Back to the COLD

Tomorrow we leave for the US.  It is going to be COLD as we are going to Wisconsin and Missouri.  I will try and write some posts while we are gone, but I know we won't have internet access for part of the trip.  I am going to miss it here, and look forward to getting  back.  Next time, we plan to have our midwestern visit at a different time of year. 

We went to the mercado yesterday and of course I forgot my camera.  It was an experience of color and scents.  Next time the camera comes along. 

I will write again from Wisconsin, where half my family is demonstrating in Madison, and the other half is probably celebrating a "win."  I just hope the peace can be kept while we are all together.  It hurts me to see how devisive things have become in the US, where family members are turning on each other because of politics.  I did not think I would live to see anything like this in my country of birth.  There is nothing else to say about that.  It just hurts. 

Trip Preparation

We didn't make it to the mercado yesterday - we cleaned the boat instead in preparation for our trip back to the US.  It is strange to be leaving our boat for so long, but it will be very safe here in this secure marina and we have made arrangements to have the bottom cleaned while we are gone.  The people who work here will not let anything bad happen to Magda Jean, and she will be just fine.  It is a good opportunity to defrost the freezer as well.

Of course just as we decided to leave the weather gets warmer and warmer.  We figure it will be downright hot when we get back, with a lot of humidity.  The Sea of Cortez (where we plan to spend the summer) will also be hot - real hot - but without the humidity.  This is making me nervous, because the fact is I don't do real well in heat.  I suppose there would be those who would wonder why I didn't think about this before I made these plans.  Well, I DID think about it, and decided to do it anyway.  There are a lot of things I can do to make it easier on myself, like keeping hydrated, wearing a hat, staying out of direct sunlight as much as possible, and going swimming whenver I can.  (Living on a boat should make that last part pretty easy.)  Mike says that after a while I will acclimate, and to an extent I probably will, but it still worries me a bit.  However, I do remember something from the short time I lived in Fresno, where it gets very hot.  After I moved  back to San Diego, I was standing in the blacktop parking lot at juvenile court.  It was hot, and everyone was talking about how hot it was.  I said to myself "If I were in Fresno now, we would be talking about what a beautiful day it was.  We would be walking to lunch, and wearing our black suits."  I realized that I had acclimated, because I was not nearly as uncomfortable as everyone else was.

Another option to deal with heat is ping lung, or betelnut.  When I was in Taiwan, we discovered that some of the people chewed betelnut.  I kept seeing these little husk type things in the street, and was told it was betelnut, which they call ping lung.  It is palm nuts wrapped in leaves, about the size of a large chiclet.  They chew it, and then spit it out once the effects are gone.  They sell it in kiosks everywhere.  I decided to try it.  When we went to the kiosk to buy it, the people selling it could not believe a foreigner would be interested in it, and gave it to us free.  It does not taste bad - but not real good, sort of what you would expect, like chewing leaves.  Anyway, I did not feel a buzz, but what I did notice was that I was no longer bothered by the heat. (It is VERY hot and humid in Taiwan.)  I was still hot, still pouring sweat, but it didn't bother me as much.  In fact, I was quite comfortable.  But there is a huge downside - it ruins your teeth.  All the lower classes (sorry about that term), who are the only ones who chew it, have red stained teeth.  So it is really a bad idea.  And they only have it in Asia, to my knowledge.  I guess it won't be an option for me here.

So anyway, we have quite a few things to get done before we leave, which is in two days.  So I better wind this up and get started.  Before it gets hot out.         

A Big Fish

Yesterday we went fishing and caught a great big white seabass.  I put a picture of it on Facebook, and will do so again here.  It was quite exciting.  We have not had much luck with our fishing since we started this trip - on the way we caught only three fish but had to let them go as one of them was a mako shark and the other two were threasher sharks.  (Now shark steaks are delicious - we did catch a mako a few years back with a panga fisherman on a charter.  We would not have kept it, but all three of us - me, Mike, and Chino - all thought it was a tuna.  When Mike yanked it into the boat, I thought Chinp was going to leap out of the boat.  Then he grabbed a club and started whaling away.  You will never convince a panga fisherman to throw anything back.  That is the long was of explaining as to why I know how good shark is.)  Anyway, good taste not withstanding, there is a rule we have which is no sharks in the cockpit.  So we had to let those guys go, and didn't catch anything else.  A lot of that is due to the fact that the water is colder than it should be, so the dorado (mahi mahi) and other game fish are elsewhere.  But we do not give up easily.  We took our dinghy out and let out a trolling line while we motored gently along.  After a while, we noticed there were a whole bunch of fishing boats all grouped together and decided they must be there for a good reason, so we headed that way.  As we approached them, I saw one guy pulling in what looked like a big fish from the bend in his rod, and also noted to Mike that it smelled sort of fishy.  Mike told me to keep watching the guy to see what he pulled in, and I was doing so when Mike yelled out that he had one on.  I took over the helm, and we let the fish pull us around for a while, with me making sure the line did not get wrapped around the propeller.  It only took about 15 minutes to gaff him and pull him in.  We immediately headed back because there was no way we could handle another fish that size in the dinghy, and we don't have much freezer space, and we can only eat so much before we leave.  I was responsible to getting the stringer on the fish and tying it off to the dinghy, so if he squirmed out, we wouldn't lose him.  When we made it back to the dock and showed him off, everyone came running out to look at him.  It was a lot of fun, and as usual Mike did a great job of cleaning him.

Isn't he marvelous? 

We also took our lines out of the water while underway because we kept seeing marlins, and did not want to catch a fish that big.

Another exciting thing is that we have made a whole bunch of new friends at a different marina.  It all started when we ordered a new wheel for our dinghy to replace the one we lost in Turtle Bay.  (We had left the dinghy in the water tied up to the boat.  We tied it too close, and the wheel was rubbing against the little steps used to climb in and out of the boat.  It rubbed loose and disappeared sometime in the night.)  When we talked to the guy in Long Beach (via Skype) who sold the wheels and he discovered we were here, he told us to look up a friend of his who lived on a boat here.  We did, and got along really well.  We went over there a few days ago and spent the day drinking beer and visiting with a new group of people.  Mike joined them in a horseshoe tournement and ended up being one of the best players.  (If you knew Mike that would not be a surprise - he can do almost anything really well if he wants to.)  It was not good for my blood sugar but it was a lot of fun.  I hope they are all still there when we get back. 

Today we are going to the mercado.  I'll take some pictures, because I will not be able to do it justice with my measly words.  Have a great day!     
       

Best Fireworks Show Ever!

We went to the best fireworks show I have ever seen  last night!  In Mexico, truthfully, safety takes a back seat to thrills and excitement, but I didn't mind blinking ashes out of my eyes.  It went on for almost an hour, with perfectly synchronized music.  We went with a group of friends from the marina here.  We all rode in the back of a pickup truck that had bench seats in the bed so as to make it into a taxi.  We had dinner - aguachile for me, I have become addicted to it - and then sat right on the edge of the malecon (boardwalk) in rented lawnchairs to watch the fireworks.  We danced and had an incredible time. 

Interestingly, we were the only Americans in the group.  Everyone else was Canadian.  In fact, we have met more Canadians down here than Americans.  They come as tourists and also bring their boats.  There are only a few Americans at our dock.  And everytime I think I have pegged a tourist as someone from the midwest, they turn out to be from Alberta.  Everyone last night was from Victoria.  I think the media up there maybe doesn't overstate the problems down here as does our media - the drug violence is horrendous, but it doesn't happen everywhere.  I would not go to Ciudad Juarez right now - but because I don't want to get caught in crossfire, not that I would be a target.  (And truthfully, I have been to that area in the past and it is hot and dusty and not all that interesting.)  And we Americans do share some of the blame - most of the guns and weapons used by the cartels come from the US.  We haven't done much to stop that as best as I can see.  But since I have been down here - from Ensenada on down, we have been treated with nothing but genuine kindness.  I could live here forever.  I just might, once we get too old to cruise.

Here are some pictures of last night's festivities: 

Again, we had a wonderful time and it is not over yet.  Tonight there is a parade - two of them, actually.  We will be on our own because our friends all have tickets to a dinner and watching platform - we heard about it but didn't get tickets because at the time, we weren't sure what they were talking about.  Once we figured it out, that event was sold out.  So we will head for the streets with everyone else.  Maybe I will climb up on a statue or something like that so as to get a better view!  I knew all the public art was here for a good reason!  

CARNIVAL!

Today starts the beginning of Carnival, Mazatlan's Mardi Gras.  There are king and queen crownings, parades, parties, fireworks - all of that sort of thing.  We are looking forward to being in the thick of it, although we will have to stay up late.  Most of the exciting events begin at 8 pm - and we are almost always in bed by 9:30.  I am almost ashamed to admit that.  I hope to get some good pictures.

The night before last we went to eat at a restaurant near here called El Fish Market.  (I had EXCELLENT seared ahi.)  We met this amazing woman named Ruby.  She is an American, probably in her 70s, and she has lived down here for a while now.  When she was still in the US, she became very sick.  The doctors told her it was MS and there was nothing she could do.  She did not think it was MS, because she does not think black people get MS.  So she came down here and then somehow got better.  Now she volunteers at an orphanage, sings in restaurants, and generally lives her life in a really wonderful way.  She has a great outlook on life.  She has a small pension from working 20 years for IBM, has a little house here to live in, and says she would not change anything for the world.  She has an incredibly loving spirit, and I felt really good just being around her.

Here are some pictures that Mike took with his camera, which is better than mine.

                                                   This is a cliff diver.  He does this for tips. 

                                           Sunset over the Sea - between Cabo and Mazatlan

Here are some of the 14 bonito that followed our boat for an entire day.

We could have caught the bonito, but we watched them for so long they became like pets so there was no way we were going to eat them. 

We went on a tour of the Pacifico Brewery (cervezeria) yesterday.  It was a lot of fun, and we discovered we do miss the process of brewing our own beer, which we did for a couple years before we sold the house.  There really isn't enough room to do it in the galley on board, although I have heard of people doing it.  They must have bigger boats.  They let you have lots of free beer - but the tour was at 11 am and finished by 12, which is too early for me.  I just had one. 

Today we are going to take the dinghy out and do some fishing.  Hopefully there will be some good fish pictures to post!  Not to mention dinner!