Sailing on Pelagic with John (March 15 - 21)

On the morning of Wednesday March 15, John picked me up from Che Bella in his dinghy to get out to where his boat, Pelagic, was anchored in the nearby lagoon. We set sail later that morning. The wind was coming from the south and we had the unexpected pleasure of being able to turn off the motor and sail north for 15 miles, to Tenacatita Bay. This is a lovely bay that I’d visited by boat a couple of times already. The eastern shore of the bay happens to be where La Manzanilla, the town I’m building a house in, is located.

We had looked forward to doing some snorkeling, or maybe even some SCUBA diving (John is a SCUBA instructor), but the visibility was terrible. The water was very green. Darn! I thought I was finally going to be able to do a dive down here. The next day we took the dinghy two miles across the bay from where we were anchored to La Manzanilla to buy some groceries. We wanted some chicken, but the chicken lady was not at her chicken-selling table on the main street. One of the shop keepers nearby explained that she had sold out and was out killing a couple of more chickens right now. Twenty minutes later, we ha purchased some fresh yard bird. I saw the construction worker I had hired the previous week to do some utility work on the lot. In two days he had aquired the permit to put my water vault in the street and said the land would be cleaned of brush by tomorrow afternoon. Progress!

John is a nice guy. From a distance he looks like a real tough guy, tall, muscled, usually wearing a bandana on his head and dark glasses, a couple tattoos, a dark tan, and generally a serious expression. But then you look closer and notice that the tattoo on his shoulder is a friendly little dolphin and the one on his calf is a pretty butterfly. Art that you might expect to find on the lower back of a twenty-something girl. He is also the only man I have ever seen wear a toe ring. He likes to cook. And bake. And he listens. Very surprising. A very nice change from the last two skippers I had been with, Jerry and Floyd.

We had a great adventure involving high winds, tall seas, and engine trouble... That story is locked up on my computer that won't start. When I get back to the states and CompUSA fixes my warrantied laptop, I'll post the story and pics.