July 5th – El Burro in Conception Bay – Jim’s Blog #56

We just completed a very enjoyable 4th of July celebration here in El Burro Cove yesterday in one of the palapa-like halls that line the edge of the beach. A former cruiser, named Gary, gave up the cruising life and established himself in a beach house here about 15 years ago, and he sponsors a hotdog barbecue on the 4th of July each year. By Thursday night there were some 20 sailboats and a couple of power boats anchored in El Burro Cove and the neighboring Coyote Cove. At noon on Friday we all convened in the palapa on the beach with potluck dishes from each cruising boat and several hundred hotdogs furnished by Gary. The local Bertha’s Restaurant and Bar were on site to sell cold beer.

There were some 40-50 cruisers there, along with some of Gary’s Mexican neighbors. It was a chance to meet face-to-face with cruisers whose voices we have been hearing on the radio networks for the past several months, but whom we had never met. We had already met about half of the cruisers in get-togethers in various anchorages and marinas along the Mexican mainland coast and along the Baja coast. This was a chance to meet some "old hands" who had been cruising in the Sea of Cortez for several seasons and who could advise us of what we needed to consider in our first summer. We learned that the VHF radio frequency for cruisers further north is channel 68 instead of 16; so we probably avoided complete communication isolation by learning that fact.

One of the highlights was a rubber duck race, where some 50 numbered ducks of various sizes and colors were entered in the race. We first had a chance to check them out in the duck paddock with fact sheets about the success of each of the ducks in previous races, and then we had to put money on them to get them selected for the race. Having observed the winner of a previous race in Tenacatita, I put my money on that duck and waited to collect my winnings. The ducks were dumped out of a bucket about 10 yards out in the gentle surf that lapped the beach, while all the attendees watched from shore. The first thing I noticed was that my duck was dumped on its side and never had a chance to get upright and start using its webbed feet. My duck ended up way back in the pack in a very ho-hum race. I can only believe that my duck would have won if the surf had been as large as it was in Tenacatita and if my duck had been able to get up on its feet and do some serious surfing. One spectator comment was “I can’t believe so many adult cruisers even care about this rubber duck race – don’t we have anything more important to do than this?” The fairly universal response was “If you mean in addition to visiting and drinking beer, then no!”

The day ended with a less than imposing fireworks display, but actually quite a big deal for this little cove, which has one bar and one small store - and the 4th is not a Mexican holiday at all. Various local families drove in and parked, putting their children on blankets on the ground or having them sit in the back of pickups. Plastic chairs were everywhere; so everyone had a place to sit during the fireworks. The weather had moderated early in the morning and a good breeze kept us fairly comfortable all day, as long as we stayed out of the sun. Gary had erected a large umbrella in the fairly shallow water in front of his house, along with a flat floating table. Sheilagh and I spent some of the day up to our chests in warm water under the umbrella with our drinks on the floating table that was tied to the umbrella – a poor man’s hot tub and sauna.

During the earlier part of the week we cruisers got together for shopping at the one “tienda”, playing Mexican Train dominoes, eating at the one “palapa,” and generally visiting from boat to boat. We also found time to do some solo kayaking, swimming, reading, and napping. I resolved to swim around the fleet every day, which I did in the later part of the afternoon to keep from sunburning my back. As the fleet grew in size from day to day, the swim got longer and longer, but it was a great way to exercise without overheating. I hope to keep it up in the future as a way to limit beer belly development.

Swimming continuously for 30-60 minutes gives one a lot of time to think and remember the thousands of other times I've had my head in the water under similar circumstances. I remember first learning to swim in one of those round shallow fountains in the local park (3’ deep at the center and 1’ at the edges) where the water was kept warm by the uncontrolled output of children with no bathroom nearby. I progressed through Minnow, Flying Fish, and Shark levels in the local YMCA program, spending more time on the diving board than actually swimming laps. I was on a local swim team and hated long distance swimming, preferring short sprints and diving competitions. All I could think about with my face in the water was the grueling punishment my body was being put through by a coach who had nothing better to do than blow a whistle and think of additional tortures for us – naturally he was fat and needed the exercise more than we did.

In a small high school and college I attended we didn’t have a coach; so we swimmers became our own coaches, and I continued to specialize in short sprints and diving to avoid the long swims. Then along came the navy, and we got to show our ability to jump from 18’ up (simulating the side of a ship), to swim underwater for 25 yards (simulating the avoidance of burning fuel above us), and then to swim a mile with our clothing on (simulating swimming to shore or to a rescue vessel). Since most of our missions were over cold water that wouldn’t support a human body for more than a few minutes, I’m not sure why we needed to swim the long distance, but I learned to like the long swims. Later in life we lived near a lake, and I swam a mile at a time and enjoyed the experience. I used to rope a kayak to my body to warn water skiers that I was there and to serve as my method for getting back when I had finished the swimming I wanted to do.

In all these swimming situations I have had an opportunity to revisit my previous swimming experiences and the thoughts I had at those times. It’s not as if one can swim with an IPod and headphones to listen to music or books, or to distract one from doing any thinking. Swimming long distances forces one to meditate more than any other activity I know of. Only long walks without music offer a similar opportunity, but the view is usually too distracting to do any serious meditation. When I am swimming in the ocean or a lake, there is usually very little to see in the water when the bottom is more than 10’ deep, and that allows for a singular opportunity to be alone with one’s thoughts. Having said all this I have not yet come up with any earth-shattering revelations, solutions to the world’s problems, or a grand unified theory for the origins of the universe. However, I may have produced one of the above and forgotten it by the time I finished my swim and was ready to record my thoughts.

This is going to be short, because there just hasn’t been much excitement to write about. We spend our time trying to keep cool in the heat. Tomorrow we are heading north to Santa Rosalia, which should offer more to write about. More later . . .