Thursday, May 22, 2008

hi

Hi all,We are in Acapulco. It's a big city. Like the
San Francisco of Mexico. When we were pulling in
yesterday we could see cliffs with stairways snaking
out to them that had platforms on top. We presume
they are for the famous cliff divers that we think of
when we hear the name of this city. As we were
pulling in Brian commented that it seems like a place
where alot of margaritas get consumed. Just has that
feel to it. There are steep cliffs, deep clear water,
and hotels that lining this natural harbor. It is
almost officially hurricane season (Doesn't mean that
instantly storms are everywhere, just increased
possibility- we are paying more attention to the
weather reports now). Nearly all the rest of the
cruising boats that haunt the Mexican waters all
winter long, the snowbirds, are gone. About a month
ago the last of them were madly bashing north to get
out of the "hurricane zone". We have only 5 days of
sailing to get to our marina, in Huatulco, Mexico,
where we'll leave the boat for the summer. However,
Puerto Escondido is in between here and there, we'll
stop there for Brian to get in more surfing. We are
looking for a new outboard motor for our dingy. Ours
is up the coast under water due to large surf and
being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In our
searching for a new one a guy named "Nacho Camacho"
has become our self appointed chaperone. He's got his
tentacles feeling around town for a used motor. He
will find one, then inflate the price in order to get
his finder's fee. He is currently aboard our
neighbor's boat showing him where to re anchor and
delivering some fuel filters (for which he collected a
finder's fee). That is how it goes down here. They
watch and wait for a gringo to walk down the street
and say, "What are you looking for?". As soon as you
let them know, the race is on. You follow them from
here, to there, to close, far, over, under, around,
in, behind, above, below, etc. The Finder's are
usually the semi-sleazy kind of guys you don't want to
hang out with, but you have to in order to get
anything done. They are the salesmen that never have
any product and don't work for anybody. They are in
the know and will find you anything you want. Nacho
was trying to hook our neighbor up with a 30 year old
hooker, he just could not understand why a single man
would not want to do that! This is our second city to
search for a motor. We figure there is a finder in
the next city down, same type, same thing. Hopefully
we can get a motor located and use our days in other
ways. We've had fun running all over the place on a
mission, but it will be nice to have mission
accomplished. We'll be flying home in mid-June to work
for 2 months and then come back and continue to
Central America. We'll see most of you within a month
or so!Brian and Megan

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Delivery



This is me on the way to deliver a large number of kids clothes, toys, and toothbrushes to an ex-pat couple that lives in San Blas, Mexico. They have a relationship with Huichol Indians that live up in the mountains and are always happy to receive donations for these people. One of my regrets is that we were unable to leave the boat in order to go inland to visit them ourselves. We're beginning to accept that we can't do everything.

Tacos yum


One of my favorite things to see in Mexico is a fish taco stand. Dollar tacos with all the toppings. Fresh fish...mmmmmm.

Iguana




Here's the iguana and one of the fisherman. We don't know if they kept it and ate it or not.

unexpecteds, firsts and lasts

Hi friends,
so, the last few weeks have had some interesting
twists.
We had our first discovery of maggots in the kitchen
sink. We'd left a couple of dishes with water in them
and while cleaning the sink Brian found the little
critters. The weather is so hot that just a couple of
days of standing water was enough for them to hatch.
That is the last time we leave our dirty dishes in the
sink!

An unexpected stroke 3 weeks ago put my last remaining
Grandmother in the hospital and she quickly
deteriorated. Last Thursday I flew to California to
attend her services and be with my family in Humboldt
County. It was a surprise to have to be up here but a
good time with Family.

Since I"m in the country, I've gotten to work for a
few days at Bethany University in the office where my
mother works, adding to the savings account.

My neice's first birthday is May 8th. I get to be here
for her birthday and then I fly home to Nomad and
Brian on May 11.

Another first is Brian's real life surf trip hosted on
Nomad in Mexico. Brian's friend Troy from Santa Cruz
flew down and the two are fishing and surfing like
crazy. They are also trying to retreive one of our
outboard motors from the bottom of the surf zone. Two
days ago, they had to abandon the dinghy as a wave
rolled over them and flipped the dinghy over and over
and over. The dinghy landed on the beach but most
other things in the dinghy did not. I"m glad I wasn't
there!

Megan