This is the fifth blog, in a
series of blogs, about Chris and my adventures sailing the “high Seas,” on our
boat “Flyaway.” If you haven’t read them
in order, and would like to, click on this link http://stowellbrown.blogspot.com/ and scroll down to the first one called, “Of Whales,
Aircraft Carriers, and Storms,” or click on the link to the right, and start reading from there.
After living in La Paz for
awhile I learned that many people in La Paz left their dogs in their cars,
rather than locking their cars, and that a dog will bark wildly if you walk
next to their car, and also that if you walk on the sidewalk next to a fenced
yard there is most likely a dog in the yard who will guard his territory by
barking violently. To solve the problem
of dogs in parked cars I would ask Chris to go first between the cars so that
the dogs could bark at him. To solve the
dog in yard problem, I just walked in the street. We believe that each homeowner owned the
sidewalk and had to do their own maintenance on it.
When June came it was time to
put “Flyaway” to bed, and to fly up to Seattle until September, or until the
sea in Mexico cooled down from body temperature to a nice 80. Each year we either stayed with our daughter in
Seattle or eventually we bought a condo in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island,
WA. We sold the condo after eighteen
months as we decided that we are not “island” people. I was spending most of my time riding the
ferry and driving down to Seattle to go to specialists because of my health,
and Chris had no Home Depot on the island.
So we really only stayed in the condo a total of about 8 months during
breaks from the heat in Mexico.
Our next step after a
hurricane free summer in Mexico was to return to La Paz and have the bottom of
Flyaway painted. Chris supervised and
was fascinated by the Mexican engineering.
The solar panels were ready to go.
Solar panels on Flyaway
The most fun I had in La Paz
was when I decided to invite a couple from another boat at the marina along
with their grandson to play board games with us on New Years Eve. Suddenly the party blossomed, and a couple from
the “English” church invited us all over to their compound for board
games. We ordered pizzas and played
Mexican Train, Balderdash, and other games.
I had so many laughs I count it the best New Years Eve ever. The teenage grandson made up so many funny
definitions of words for Balderdash I couldn’t stop laughing. I had prayed that our crew, Dan and Debbie,
could meet Milton and SuSu, a Christian couple who had been cruising for years
as a captain and cook on a 105’ Mexican Yacht. God worked it out by their inviting us all
over. We were warned not to go outside at midnight as the Mexicans shoot their
guns in the air to celebrate the New Year.
English church
Then, I don’t remember the
date, four friends showed up to help us cross the Sea of Cortez to
Mazatlan. The first night after we
started out we stayed in Partida. As I
recall a whale fell in love with “Flyaway” and swam around us all night. He was a loud breather too.
At seven knots we made steady
but slow progress across the sea. At
night the water lights up with luminescence. Four or five out of the six of us
went snorkeling in the middle. (When we
got to Mazatlan were were asked by other cruisers if the sharks had bothered
us!) We avoided colliding with unlighted
pangas rafted across a large area in the middle of the crossing also.
Internet photo
Mazatlan was a much bigger
city than La Paz. It had many more marinas to choose from. We elected to stay at the El Cid Marina. The bus stop was right in front of the hotel
and Time Share Salesman only occasionally propositioned us. They would ask us if we wanted a free ride to
town. If we accepted we were taken to a
Time Share Presentation, which was only about 4 hours long. We were offered a free meal, which also was
about 4 hours long.
We had several more friends
come from Florida and Washington to stay on the boat with us or at time shares
nearby, and enjoy the hot tub, riding the bus to the Golden Zone to shop, many
restaurants, Old Town, and Central Market.
Internet photo of golden zone
We bought masks at a shop in Old Town
Of course we attended fiestas.
Photo by Bobbi
Photo by Bobbi
We enjoyed meals out with
other cruisers. After Chris was finished
fixing other peoples boats he began building “Mexican Train” games and painting
tiny locomotive game pieces. Later a
group of cruisers got together and rented a bus to take us to Carnival. We had bleacher seats for the parade and a
balcony from which to watch the fireworks.
We saw conga lines of young men running through the crowd, which was
shoulder to shoulder with no room to pass, but they passed anyway!
Us with cruiser friends
We thought the floats looked top heavy
They used poles to lift wires so the floats could fit under them
It was around this time that
I decided I had, “been there and done that.”
I was not feeling like I wanted to live the rest of my life on a
boat. I encouraged Chris to keep going
and sail to the South Pacific and on to Australia if he wanted to. I flew to Seattle and then our son drove me
to Spokane to live in his rental house while his roommates were gone for the
summer.
Next blog will be on the
Tahiti trip.
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