A sunset while we are underwayHappy New Year to everyone who reads this blog! We spent the evening with several cruising friends, enjoying chili (on the dock) next to “Serendipity,” Alan and Rosie’s boat docked next to ours in Paradise Village. Joining us were Bill and Colleen of “Captain George Thomas,” Ralph and Helen of “Moon Wanderer,” Hank and Betsy (with daughter Jennifer) of “Equinox,” David and Betty Lou of “Decade Dance,” and Diane and Les of “Gemini.” After the chili we grabbed some bottles of champagne and light jackets, and walked to the beach side of the resort to watch the fireworks.
At midnight we got to enjoy fireworks from around the bay – from Punta de Mita (20 miles away to the northwest), from La Cruz and Bucerias (5-10 miles away to the north), overhead at Paradise Village, close at hand from other local hotels, and downtown at Puerto Vallarta (about 8 miles to the south). Since midnight is well past the time for cruisers to be in bed, it took a valiant effort to stay up past 9PM, but we gutted it out, consumed our share of champagne, and made it back to the boat by 1AM.
Earlier in the week we took a walk to look at some of the larger yachts at the larger docks. There was one large schooner, named “Selym,” which was about 100’ in length and had beautifully-maintained wood trim all around. The boat absolutely glistened in the setting sun and the marina lights. As we inspected it carefully, a young woman came to the side of the boat and invited us aboard. It turned out that Jessica, the woman who invited us aboard, and her husband, Steve, were caretakers of the boat and had been doing so for some 13 years. They sail the boat to various places around the world where the Portuguese owner joins them, bringing a retinue of family and friends.
Sheilagh in our engine room with little room to workIt has four main cabins, each with two single beds and its own bathroom with a toilet and a bidet, not to mention bookcases, night stands with lamps fastened down, and a closet. The engine room is so large one can walk around in it and have access to all the equipment – a far cry from our situation, where Sheilagh is usually chosen to perform “boat yoga” to get to a particular part of the engine, the water-maker, the inverter, the battery charger, or any of the wiring that supports all those pieces of equipment. The crew’s quarters in the front were quite a bit smaller with shared bathroom facilities. The boat was designed so the owner and his guests never have to be exposed to the crew’s quarters, the engine room, or the kitchen. Naturally the kitchen has institution-sized appliances and plenty of room to work in.
At first glance it seems as if this would definitely be the good life, but it’s not something someone could do and raise children at the same time. They also mentioned that the wood trim takes constant attention – causing them to start the sanding and varnishing process all over again as soon as they have completed all the trim on the boat. They mention having gone “around the horn” and having had to completely redo the wood trim, since the damage by wind and waves made an 18-day trip look like a 6-month voyage. They also said that they have taken the boat north to Alaska and found it not only cold, but difficult to find the right temperature to do varnishing on the boat. Imagine having your life tied to the maintenance of wood trim on a boat! Thankfully almost all of Aurora’s woodwork is on the inside of the boat and is oiled rather than varnished; so we have very little varnishing to do.
On the 1st of January we sailed out of the Paradise Village Marina and back to La Cruz to prepare the boat for going south. We had a leisurely sail to the La Cruz anchorage and found ourselves one of about 40 boats there. On the way over we saw a cluster of boats surrounding a very large whale, which was slapping its tail repeatedly on the water before finally submerging. This is prime whale-watching season in Banderas Bay, and there don’t seem to be any rules about not hassling the whales as there are in the U.S. There a motor vessel cannot get within 100 yards of a whale and is not supposed to turn towards it. Here, a sighting immediately causes wakes to appear behind all the motor boats as they try to get as close as possible for the benefit of the tourists. Thinking of that tail smacking down on the water repeatedly gives me second thoughts about approaching a whale too closely. We want to keep our boat in one piece.
The main reason for the move to the La Cruz anchorage was to clean the bottom of the boat and the propeller after a month of no sailing or motoring activity. We’re very glad we did because the barnacles were thick all over the bottom of the boat. It’s amazing that the propeller could move us at all, as there were barnacles on both faces of all three propeller blades. As I scraped the bottom, sending hundreds of barnacles to the depths, a school of medium-sized yellow-fin tuna circled below me enjoying a feast. If we still had our Mexican fishing licenses and any desire to slaughter fish, we would have had no trouble doing so.
As I was taking my nap today I flashed back on the innumerable naps I took while laboring in the business world. I am one of those individuals who needs a 20-minute nap to be sharp for the afternoon; so I made it a practice to have a half-hour lunch with my co-workers, and then steal away “on personal business” in my car for a nap during the second half hour. I would find the same shady parking spots as others of my kind – usually library, church, or empty office parking lots – lean the car seat back, and nap for 20 minutes. If I didn’t have that kind of “power nap” I would be foggy in the brain all afternoon, reading the same words over and over and writing notes that I couldn’t read later.
Since I traveled a lot, spending several months at a client site, I used to take the rental car out and find a new spot or two for napping during the duration of the project. I now have favorite spots in Toledo, Ohio, Los Angeles, California, Phoenix, Arizona, and many more locales throughout the U.S. where I could take a nap in my car in relative peace and quiet and shade. The most difficult times for me were with those clients where I had to forgo the rental car, or park the car in a valet lot downtown where I couldn’t get to the car at noon. So in San Francisco and Seattle I found shady benches where I could doze sitting up, with one arm on an arm rest and my head on that hand. That was also a favorite way to wait for airplanes in air terminals, although I once missed a connection in Dallas by sleeping through all the calls for boarding.
So here I am in a country that considers siestas an essential part of each day, with most businesses and schools closed between 1 and 3PM. Now I can take a nap without having to hide it, and that is one of the true pleasures of this retirement lifestyle for me. However, I remember as a boy watching my dad waste Saturday and Sunday afternoons napping, when he could have been enjoying the day as we kids did. So much for changing value systems!
This next week we will be heading south to Ipala, Chamela, Tenacatita, and Barra de Navidad, and we’ll update you on our progress. More later . . .
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