March 23nd – La Cruz – Jim’s Blog #35

Happy Easter!

We got up early on Thursday morning to take advantage of what was supposed to be a two-day moratorium on wind and waves in order to get around Cabo Corrientes in peaceful conditions. We broke up the 100-mile trip into two 50-mile segments, and had a leisurely day of motoring north to the small anchorage of Ipala for the first 50 miles. Morningstar was also heading north; so we motored behind them for the day, and passed several sailboats heading south with all their sails flying to take advantage of the gentle wind. Naturally we had the wind on our nose; so we had to waste fuel to make it to our destination. I was beginning to believe the cruiser who said he had decided to get rid of his fancy navigation equipment, because he found that all he had to do was point the nose of his boat into the wind and he would get where he was going. This contrariness of the wind has been with us for at least the last two months.

We got to Ipala and heard the same raucous music coming from the palapa where we had consumed so many oysters-on-the-half-shell back in January – those had me sidelined for a couple of days; so I was determined not to try them again. We decided not to go ashore, but to get a good rest and be ready to round Cabo Corrientes early in the morning in case wind came up that wasn’t predicted. I had a splitting headache by the end of the day and all sorts of concerns about what might be causing it. Sheilagh began to worry about how she would handle me and the boat if I suddenly developed a cerebral hemorrhage – naturally we always fear the worst. That night I finally got my head to stop throbbing with a large dose of aspirin and an ice pack all over my head. In the morning I was fine.

As we headed out of Ipala for La Cruz, we had the same calm sea as we had had the previous day. As I looked around the flat, shining surface of the ocean, I suddenly had a small dose of the pain I had experienced the previous day. Sheilagh noticed that I was constantly squinting against the sunlight, even with dark glasses on. I made an effort all day to stop squinting, and I avoided gazing into the glinting sunlight all around us except to check out the horizon every 15 minutes or so for possible traffic. As a result I did not have a recurrence of the headache, and we could put the cerebral hemorrhage fear to rest.

Cabo Corrientes, which I described in an earlier blog as a cape where two water masses and two air masses meet, was supposed to be flat calm on Friday morning. We got up at 7AM, away at 8AM, and had planned to round Cabo Corrientes at 10AM, before any winds might spring up caused by the heating of the land. Apparently Cabo Corrientes hadn’t heard the weather prediction, because we encountered increasing winds and swells just an hour away from Ipala and an hour away from the cape. The wind increased to 20-25 knots and the swells rose to 4-6’, giving our boat a constant shower of salty water as we closed on the cape. We were letting the autopilot guide the boat as we sat warm and dry under the dodger (a fiberglass covering over the hatch and extending back into the cockpit that keeps rain and wind out of the hatchway). Occasionally we stood up, peered over the top of the dodger, and kept a lookout for any traffic we might encounter.

We fought the currents and winds for the hour prior to the cape and an hour after passing it, and then the wind died to 5-10 knots as we came under the influence of the bay winds and waves. Within another hour the wind had increased to 15-20 knots from a direction that allowed us to raise our sails and turn off our engine, while making the same speed over the water. From there the wind died again just as we got to the anchorage; so it was easy to set the anchor and break out the beers to celebrate another completed passage.

Over the past two weeks we had depleted our stores of fresh meat and vegetables, while accumulating a large supply of dirty laundry; so we were motivated to get the dinghy in the water and get some chores completed on shore. The laundry charged 11 pesos per kilo, so it cost us 90 pesos (about $9) for 8 kilos of laundry that were washed, dried, folded, and sealed in clear plastic by noon on Saturday. We also took a local bus to the Mega store a few miles up the road and replenished our supplies. While in the store we caught up with another couple, Lyman and Terry of Sans Cle, whom we had met at La Paz. Like them, several of the cruisers we had met in La Paz at Thanksgiving spent a lot of time in the Sea of Cortez with the idea of heading for Panama about this time to miss the hurricane season north of there.

On Holy Saturday we checked out a restaurant we had heard about, La Reve, which was also an outlet for Huichol Indian beadwork, and later had dinner there along with two other couples, Ed and Cornelia of A Cappella and Jim and Susan of Windward Bound. They will both be in the Sea of Cortez with us this summer. The featured entertainment was live Flamenco music by three young guitarists, whose CD we picked up because their music was so enjoyable. Later we wandered down to the center of town where there was a small carnival in action with the whole town present. In fact the whole town had been celebrating spring break all week, with crowds of tourists and townsfolk crowding the beaches and enjoying the nightlife.

I have to admit that I’ve been surprised at the Mexican approach to Lent, at least the part of Mexico I have seen on this trip. I thought that a predominantly Catholic country would take Lent seriously, keeping things low key from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. Instead I noticed that the Mardi Gras celebration in Zihuatanejo ran from the Monday before Ash Wednesday to the end of the week, effectively shortening the Lenten period by about 4 days on the front end. Then in La Cruz the celebrations have been happening from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday, shortening Lent by another 6 days or so. As a result, the Lenten period has been closer to 30 days than the traditional 40. Of course this could just be the case that we have been visiting tourist-centered vacation locales, and the idea of fasting and prayer during the 40-day period leading up to Easter is just not good for business.

On Sunday I went to Mass at the local Mexican church in town, which was packed at 11AM by both local people and some cruisers. I could follow most of the Mass, knowing both the Latin and English responses from several years of experience. However, I was lost when the singing started, since there were no copies of the songs being sung that I could read, and I caught very little of the sermon with my limited Spanish vocabulary. I did catch words to the effect that the congregation should not just attend Mass at Easter and Christmas, but should be coming every week – a sermon that is fairly standard for holiday services in the States.

No Easter Eggs or candy this year, since we are away from the grandchildren this Easter. However, it is still our plan to be back in the U.S. from April 7th to the 28th. We will be visiting several locations including San Diego, Lake of the Pines (above Sacramento and Auburn), San Jose, and Los Angeles – connecting with three daughters and their husbands or significant others, four grandchildren, and assorted siblings. At the same time we have a long list of equipment and supplies we need for the boat that cannot be found in Mexico; so we will be spending some time scrounging hardware stores, marine supplies, drug stores and grocery stores. I only hope we can get it all back into Mexico with minimum fuss at the border. More Later . . .