the mid to late 1700s. The 200-plus year-old structures look better than most of the town’s more recent construction. Cinder blocks and corrugated steel are no match to hand carved stone.

Kevin has the closest thing to a religious experience – standing in a 200-some year-old cathedral in San Blas.

In all fairness, San Blas has been battered by more than its share of hurricanes and tropical storms over the years. It’s not a wealthy area. Insurance claims are unheard of for most, so affordable and available building products are the only option. Evidence of the heavy storm damage is obvious along the harbor where fishing and shrimp boats sit half sunken and rusting in the Rio Grande de Santiago.

There’s some crime. Obviously, as We did find a body floating face down in Matanchen Bay. (More on that in my upcoming book.) The cops ruled the death a suicide. I’m thinking that makes complete sense since the Juan Doe was missing his arms and his ankles were bound. Most folks cut off their own arms and bind their feet before calling it quits. Kevin is convinced the Doe’s actions were a cry for help.

Beyond the body, not being stupid is enough to keep you safe here. Common rules of thumb apply: if it looks sketchy, it probably is. Would you go out alone at night and explore dark alleys in the United States? Same applies in Mexico. We did go out once at night in San Blas. The town square was hopping with the Celebration of the Migratory Birds. The senorita we heard singing blew the doors off anyone I’ve seen on the X Factor. We enjoyed ice cream cones with a handful of other gringos (this is not a tourist destination) before calling it a night. It was our bike ride back to the marina that made the hair stand up on the back of our necks. We sprinted through the places devoid of street lamps with questionable characters lurking in the shadows. Not a good place to ask for directions.

Notice the sunken fishing boats near the floating ones. Hurricanes are attracted to this area.

Perhaps the best characterization given to San Blas, that I heard, came from one of the snowbirds from Indiana I met who has been wintering there for past seven years.

“It’s like going back to the 1950s,” she said. “The are dirt roads in the town. People drive old cars, and on Sunday’s there’s a flea market where they sell clothes by the pound and you can find things like used blender parts.”

I don’t know about the used blender parts and clothes by the pound, but she’s right about it kind of stepping back in time. That, and to me it will always be a little like a pirate town. All good visits do come to and end point, and when it was time for us to leave it was only because we knew there were more places like San Blas and Matanchen to set sail for and discover.

Like this tale? Throw a handful of change in my tip jar and I’ll tell ya another!

Yeah, I said ‘poop more’ in my blog post

You can throw away those diet pills and that high protein, low carb mumbo jumbo. Here are the steps to weight-loss success: Get your ass to Mexico, move more, eat more fresh food, and finally, poop more. Yeah, I said poop more.

I spent a couple hours unpacking when we arrived in Mexico a week ago. There were a few pairs of shorts I’d left on the boat back in March, so I figured I’d try them on just to make sure I hadn’t grown. After some wiggling, I realized the age 30-plus widening fairy had visited during my absence. And, in case you’re wondering, that little Tinkerbell of a fairy left me shorts that were a bit snug.

Kevin appreciates the the convenience of a cleverly labeled bathroom.

Fortunately, I know the secret of shrinking a size 10 moneymaker to an eight in less than a week. Tight shorts and the fairy who brought them be damned…street food, here I come. Time to welcome “the bugs” to my system and let the walking begin. (Steps one, two, and three of the program on the first day! All right!)

It must be explained that walking ANYWHERE from where our boat is currently moored is a big hike. Just to give some reference–for my west Michigan friends, it’s the equivalent of walking from one end of the Grand Haven pier to the other…for my Midland-Bay City friends, it’s the same as parking at the Tridge and walking down the Rail Trail to the first street crossing…for my Ventura friends, it’s like walking from Eric Ericsons down to the river mouth…for my Hawaii friends, it’s our house to Sack n’ Save. Any way you slice it, you’re hoofing it!

We walked to “Tacos on the Street.” Yes, that is the name of the place. And, yes, it’s really on the street. The tia (that’s auntie for you non-Spanish speakers) who owns the establishment puts out plastic chairs and tables on the street in front of her house in the evening. She hauls a giant propane cylinder out to the street and hooks it up to a hot, flat cooktop and a huge single burner. The hot cooktop is where she throws the fresh tortillas and on the burner there’s a 2-foot wide skillet with carne asada and pollo simmering.

The tia doesn’t speak a lick of English, so wild gesturing and my attempt at Spanish is all we have to work with. Two tacos for each of us with everything – fresh onions, cilantro, and a dash of frioles on the top. The tacos are served to us on plates covered with clear plastic bags like the ones you see in the produce section at the grocery store (tia figured out how to make clean up a snap). There’s no running water at this establishment, and though the food is excellent, I know within hours I’ll be on my way to step four of the weight-loss program.

It’s important to note that getting the bugs in you in a controlled fashion is key. I know that two tacos and no hand-washing facilities is just the right amount of bugs for my intestines. Kevin has experienced too much of the bugs at one time, which, unfortunately, spurred his weight loss into an unsustainable realm.

It was last March right before we left to head back to the US. The last piece of tuna sashimi was all that remained (fyi, it’s always the last piece of sashimi, never volunteer to eat it).

“I’m not eating that, it looks funny to me,” I said.

Sashimi isn’t just for the birds.

Kevin disagreed and a few hours later the last piece of sashimi disagreed with him, for days. The term we used was “pissing out the ass.” The worst part was that we had a flight back to the US right in the middle of this mess. We didn’t realize it at the time but apparently him using the bathroom 25 times before our flight set off a red flag for security. With a very colorful game of charades–which including pointing at his rear and saying to an armed security official, “Mi pendejo es muy Mal! Pescado mal!” Kevin was able to dissuade them from a full cavity search.

Choose the “eat more” portion of the weight-loss program wisely otherwise you might be in for too much of the “poop more” step.

On our way back from Tacos on the Street, my guts began to grumble and gurgle. By the time we got back to the boat there was hand-to-hand combat between the US bugs and the fiesta crashing Mexican bugs in my belly. The rowdiness of the bugs can cause impressive gas, and, make no mistake, this is no time to question the state of matter said rowdiness may manifest itself. A fart might actually be a shart…go with your instincts, grab your rear, and know where your nearest baño is located.

Know the location of the bathroom at all times. It might be a concrete-block hovel on the beach, but it is a usable location.

That was more than a week ago, and I’m happy to report the Mexican and American bugs have learned to peacefully coexist. I’m buying veggies and fruits from the street vendors and consuming them with no trouble, I’ve walked more in a week than I have in the past two months combined, and those shorts I left back on the boat in March – they now fit perfectly.

Bottom line: give Mexico a chance and weight loss is a surefire result. A trip here will put that tight shorts leaving fairy out of business for at least a couple of months!

Like the story? Buy me a beer (or in this case a Mylanta) and I’ll tell you another soon.

Estamos en Mexico, es todo bien

That great whooshing sound you may have heard earlier today was an exhale of relief from each of us. We made it back to our sailboat in Mexico AND it was still floating. We left Sunrise for seven months. There was some dust, some of the “non-perishable” food proved fallible, and our ‘Merican flag has faded – but overall everything stood the test of time and some tropical storms.

We spent today getting familiar with our surroundings. Good news, I’ve only slammed my head into things two or three times so far, and we’re quickly getting reacquainted with the toe-stubbers on deck we used to subconsciously navigate.

Looking aft toward the mountains from Sunrise’s cockpit.

The view from our cockpit is 180 degrees of lush, fuzzy looking coastal mountains. A quick trip into the town of La Cruz Huanacaxtle and we found a dentist (actually la dentist) and a new place to change some dollars into pesos…speaking of pesos…it’s about time to trade a few of those for ice-cold Pacificos at happy hour.

Thanks for all the well wishes and good thoughts. It’s great to be at home on our boat. Let the adventure continue! More posts soon, I promise.

Ceal and Kevin

We’re home! Just woke up and ready to start organizing and cleaning inside the belly of the beast.

The itinerary for Always GO

A ticket to the world is borderless. It takes imagination, like seeing shapes in puffy clouds no one else can recognize, to come up with a new idea for an adventure. Ideas form and multiply. Tickets are issued. Only a few check-in for the journey of their dreams.

But those few, fellow intrepid adventurers are out there. They’re the ones who have kayaked from the a river to its confluence with the Atlantic Ocean, or who have ridden a tandem bicycle, solo, picking up stokers from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. When we cross paths it’s like meeting an old friend – a member of the tribe. We swap stories, talk of future plans, and draw inspiration from each other for the next epic journey.

Since my first day under the florescent lights in the cube farm, I’ve been taken—and probably propelled by—the stories about real people who did real things and discovered places beyond the zona de turistica. The chemistry of an entire group changes when an adventurer begins to speak; people give their texting thumbs a rest and no one shifts restlessly in their seat.

Always GO, never regret is talking story about the what, why, and how that pushes fellow adventurers to the top of the peak or over the horizon. Along with these stories, I’ll include bits and pieces of my journey with Kevin aboard our 36-foot sailboat.

Allow these posts about about real people on real adventures take you to new places. Look at the clouds. Come up with your own ticket. And, no matter what, Always GO.

Ceal Potts at the helm of s/v Sunrise somewhere off the Pacific Coast of the Baja Peninsula.