(Since it is tax time we are looking back over last year’s
cost-of-living
and decided to write a
side paper describing what we have learned
click
here or go to the side column to read about what we learned in our first
full year of cruising full-time.)
It’s been a bit of a wild time since our last blog was
posted just after Christmas with one planned trip to Seattle and a very
unexpected death in my family leading to another unplanned trip to Seattle. In
the mean time we have been exploring La Paz and had time to get a small taste
of the surrounding countryside both on and off-shore.
La Paz has been our base for a month and a half now and we are quickly realizing why it has a reputation as a place where cruisers get “stuck” as it has a very large and active expat community of cruisers who have done a great job of making themselves welcome in the local community. The town is pretty middle class and feels very safe. As long as we are courteous the local folks work very hard to help us find what we need even though our Spanish is pathetic. All and all we “get” why several cruisers haven’t moved their boats in 10 years. With that said I will divert to a couple of events of the month and then end the blog note with impressions of La Paz.
Knowing that we have two parents in their 90’s we both feel we need to get back to the Seattle area periodically with the knowledge that “this visit may be our last”. We had a serendipitous set of events occur the final week of January that allowed us to travel north from the 23rd to the 29th during which time the Seattle Boat Show and Nordhavn Seattle Annual Get-Together just happened to occur. First was a low point in travel after the holidays which also meant that our ticket prices dropped and by using an about-to-expire companion fare we were able to travel affordably. Second was a friend’s mother was coming to La Paz from Seattle during the same time period and a) she needed a place to stay as his boat was too crowded, b) she has spent lots of time on a trawler before so she was used to the accommodations, and c) she likes dogs. The result was that while we were in Seattle Max’s mother and daughters were thoroughly spoiling Jarvis while they enjoyed the space of our boat AND we knew that the boat and dog would be safe until we arrived back aboard. (It even worked out that Max was able to rent a car to take his mother the 3 hours to the Cabo airport and pick us up from our flight in one trip!)
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| Flying out of Seattle after our whirlwind New Year's visit [looking west with Bellevue in the foreground towards Mercer Island and the University of Washington] |
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| Flying out of Seattle after our whirlwind New Year's visit [Mount St Helens and "New" Spirit Lake] |
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| Flying out of Seattle after our whirlwind New Year's visit [Mt Hood] |
When we planned for a week up north we thought it sounded
like a lot of time but by the time we landed at the Seattle airport we had
every minute planned ahead.
We got to
visit Clarice’s best friend of many many years when we camped out in their
camping trailer in their back yard.
We
were able to visit a number of our Snohomish County friends and my old
Providence Hospital friends while we were up that way.
Snohomish County is also where Clarice’s dad
and siblings live so we visited them as one of the main goals of the trip.
Then we visited the Seattle Boat Show and
Nordhavn get-together on Saturday.
The
boat show is always fun as we look to see if there are new “toys” that we could
use in our home in the future but the highlight for us is the Nordhavn get-together
sponsored by the Seattle Nordhavn brokerage and the Nordhavn Company.
At the get-together we enjoy meeting with
other owners that we have met before in-person and to put faces with owners we
only know from the internet.
Two of the
interesting people we met were James and Jennifer Hamilton who are the third most travelled Nordhavn
owners having put 70,000 NM under their keel (remember the earth is only 25,000 NM
in circumference). James has done this
while he maintains a very high level position with Amazon as he works remotely
from his boat while he travels. He also
got one of the very very rare Nordhavn “high latitude” pennants for going to the far north or south.
(MV Dirona Blog) A major Seattle highway was shut down just before we arrived
while final preparations were made to open the new tunnel under the city. Knowing that this closure of a major traffic
route was expected to cause major slowdowns in a city known for lousy freeway
traffic anyway, we headed south after the meeting ended and spent the night in
our grandson’s mother’s tiny house overlooking Alder Lake near Mt Rainier. Since our brains are used to waking in the
Central time zone we were up before the sun and enjoyed an amazing view of a
starlit sky above just visible mountains across the lake with everything below
us shrouded in fog. We headed out early
and were able to have breakfast with Norman’s brother and his wife that live in
SW Washington before heading into Portland to visit with our son and his wife
and our grandson and his mother. Finally
we headed back north and stopped in Tacoma for a nice visit with Norman’s
mother and his sister and some of her family. By the time we were back on the
boat we were exhausted from our “vacation” and glad to be home with plans to
head out after a day of provisioning to explore the islands and towns north of
La Paz during the month of February.
We had just returned to one of our new “favorite anchorages”
on Isla Espiritu Santo and were starting the time of exploration we had been
really looking forward to when, as they say, life got in the way. We had anchored the night in a cove with no
cellular service and awoken to a lovely morning. It was February 2nd,
Groundhogs Day. After taking Jarvis ashore for a walk we decided we would move
to a different cove we had passed coming from La Paz and go SCUBA diving. We weighed the anchor and headed out of the
cove and around the point and were about to enter the cove where we planned to
dive when my phone tinkled with a text message and then immediately indicated
“no service” again. The message was:
“Norm? This is Tim’s [my 50 year old younger brother] girlfriend. He collapsed at my place. Paramedics brought
him to St Joe’s. They are admitting him
to ICU.” – and thus began a very sad tale. Initially we tried getting messages
to other family members via our satellite messenger device and the ham radio
Mariners net. Just as the message
reached my older brother from the ham radio connection we entered an area of
more consistent cellular coverage as Clarice had turned the boat back towards
La Paz. We learned that Tim had entered
ICU the night before in a coma and that his girlfriend could only find our
phone number so we were the first of his family to know of the crisis even
though we were in Mexico bobbing around in the Sea of Cortez. Before long the ICU nurse spoke to me with the
words every nurse understands, “come NOW”.
To make a long story short; while Clarice drove the boat “at flank
speed” towards La Paz I arranged for a ticket from Cabo to Seattle, spoke to
another boater who I knew had a car (and a good heart) about the need for an
emergent ride from La Paz to the airport 3 hours away who immediately offered
to help, and arranged for a crew to help Clarice the last hour from the
entrance to La Paz Harbor (where I caught my ride to the airport) into a slip
she had been able to arrange in town. By
9 PM Pacific time I was at my brother’s bedside and even though he looked like
so many people I have cared for on life support who later woke up and smiled, I
knew he was brain dead after a hemorrhagic stroke and his body was being
“preserved” so that others could benefit from his healthy organs.
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Timothy Collins Gregory
August 9, 1969 - February 2, 2019 |
Tim was a few days old when he was left on the hospital
steps by a birth mother who for whatever reason knew she could not care for a
premature infant. We know he has dark
skin and have always referred to him as “black” without really knowing his
genetic heritage. He came to us as a foster child only to worm his way deep
into our hearts and we chose to adopt him.
I was 12 years old at the time and Tim was the little brother I had
always dreamed of. He was good looking,
a natural athlete, and his personality quickly made people drop their
prejudices about black people. Friends
over and over commented how Tim made those around him happy with his natural
laughter and sense of fun and general love for people. I’m still coming to grips with his being
gone. Our 92 year old mother is
devastated as Tim was “her baby” even though he was 50. We had hoped to have
his memorial service on the following Saturday so that I could get back to
Clarice in La Paz as quickly as possible when life got in the way for a second
time and a major snow storm hit Seattle.
We delayed the memorial and I was able to fly out before the snowflakes
flew but now a third trip is in the planning for the end of February so I can
help close his affairs and attend the memorial.
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Tim and Mom decorating the family Christmas tree (year unknown) |
Back in La Paz we have come to enjoy walking the streets as
each corner seems to bring a different perspective. With a Sears store and other specialty stores
next to street vendors selling everything from food to jewelry. Often private homes are behind wrought iron
gates but some of the entries and gardens make it clear the owner is proud of
their dwelling. Busses are everywhere and range from very fancy inter-city
buses to converted school buses operated as a private collective throughout the
city. Most stores and restaurants will
politely let customers use their toilets but it is still common to see an
expectation that you pay the person servicing the toilet 5 or 10 pesos as is
common in Central American countries. As I walked around I asked a number of
people if I could get their photos as “typical Mexicans” some seemed suspicious
of my motives and said no but many agreed.
It feels like we are getting repetitive but the local Mexican folks are
as a whole very very friendly and outgoing and it is clear that families are
cherished. Since we haven’t become
familiar enough with the location names to make use of the bus system we have
learned that Uber is very inexpensive and there is usually a driver within a
couple of minutes of us when we signal we need a ride (and many of the drivers
speak good to fluent English).
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| La Paz Harbor |
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| Family spending a day on the beach |
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| One of many statues this one is "Paraiso del Mar" ["Paradise of the Sea"] |
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| This statue, "El Viejo...y el Mar?" ["The Old Man ...and the Sea?"] always reminds me of my father who would join in any children's games if it made the children happy. If he had been asked to wear a paper boat and a paper hat and it made children smile then he would have happily done it with a smile on his face. |
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| A family on the Malecon [seaside walkway] |
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| This man is out every evening selling his blow-up toys to the kids who seem to get a great deal of enjoyment from them. |
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| One of several mini-cruise ships ("National Geographic Explorer" I think) that land in downtown La Paz (Larger cruise ships have to land at the entrance to the channel as it is fairly shallow into town) |
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| La Paz sign and another sculpture on the Malecon |
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| La Paz side street with several cafes |
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As in most Central American countries it is not uncommon to be asked to pay a small fee to pay for cleaning and supplies of public toilets |
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| La Paz Sears |
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| Lots of quinceañera dresses on display |
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| La Paz cathedral |
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| Nuns selling home baked goodies outside of the cathedral |
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| Lots of zapaterias [shoe stores] |
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| Private homes are behind fences but often have fancy courtyards and entryways |
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| A peddler with food to sell |
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| Buses are private but are very very common |
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| Another street food peddler |
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| Peddlers selling snacks to kids as they leave school |
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| I asked a number of people if I could get a photo of "Mexicanos ordinarios" [ordinary Mexicans] some turned me down but many were happy to help out |
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| Mexicanos ordinarios |
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| Street side shop |
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| Sidewalk shop |
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| Sidewalk shop |
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| Mexicanos ordinarios |
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| One of many many food stands (often only open for 1 meal a day) |
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| More quinceañera and wedding dresses on display |
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| Clarice asked that I be sure and get photos of some of the murals in town |
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| Mural on a building |
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| Another mural |
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| My favorite ice-cream shop |
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| Ice-cream shops are very common and all serve lots of flavors |
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| Enjoying their ice-cream |
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| Mexicanos oridinarios enjoying helado |
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| Lots of manual laborers keeping the Malecon tidy |
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| We continue to get a 'cultural slap' when we walk on the sidewalks which are on many levels. Our understanding is that each property owner designs and builds the sidewalks the way that they think works best for them. (notice the sudden drop of about 16 inches just beyond the tree so a driveway can cut through the sidewalk). |
Eclipse of the moon from La Paz January 21, 2019
We were able to talk a fellow cruiser and his wife into
taking us inland while they helped deliver school supplies on behalf of the
Bahia de La Paz Rotary Club to a rural pre-school and while they were there
they showed us an unfinished secondary school.
The pre-school was not in session as the teacher was in La Paz for a
teacher education day.
We were very
impressed with how the teacher had been able to turn a building constructed out
of discarded shipping pallets into an effective classroom.
The Rotary presented them with a water cooler
that they had converted into a water filter which was effective enough that
they have been shown to significantly decrease the incidence of waterborne
disease when they are used, and also left some school supplies and educational
toys.
The story of the secondary school
is that the Mexican government has a rural schools support agency that takes
young adults who have made it through high school and then gives them a year of
teacher training.
They are then sent to
a rural area where there aren’t enough students to justify a regular school and
they teach for their first year to pay off the teachers’ training while the
local community makes sure they have a place to live and are fed.
They are encouraged to stay on and teach
beyond the first year with the offer that they will earn further education for
themselves.
Another advantage of this
system is that it supports bilingual teachers in indigenous villages where
Spanish isn’t spoken.
On the other hand
if there is not a building for a school then the kids are sent to a neighboring
boarding school away from their family and village.
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| Preschool made of surplus shipping pallets |
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| Rotary brought supplies for the preschool |
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| 2 children were playing with a newspaper in the wind so we fashioned paper hats which made them very happy |
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| Esperanza secondary school in need of money to be finished |
Esperanza Village has the walls and roof in place for a
school for the 10 local secondary students but the money is not yet there to
finish the structure.
The local Rotarian
familiar with the school tells us that only $US 3000 is needed to finish the
floor, add windows, etc..
We have set
out to try to find $US 5000 so the school can be completed and furnished. So
far we have given check for $US 1200 to the Rotary Club and have another $US
1200 pledged . If readers would like to help out the club has a new web site (February 24th update: not yet posted) with a PayPal donation option (PayPal does not take a fee from the non-profits
for donations) and donors can indicate the money is for the Esperanza School.
We would also like to note how warmly we were
welcomed when we visited the Rotary Club despite being outsiders who did not
even speak the language.
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| Bahia de La Paz Rotary club |
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| Accepting donation check |
Small world side note: Our contacts
with the Rotary Club are Charles and Carol Moorhead. When I needed an emergency ride from La Paz
to the Cabo airport about 100 miles away it was Charles who jumped in and made
sure I caught my plane. While I was
riding with Charles I was texting my brother-in-law in Tacoma to arrange for
him to pick me up in Seattle. I mentioned to Charles that my brother-in-law had
been a computer geek back in the Fortran days for Weyerhaeuser Company to which
Charles indicated he and Carol had worked in Weyerhaeuser IT during that same
time period. When we compared notes
Charles, Carol, and my brother-in-law all knew each other from working
together.
Much of our travel in the Sea of Cortez is ruled by the
north winds.
When a high is over
California swirling clockwise and a low is over Arizona swirling counter
clockwise the wind between then heads down the Colorado River valley and on to
the Sea of Cortez.
The speed of the wind
is not the issue but rather the short choppy waves the wind raises very quickly
once it hits about 15 knots (which it does frequently).
Traveling north with these choppy waves can
be miserable as the boat thunks along (the local term for this wave pattern is “a
herd of buffalo” with describes the scene pretty well).
Yesterday the winds settled and are predicted
to stay calm until the weekend so we headed north to Isle de San
Francisco.
The bay where we are spending
several days is so scenic that it was chosen as the cover photo of
Sea of Cortez: A Cruiser’s Guidebook byBreeding and Bansmeer .
There seems to
always be something to do and watch as one day Jarvis and I climbed the rim of
this caldera, another we walked across a salt flat to the other side of the
island, and Clarice has enjoyed swimming to the beach and back.
The bay is filled with thousands (if not
millions) of fingerling fish that constantly jump and churn up the water and
attract pelicans who dive for them and dolphins who fish for them as well as
local fishermen who use hand nets and jig lines to catch them for bait.
When we arrived we were one of only about 4
boats but with the fine weather several other boats have arrived including a
mega yacht and a micro cruise ship from the UnCruise Company.
A sampling of our photos from the islands and villages
north of La Paz as far as Bahia Aqua Verde
