February 20th (2009) – Barra de Navidad – Jim’s Blog #80

Current Location – Barra de Navidad – Lat: 19°11.42’ N / Long: 104°40.45’ W

[Be sure to check out the new pictures added to the blog of February 13th. I also corrected the name of the drink to "Michelada" at the advice of my youngest daughter who had heard of this drink, but not the one I mentioned originally. ]

Starting to pull in the net from the water onto the sand

We left the “Santiago” anchorage for the Las Hadas anchorage (Lat: 19°06’ N / Long: 104°21’ W), which is just around the corner of the same Santiago Bay. But before we went, I took my kayak into the beach with the camera in a Ziploc bag to get some pictures of some fishermen bringing in a net from shore. They do this every few days, starting at a point just a hundred yards off our boat. They bring the net out in a panga and drop the scoop end near a buoy that stays moored to the bottom. Two divers position the net and stay with the scoop end as it is being hauled in. Eight to ten additional fisherman grab the ends of two lines that are brought to shore by the panga and begin hour-long pull of the net into the beach.

Retrieving the net and pulling it up on shore

The pullers start out pulling with their hands and bring the net in step by step in concert with the wave action. Floats along the upper edge of the net keep it suspended, and rocks on the lower edge of the net keep it dragging against the bottom. As the net is pulled closer to shore it becomes heavier with fish and the pullers lock themselves into the lines and creep slowly backwards until the last one in line unfastens himself and runs down to the edge of the water to lock in again and continue pulling backwards. It’s fascinating to watch; so a crowd usually congregates, with some of the male visitors stepping in to help pull. Usually these individuals are showing off for their girl friends and seem to cause more trouble than help.

Sorting out the fish (notice all the round spiny anemones) and the people gathered around

The end of the net is in the form of a bag and it vibrates constantly with the flapping fish trying to escape. In this case the net picked up a lot of spiky anemones that must have recently settled on the bottom; so the fishermen had to remove them carefully with their bare hands from the struggling pile of fish. Each of the fishermen grabs a bucket and helps sort the fish. At the end each of the fishermen walks away with a plastic bag of fish for his own use. I didn’t see any fish being processed and put in ice for the market; so this appears to be just a little local action, when the fish from the previous netting have been consumed.

Las Hadas hotel on the right and a condominium to the left of it (looking from the water)

On Monday we cruised the 4 miles to Las Hadas and found a spot to anchor very close to the marina and the beach. Yes, this is supposedly the same beach where Dudley Moore was swept off his feet by the slow motion running of Bo Derek in the full bloom of youth and the full bouncing figure of a male fantasy. The beach is actually quite short, which is probably why slow motion was used. Otherwise Bo would have run past Dudley in a matter of seconds.

One of our reasons for stopping here was to pick up some eyeglasses I had ordered to replace a pair of broken ones, and to do some heavy-duty shopping. The big grocery stores are nearby and afterwards a cab brings us right to the dinghy dock to transfer the heavy and bulky items directly into the dinghy without having to carry them very far, and there is no need to launch the dinghy through the surf. Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” followed us over to Las Hadas, went with us on the bus to Wal-Mart, and ended up sharing a cab with us back to the marina. I was not surprised when my eyeglasses were not ready yet, since this is Mexico where “mañana” is a way of life. I was told to come back on Wednesday afternoon, which determined that we would stay a couple more days at Las Hadas.

We spent the next several days at the swimming pool, right next to the restaurant and bar, in case we got hungry or thirsty. At the large pool the drinks were $6 apiece, while the cost was only $3 at the smaller pool. We cruisers naturally gathered at the less expensive drink location, where we played Mexican Train one day with Jim and Susan, John and Cathy of “Batu,” Terry and Michele of “Coastal Passage,” and Herb and Juliet of “Synchrony.” On another day we just swam and read books.

On Wednesday all the cruisers were invited to a party by Stan and Mary Jo of “SolMate,” who had sold their boat and settled in the town of Santiago. There was a large turnout to share snacks and drinks and get to see what can be purchased in Mexico for next to nothing by U.S. standards. Most of these houses need some rebuild, but the cost of doing that is quite inexpensive, if you can get workers to show up. Stan’s team had taken a two-week break from working on his house to go to a more lucrative temporary job that had just appeared. We met quite a few cruisers we had seen before but never had occasion to actually say “hello.”

To spice up this blog I am including a picture of the lovely Sheilagh with a first cup of coffee and before "putting on her face" as she puts it. Frankly she looks great in my opinion without a "face" or even a hairdo. Sheilagh is responsible for the large number of pictures in the last couple of blogs

After the party Sheilagh and I made a second trip to Wal-Mart to pick up my eyeglasses only to learn that they would be ready on the following day. I had the optometrist call the factory to insure they would be there on the following afternoon. I finally got them on Thursday. The reason for mentioning this is that folks ask us why we don’t plan our trip in more detail when we start out. If we did, we would be constantly revising it or getting upset that we couldn’t meet it. The ability to just add a few days to our schedule keeps our blood pressure low, our hearts beating steadily, and should prolong our lives.

While I was at Las Hadas I visited a nearby beach to check out what was causing the loud crashing sounds of the surf on the sand. It turned out that this was a very steep beach, where the waves crashed high up on the sand and then receded as an outbound wave at about the same height as the incoming waves. Where the two waves met caused a steep drop off on one side that turned into a breaking wave so you can imagine the thrill of staying just on the edge and cheating the waves that wanted to suck my kayak into the. I managed to avoid any disasters and had a great time playing in the waves.

On Friday we left Las Hadas and motor-sailed north to Barra de Navidad, where we planned to get fuel and start our gradual trip north to Mazatlan by the middle of April. More later . . .