It has been too long between posts. Some of it is laziness, my worst fault. But we have been pretty busy. A lot is happening as we prepare to leave Mazatlan for the Sea of Cortez, which will be our summer home. Still hot, but little to no humidity. More like what I am used to with heat.
My nephew arrived last Friday and is settling in beautifully. He complements Mike and I very well, and has already learned to tie some pretty fancy knots. He also read this book I have on sail handling, and was way ahead of each chapter in grasping the concepts. And his Spanish gets better every day. I am going to have to scramble to keep ahead of him in that area. In other areas, I am not going to try to maintain superiority or even to keep up. He is living in the vee berth and has made it his own.
In a way, it is hard to leave Mazatlan because we are having a great time here. I once heard that Mazatlan was a cruiser's black hole, because so many people stop here and then never leave. I can see why. It is a wonderful, vibrant city with a rich culture and people who are friendly and kind. We have made a lot of friends here. The music scene is wonderful with lots of great musicians playing all kinds of music. The food is excellent - lots of choices and it is after all the shrimp capital. I have never eaten so much seafood in my life! My favorite is a dish called aguachile - I hope I am not repeating myself - which is shrimp marinated in lime juice and hot chile peppers. It is wonderfully refreshing in this climate. I like to buy a coconut, have them whack the top off, drink the coconut water, and then they cut all the fresh soft coconut out and put lime and chili powder on it. I used to not like coconut, but that was because all I ever knew of it was in candy, like Mounds or Almond Joy. Having it fresh is a whole new experience. I made Mike get a machete so we can fix our own.
The other thing we are looking forward to seafood-wise is catching our own dinner and diving for shellfish and lobster. I figure by the time I am done with sailing, I will be a seafood chef extraordinaire. (I have no idea how to spell that word.) The Sea is a great fishing destination - I have fished there on other trips and on one week long trip we brought home 72 pounds of filets. I am looking forward to getting clams especially.
It is kind of strange when you get ready to leave like this. There are a million things - little, annoying things - that have to get tied up before you can go. This time, we plan to be anchoring out away from any towns or settlements for almost a month, and will not be in regular communication with email and stuff like that, although I do have the ability to make these posts and send some email through the short wave radio. So everything has to be caught up. It is not easy to keep up on things sometimes - we only get our mail about once a month, so there have been occaisions when we missed stuff and had to scramble. We do have a cell phone that can call the US, and there is always Skype although it has its drawbacks.
The only thing that might hold us up is weather. It is hurricane season here, which is a big reason why we are going north. There has already been one named storm south of here, but it headed out towards Hawaii instead of coming here. Now there are some ominous fronts down south again, and we are watching them. They look to be headed well west of us, but you never know. And even if they don't hit directly and remain a ways away, they do have an effect on the waves and currents. So - we wait and watch. Our plan is to be out of here on Tuesday - four days from now. We still need to fed ex some stuff, get perishables (which will be done Monday, right before we leave), fill all the fuel tanks, settle up and the marina and check out of Mazatlan, and finally - stow the dinghy on the foredeck. It is going to be great fun teaching my nephew how to sail. I have no doubt whatsoever that by the end of the summer, he will be much better than I am (which won't take that long) and almost as good as Mike. It has been a truly wonderful experience introducing him to this new life - not something one gets to do very often. I am grateful for the opportunity to do this. Everybody wins!
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