I know, I’m a broken record, but I feel I underestimated Mexico and want to shout its praises for all who, like me, didn’t know what they were missing. I know I’m not that first to blog about this, we aren’t even the first to get video, but still this is special.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I took this footage after a long, stressful and slightly anti-climatic day. Afterwards I felt renewed, and ready to rock some bureaucracy. I can’t say public transportation in the USA ever gave me that much!

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Today we said goodbye to a family that we have been traveling with since Mazatlan. In the cruising world this is called buddy boating. That term really falls short of the mark though. When you cruise intentionally like this with another boat, especially one with kids the same age as yours, your lives get subtly interwoven. You tend to eat together daily, errands and activities sync up and within a few weeks you feel almost as at home on their boat as on your own.

Kara and Ruby were delightful together. They seemed to bring out the best in each other even when they were worn out. Every morning Ruby would wake up (way too early) and start begging to call Taking Flight. When Kara finally popped up on deck, Ruby would hail and start making our plans for the day. “How about Kara comes over this afternoon, the adults can sit in the cockpit and we will let you talk.” …and they did. Both families were equally happy to have the pair because when they were together they were happy, and very very occupied.



So this morning when ‘Fight’ came over to drop Ruby off from their second consecutive sleepover, and say their goodbyes, Kara was (literally) shrouded in black. Her sweet head hung destitute over the gunwale of the dingy while Ruby cried her little heart out. It was heartbreaking, and even as I was witnessing her sorrow, I was so proud of the way she had handled it. She knew the goodbye was coming, knew it would hurt, but still gave her whole heart to the friendship right to the last minute.

Later in the day we received an email from Britannia. It was the first of what will likely become a series of “how and when are we going to meet up” exchanges. The contrast of the expectation of reunion and the disappointment of farewell was somehow deeply comforting to me. It seemed to reenforce the promise that in this round world, the only thing standing between a “goodbye” and “hello old friend” is a few more miles under the keel.

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Posted from La Manzanilla, Jalisco, Mexico.

We’re in Manzanillo, anchored outside of Las Hadas resort and we’re on the verge of a transition.  Our friends that are heading to El Salvador and Panama are heading south while we turn around and return to La Cruz in Banderas Bay. Manzanillo is where we make the choice not to head to Panama, or El Salvador, or Columbia, or Costa Rica, or the Galapagos or even to Zihuatanejo, because it’s too far to just turn around. Boats are now making their plans to head south, or head into the Sea of Cortez, or like us, to sail across the biggest ocean on the planet.

But where are we going? Well, we’ve said we’re going where the wind blows. We’ll go to the Marquesas to check into French Polynesia. They’re the closest islands to Mexico, about a three week sail away.  We think we’ll spend Ruby’s eighth birthday in the Tuamotos and we are planning on getting to the Tahiti Moorea rendezvous at the end of June. And then again we’re free as birds to explore the South Pacific. We’re pretty sure we’re on our way to New Zealand except the wind blows to Australia. Our friends on s/v Britannia buried treasure for us in Tonga that must be dug up and our desire to catch up to them might be stronger than the wind on our bow between Tonga and New Zealand.

Have you ever looked at a map of the Pacific? There are 20,000-30,000 islands. Could we find 10,000 and name them to be sure? How in the world will we choose?  How will I ever feel satisfied that I’ve seen enough? I’m loving Mexico, every town, every hill climbed for the view, every beach, every anchorage. I want to go south and see more. I want to go into the Sea and see more. I want to go back to the islands north of La Paz just to see that amazing clear blue water again. It’s going to be very difficult to leave when we do. I’ll miss Mexico because it’s beautiful and wonderful in so many ways, and because I don’t yet know it well enough.

As the miles flow under the keel and I see more, the more I want to go just around the corner. I can only think of one way to make sure I get to see everything I want and to explore the world in intense detail. Have you noticed that if you rearrange the letters in Forge Over you can spell Go Forever?

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Chamela

For some reason I didn’t take as many pictures as usual, but I did manage to capture the flavor of these two stops, with just a handful of good exposures.  Chamela is an unassuming, quiet harbor frequented (it seems) more by Mexican tourists and RVrs than by cruisers and foreign tourists. I loved the chill, laid back beach scene and Ruby worked up the nerve to ask a spanish speaking girl to play. Once she got over the initial static barrier of communication, they played for an hour or so in the surf and on the beach, while Vick and I enjoyed a great grilled snapper. Perhaps we will get another chance to enjoy this harbor on our way back to La Cruz.

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Barra de Navidad and Chiuatlan

Barra de Navidad was absolutely not on my list of places to visit… until I talked to Barbara and Tom on Hooligan. They strongly recommend Barra and we decided to give it a shot. I’m glad we did. Barra is another slightly sleepy beach town. Unlike Chamela it does draw a fair amount of foreign tourism, and from my very informal  survey has a semi-permanent expat community as well. Barra is the kind of place that one could get stuck in, comfortable, relatively inexpensive, and very pretty. We speculated that if we didn’t leave when we had, we might have woken up in 50 years and realized that the last 5 decades had been spent chain smoking, drinking 5 margaritas a day (happy hour is 1-6), and hanging out at the Sands Hotel regaling passing through cruisers with our war stories (all fabricated). Not that that would have been a bad life…

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I’m going to risk sounding slightly ungrateful or whiney—though perhaps other long term travelers will understand—in an attempt to bring some resolution to the way I am feeling today. I woke up this morning to this view:
(note, I took this with the iPad, just now. No extra care was taken, it looks more beautiful in real life).

It’s gorgeous right? I mean, more gorgeous than usual. Yet somehow my reaction to it was meh-ish. Vick thinks this might be the most stunning place we have been so far, but I am more interested in a nap and maybe a few days of book reading than going for a hike or zip line.

I knew the moment I started thinking about it that I was suffering from a mild case of travel fatigue. This is common enough for travelers and tends to be the result of over stimulation, homesickness, and/or repeated culture shock. Each of these has touched me to some extent but the over stimulation has been the most significant. Every few days we pull into a new harbor, gape at the unbelievable surroundings, and then have chain-social-events until we collapse into our berths. I meet a new cool cruiser every few days and wish that I could spend a week or two getting to know them, but then we are off again or other friends stop by and my attention is split. Split once, twice, thrice… and so on until I feel stretched as thin as a nanotube, at once greater and yet so minute.

So that’s how I’m feeling currently. My plan of attack is to try to minimize side trips, maximize chilling out, and try to remain present when that fails. In two weeks we will be back in La Cruz where I can fall into some sort of routine, see our good friends from California, and stay put for a month or so before heading out to the South Pacific. I would love to say that I planned it this way, but I guess I am just lucky.

If you are suffering from a similar funk, you might like to check out these two blogs.

10 Ways to Kick Travel Fataigue’s Ass and Slowing the Pace of Travel

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Posted from Manzanillo Municipality, Colima, Mexico.

Tonight I received an awesome email from a reader. She was wondering how we came to the decision to cash out a portion of our retirement to make this dream possible, and what struggles we had to overcome before feeling comfortable with the choice. I responded to her privately but then realized that I have been dancing around this in other posts. Rather than try to rephrase what I said, I’m going to post my reply in full, right here; with one caveat that I repeat in the body. This is a serious decision with serious consequences. In this email I was preaching to the converted, but our path is not the best for everyone. Also, to protect my dad’s honor and reputation I should add that while he is incredibly supportive of us and our dream, I don’t believe he would recommend this course of action if I asked him directly. This blog post is for entertainment purposes only.

I believe that when you are doing what you are meant to be doing (in the flow, following your bliss, or however you choose to phrase it) you can trust your intuition to guide your decisions. From the tone of your email I can guess that you are fully in the flow, you know what the right choice is, and don’t need me to tell you. I also know that when you are in the groove, it is totally awesome to be around other inspiring grooversters, and to get the amplifying effect of their camaraderie. So while I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know, I can tell you that I am super impressed with your intentional living, your straightforward email and your choice to take to the sea. I can’t wait to meet you out there someday and share a boat drink in some ideal locale (they are all ideal). And I can also welcome you to whatever club it is that you have unintentionally joined by breaking the mold and following your heart.

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I am playing catch up now. After so many “best ever” posts I had to think of something original or risk sounding like a broken record. Thankfully I found some free space on my hard drive tonight so I can grace you with some visual evidence of one particularly breathtaking harbor. 

Yelapa is a jewel of a pueblo. Tucked in among the mountains, it is only accessible by boat, or trail. There are no roads and the biggest powered vehicle is an ATV. If that isn’t enough to recommend the place, it is also community owned. Nobody in town owns any property, and you can feel it in the vibe.

Without further ado may I present my 21,000 words (plus captions).

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12►

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We just sailed through our one hundred and first day. In this time we have begun to set the routines, behaviors, and mentalities that will be the foundations of our cruising lifestyle. After 101 days I can say with confidence that, while I haven’t experienced everything (who has) I am most definitely a cruiser, and I know that this life choice was the right one. As with any milestone (and this one is arguably more arbitrary than most), I thought I would take a moment to publicly reflect on what life looks like at 101. So here, in no particular order, are some thoughts:

Preparation

All of those things on my todo list didn’t really need to get done. We probably could have left 3 months earlier, and 3 months more wouldn’t have made a bit of difference for the good. If you are preparing to cruise and think you might be ready, go (unless you live in Alaska and it’s winter). Cruising with kids is easier, yes easier, than living in a house with kids and going to work every day. Sure, it’s different for different families, and this lifestyle comes with its own complications, but for our family it is 100% better to be together nearly all the time. Cruising has enabled that for us.

Lowered Expectations

All of the beautiful places I dreamed about while reading those cruising guides. You know, when I was freezing my butt off even as the space heater was pointing directly at me, those places are more beautiful and breathtaking than I could ever have guessed. I always advise setting low expectations as a way to ward off disappointment but in this case, it’s really not necessary.

Happiness

Experience, rather than stuff, is the foundation of happiness. I tried stuff, even though I knew it was the wrong path. It was easy in Silicon Valley, stuff abounds and I had my way with it. Now I have very little, and smile a lot more often. What is the difference? I would argue that doing something big; something very few people actually believed I could do, is a big part of it. I think we are wired by our evolution to desire to grow and excel. Some people do this through their paid work, I do it this way. I firmly believe that everyone should set an audacious goal, flip the bird to the naysayers, and make something amazing happen in their life. If that something amazing lasts one day, and takes 10 years to clean up after, so be it. In our case it took 10 years to set up, that works too, as long as you know when to pull the trigger.

Obstacles & Perspective

On the same tip, one of the things that has brought us the most joy on this (and other) journeys, is the joy of overcoming an obstacle. What some cruisers will do anything to avoid (checking in to customs for example) I look forward to as an opportunity to really learn what the place is like. The difference between my experience in Cabo and the experience of many of the other score cruisers in the same room was that I was smiling. I honestly can’t even tell you what I was smiling about, but I decided that I was going to smile all day, as big as I could, and strangely, it made all the difference. The only thing that brought me down at all that day (and it didn’t last) was the grousing I heard. Even then I was just bummed for them.  That said, if this wasn’t part of one of my life’s goals, I wouldn’t have been able to smile about it.

So there it is, four observations from a lightly seasoned cruiser. In the next 101 days we will cross an ocean.

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We just sailed from Yelapa, which must be blogged with photos, to Bahia Chamela, about 90 miles south.  Ninety miles requires an overnight passage for us, which it turns out, we all love.  The winds and seas in Mexico have made for very easy and comfortable sailing (and unfortunately a bit of motoring when the winds die completely). We left our anchorage at noon so that our arrival would be during daylight. The boat was ship shape, the heads cleaned, the floors swept, every last thing put away, and even fresh baked bread before we left. Maybe passage making is so wonderful for me because all the chores are done first!

In a day and night at sea it seems like we have so much time!  Piles of books get brought up to the cockpit for reading. Clip boards and colored pencils come out and Ruby draws for hours. Miles takes apart his toys and builds new ones. Pirates have battles, the toys come alive, Ruby dresses in homemade costumes made of playsilks and scraps of rope—”Silk is the perfect material for a hot day,” Ruby exclaims. Cookies are baked and devoured. Popcorn is always eaten. Naps sometimes happen. We attempt to fish (we’re terrible at it). We whale watch! The days are peaceful.

The nights are magical. The kids are allowed to stay up until their eyes close. Ruby pushes through until 10 but stays up long enough to watch the sun set and the moon rise.  Miles asks about the stars and space. I go to bed before everyone to rest before my watch at midnight. When Tucker wakes me I head up to the cockpit, clip in, and figure out where we’re going. Then the watching begins. Boats appear from time to time. We were only about 5 miles offshore this time so the changing smell of land was always blowing by. The winds are warm here and we can be comfortable in shorts and t-shirts at night. Dolphins visit- you can hear them breathe before you see them.  The moon sets a brilliant orange during my watch and after the sky darkens the stars appear to fill it back up again. I listen to music new friends gave us. When I get tired I read or watch a bit of a Twilight movie -and then when a dolphin appears I startle- it totally kept me awake.

I was on watch again when the kids woke up. For them it’s perfect. There is no one telling them to go back to bed or to be quiet. Whichever kid wakes first can come up to the cockpit for a little time alone with me. They both wake up smiling. Ruby piles books into the cockpit again. We read an Ocean A-Z dictionary, decide that a math workbook about dollars and cents isn’t important any more since she can count in both dollars and pesos anyway now, Miles plays with tangrams and solves many of the puzzles in The Tangram Magician. We all look through a book about the seven wonders of the world, and some other wonders too, and we all get excited about what we can see. We flip through a geography pop up book that was just handed down to us.

The day gets hotter. Coffee is served, again. It’s warm enough, and remote enough, for a solar shower on deck, while we watch whales. We’ll never get tired of whales and dolphins. The piles of dishes are washed and the floors cleaned up again and we approach our anchorage, very slowly, 26 hours after we left. We find a place to drop our anchor and pull out our binoculars to have a look around on shore. And then we swim in the warm clear water we’re floating in. We’re very happy to live on the sea.

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We have now visited and reported on so many beautiful anchorages and towns that I’m feeling a little sheepish about declaring the new best place. So rather than declare La Cruz “the most awesomest pueblo en Mexico,” I’m going to provide some qualifications. Since we are planing to leave here tomorrow I have taken a moment to reflect on some of the things I’ll miss until we return. In no particular order:

• Food

• Tacos en Calle
• … tacos at Claudia’s
• … tacos pretty much everywhere
• …flan
• Tons of great produce at the Tuesday and Friday night markets, super cheap. Vick hauled home 3 huge backs of produce for $166 pesos (that’s about $12US). The “bunch” of cilantro is bigger than our sink. It all looks awesome!

So there it is. This place is 10x awesome and I’m not just effusing. I won’t apologize for being continuously blown away by everything that Mexico has to show me, and I won’t pretend that I think La Cruz is the last best place (though it may be). I will keep reporting with unrestrained subjectivity all of our experiences and impressions!

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