Awake... again!!

Sea surface temps are up, but...

Waking up in paradise this morning was a touch cooler than it was last year at this time. In stretching and glancing at the clock I realized it was later than my usual “rise and shine” time but only by a little bit. What great things does the day have in store for me?

That’s the thing really. This floating home takes me all over the Gold Coast and at night gently (usually) rocks me to sleep, sometimes despite the raucous music coming from some shore-side tourist venue. In Mexico the ethos is often believed to be that the louder the music the more fun you must be having. Quite honestly, if it gets to be too much we can just haul up the anchor and find a new anchorage. The bright sunshine and crashing surf is a fantastic combination to rejuvenate your soul and that is frankly what I enjoy every day. In the lagoon at Barra de Navidad I can hear the surf from the very steep beach about a mile away across the golf course that rarely has anyone on it. It is spectacular to see the waves at that beach! Because it is steep the waves reflect back out to sea at great velocity and often meet the incoming waves at just the right second to raise the wave face to almost double its otherwise height!! The sound is so much louder from these on-the-beach crushers that it makes you yelp with excitement when they hit. It is just too much of a sight. For myself, I could take a picnic basket and just watch these waves for hours. It’s not a place that you can swim easily because the reflected waves might take you out to sea in a flash but for passive entertainment just watching is as good as any exciting sports event would promise you… and the players aren’t over paid.

I have imagined having a house here (although I never would) and hearing this sound all the time. Sandy has said that it would probably be like traffic noise and you would, eventually, tune it out. Somehow, I just can’t imagine that.

As I write this we are in the anchorage at Las Hadas. Last year about this time we were here as well and, once again, it will turn out to be the apogee in our orbit. We enjoy it here partially because we can pay 300 pesos and have the use of the dinghy dock for the week which, in turn, gets us the use of the pool at the resort for the week. Gee willickers, that’s just too, too perfect. Originally we had planned to go as far as Zihuatenejo this season but between guests and weather that turned out to be not so practical… which is quite alright with us. Gosh, having to wait here while more guests come in a week, well, you can imagine the difficulty of that, I am sure. “Waiter, dos mas cervesas por favor.”

The practical side of life takes a turn in our thoughts too as we decided a few days ago that it is time for us to get haircuts. I know, I know, this seems far too mundane to insert here but this is also an adventure to when carried out here. Put yourself in Sandy’s flip flops for a moment and see that getting the precise instructions to the stylist without having enough Spanish to really be comfortable that everything was properly understood. There is always a lot of nodding, hand gesturing and smiling in this process but sometimes that turns out to be subterfuge and misdirection!! If I can, I try to let Sandy take the lead while I wait in the weeds to help translate if needed… my theory is that the Spanish will improve out of necessity. Even this, however, is fraught with endless variations on the theme of, “Gee, this haircut didn’t turn out the way I wanted,” because some concepts are just difficult to convey. I refuse to take the blame for results in any case. My instructions to the barber are really simple, “I have the hair and you have the scissors, make the hair shorter.” (Tango el pelo, tiene los tijeros, requerdo poco acorte). This hasn’t caused me very much in the way of a problem so I will probably continue to use this strategy for myself.

Shopping for provisions is much simpler these days too. We know where most of the stuff we want is located because we were here last year. What that translates into is that we don’t have to do the first few exploratory trips into town just to discover the “where” of it, (like figure out where to pick up the local bus) etcetera, so we can get things done semi-efficiently on each trip into town. This is not without hazards however. The price of getting to know paradise is something that hit us last night, in fact. We went to a restaurant that had been fabulous last year but has apparently suffered a reversal. Probably this was one of the worst meals we have had in a long time. Last year, by way of contrast, we would have asked around more before heading into test drive this sort of restaurant (think, “spendy”). Anyway, it is a good thing to know where the big items are.

At this point we have been on the hook for over a month and expect it to be about two months by the time we get back to a marina. While we are already looking forward to La Cruz and the marina life it has been great being free of the grid and mobile for all this time. It gives us so much pleasure to have the ability to stay out for such extended periods of time. To swim off the boat or explore the shore in the more remote places is just plain fun.

One thing we still have not done much of is the surf landing thing, so we try to find the corner of the beach that has the least problematic approach and slide in at the “right” time. Next season there will be wheels on the dinghy to facilitate the beach landings. Even here in Las Hadas with a dinghy dock, living on the hook, Faith is getting a bit long in the tooth without regular washing of the decks and so forth. We have taken to equalizing the batteries from the generator every once in a while and have been really good at having the power usage work out so that we can make coffee in the morning without the generator running all the time. There is a lot of detail missing from that last statement and perhaps one day I will have time to explain why less generator time at an early hour is a Good Thing. Being this autonomous is wonderful in so many ways which makes having the occasional marina time a pure luxury and equally enjoyable!! But, again I ramble, so perhaps it is time to close this entry.