Where to begin? It has been awhile since my last blog. We have been trapped in La Paz since our arrival and the days have taken on a certain tedium that has not lent itself to writing. Mike and I wake up in the morning and enjoy a mug of coffee and then walk in to town. The walk is roughly 3 miles to our local breakfast haunt. Café Olimpia is a family run, hole in the wall, establishment that only has 6 tables. It offers a breakfast that includes coffee, orange juice, and a plate of food for 45 pesos. Food is one of the things in Mexico that is nice and affordable, but it still blows my mind that I am able to get so much food for so little. You can tell just when you walk in that it is a local hangout full of regulars and we have started to recognize the same groups of people and receive brief greetings or at least nods of the head when we enter. Mike is a man of habit and when he finds something that he likes, he sticks with it. Breakfast has now gotten to the point where she will jokingly ask what he is going to have and then chuckles when he says he wants the ham and cheese omelet. After we stuff ourselves with delicious home cooking, we will either walk straight back to the boat or venture in to town and grab some fresh meat and produce for the evening meal.
The markets and shops in La Paz are awesome. There are a couple different options but the prices are all very comparable. When we walk back along Revolucion, one of the main streets for the locals, the place is packed with street vendors, taco stands, and shops. Some of the street vendors sell really fresh and good produce but that means we need to eat it that day or it will be overripe the next. That, along with the fact that the vendors don’t speak any English or write down the amount, means that we rarely frequent them. Our most common stop is a local grocery store called Aramburo. It is basic but has most things we need and is priced reasonably. A lot of locals shop here so we know that it is not a place we will get gouged. The other grocery store is called Ley’s and it is more the equivalent of a Giant but when we can find everything at Aramburo, there is no need to walk even further out of our way to get the same prices. The final option we have is the municipal market. We only went here once because it is way off the beaten path, the prices are all given in rapid Spanish, and we are fairly certain there are gringo prices and local prices. Though the meat seems more fresh, it is not worth the prospect of being gouged. It is a fun scene to witness however. For all intents and purposes it is a farmers market open 7 days a week and completely covered. There are fish being tossed around, sides of beef being chopped apart, and stacks of produce. At least we know our food is fresh.
After we finish any shopping that we have to do, Mike and I continue our walk down the malecon burning off calories and chatting about the meaning of life, the quagmire of ill prepared mediocrity that epitomizes American politics, and everything in between. Once we get back to the boat we devote at least an hour or two to doing some sort of maintenance or chores. It can range from refilling water tanks, scrubbing the decks, installing various parts, or simply cleaning. The point is to feel somewhat productive and give us some structure. Depending on how I am feeling after that I will either do some sets up push-ups, pull-ups, or sit-ups and then shower- or just head to the shower. The rest of the day usually entails reading and then preparing dinner around 6. After dinner we will either watch a movie together or I will head up to the local restaurant.
Mike and I have taken a liking to the different types of marinated meat down here, especially arrachera. It is much like carne asada but there is a different marinate on it that is hard to describe and impossible to reproduce. Try as I might, I could not get the proper mix of spices and seasonings to replicate it. We were about to give up all hope when Mike stumbled upon a little blurb in his cruising guides that told of a mythical store that sold pre-marinated and flash frozen arrachera. Addresses change rapidly down here and stores open and close in quick succession. We decided that we would set out after breakfast and attempt to find the store. It turns out that it was right across the street from Café Olimpia. The culinary gods were smiling on us. Since we have found that store we have feasted like kings, oftentimes eating almost an entire kilo in one night. Barbequing it can be a bit of a feat however. Once we cut it into manageable slabs and throw it on the grill, the challenge begins. The first time I cooked it I was contending with flames that shot up almost three feet. Last night I singed all the hair off my hands when it flared on me. We draw nervous looks from some cruisers and jealous looks from others.
Although Marina Palmira may advertise Wi-Fi as included in the package, it must be taken with a grain of salt. Each boat only gets one internet connection and login. If you want to use more than one computer then you have to log out of one, wait a half an hour for the system to reset, and then log in with a different computer. The connection is also incredibly slow and incapable of handling anything more than email and browsing. In order to retain what semblance of sanity I have, I have decided to not bash my head against that wall and instead walk up to the local restaurant and abuse their Wi-Fi instead. Before I realized how reliable this connection was, I would go for random adventures to establishments all across La Paz and log in to their networks. I soon started to feel like a bum however because I would hole up in a corner, order a beer and appetizer, and proceed to use the connection for hours on end. I went so far as to bring my charger and find places to plug my computer in. Wireless speeds are something that we take for granted in the States. It is patchy and unreliable at best down here. Who knows how it will compare in other portions of the world.
Though we have settled into the local rhythm and have established a routine, I have managed to keep myself busy and somewhat employed. I was sitting in the cockpit one afternoon when another cruiser by the name of Bob dropped by to take a look at the monstrosity and peculiarity of the Whistle Wing. He chatted for a few minutes and then started to ask some pointed questions about the way Mike rigged our storm tri-sail track. It turns out that he is planning on taking the boat across the Pacific and figured it would be prudent to have some fallback options in his rig. Mike gave him some suggestions and showed him the way he had set it all up. Bob then started to ask if we knew of any good riggers around town that he would be able to hire to do the job. Out of the blue Mike said, “Well you are chatting with one of them.” He then suggested to Bob that he hire me to install the sail. After a little more chatting I was hired for the weekend. Rigging a trysail is not difficult but it is tedious and requires multiple trips up and down the mast and hours in either a climbing harness or bosun’s chair. At my age and with my previous work experience, this seemed like a dream come true. Much less demanding than any of my other rigging jobs. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity.
Now for this blog’s sailing tutorial. A storm trysail is a tiny sail that flies on the mast in the place of the mainsail. Some mainsails cannot be shortened when the wind comes up, others can be reefed once, and still others can be reefed twice. As the wind rises it is the person on watch’s responsibility to decide when to shorten sail to avoid tearing it or losing the entire mast. Every time you shorten sail, it gives you the ability to continue sailing with the mainsail up, making headway, but not straining the boat. It is normally best to leave some sail area up for two reasons. You need to be making headway in order to steer (water has to be moving past the rudder) and it also steadies the boat so that it is not tossing and bobbing like a cork. If the winds are too strong however, sometimes you need to douse the entire main or risk tearing it, etc. A storm trysail is essentially the equivalent of throwing another reef into the sail. You douse the main and then run the trysail up a different track that is parallel to the track the main takes. It is a tiny sliver of canvas but is much more heavy duty and if it ever does rip, you are not stuck with patching a main. To install it you just need to measure the sail and install the track, plus a few other things that get a little more technical.
Drilling and tapping all the holes into a metal mast is tedious work and requires someone on deck to raise and lower the person in the bosun’s chair. Bob stayed on deck and helped with that while I did the work on the mast. Since it is such tedious work we started talking. Bob has quite a bit of experience racing old IOR (international offshore rule) boats and is also a sailing instructor, etc. We got to chatting about the difference in the new racing boats versus the old IOR boats- the class of boat that the Whistle Wing hails from. The new boats surf down waves, are really responsive, and sail with a following wind very well. IOR boats were designed for races where the wind was either off the side of the boat or coming from the head, they do not surf or run very well. As we were chatting about this another cruiser chimed in from across the docks about how his IOR boat surfs quite well and how Bob had a kid up his mast that seemed to know everything about the world and he wanted to put me in my place. I decided to bite my tongue and smile instead; knowing that this individual was just a bitter old man and clearly didn’t know what he was talking about. Later I conferred with Mike, Bob, and several other captains just to make sure that my knowledge was sound. Thankfully it was but the thing that really amazed me was that this man was listening in on a conversation where two people were chatting amiably and sharing anecdotes and information, and he decided to chime in with a very hostile interjection. The only reason I bring this up is because it is completely different from any other encounter I have had in La Paz. The people, locals and gringos, have all been incredibly welcoming, nice, and engaging that this took me aback.
There are some examples of the friendliness of people we have run in to that will put that last tidbit into perspective. Right across the dock from the Whistle Wing are Jim and Ellen, a couple from Alaska. They have been coming down to La Paz for several years now and we quickly became friends. Jim has filled us in on some of the local information concerning cruising the islands around La Paz and the west coast of Baja. His wife, Ellen, has been helpful in directing us toward stores and giving us local information. We have even gone out to dinner with them, Thanksgiving included. They introduced us to their friends, Rob and Kim who are cruising down here to escape the cold in Canada. They stop by the Whistle Wing every now and again to chat and share a beer and every now and again will join us for dinner. Another couple we met right away are Pat and Terry. Pat was legitimately concerned about Joe and gave us the contact information for the doctor that saw Joe so quickly. Whenever we see them on our walks or on the dock, they always stop and chat for quite a bit of time. Mike and I were laughing about finding stainless steel wool and he overheard and within five minutes he had gone below and come back up to give us some of his own. I ended up reciprocating the favor and went to the top of his mast to rig a new halyard for his spinnaker and take care of some issues. These are the types of things that most everyone I have come across in La Paz do for each other without a moment’s hesitation.
I have managed to land an interview with an individual who does a fishing report for Baja and owns a very successful sportfishing company as well as restaurant. We will be meeting some time next week and I will pepper him with all sorts of questions about the fishing economy, international interests in that field, and his successes and failures in Mexico. He has agreed to sit for this interview as well as answer any follow up questions I might have. All the exchanges I have had with him thus far have been incredibly cordial and informative. I am excited for this opportunity and I will fashion an entire blog update based on the information I get. Though I haven't kept posting in the past two weeks, I have been writing copious notes on various topics, and the next few blogs will be topic specific before they branch back out.
