Susan, Sequoia, and Todd go sailing

The passage north from Chamela took us about 30 hours. Because we arrived in the middle of the night, we decided to anchor in nearby Mantenchen Bay and make the short trip into the San Blas estuary the next afternoon, on the rising tide. On our previous visit to San Blas we’d seen 8 ft depths outside of the San Blas channel, so we wanted to make sure we’d have enough water under our keel.

Our friends on Passat II also told us some scary stories from when they’d entered the estuary. They were knocked down (a wave pushed them all the way over so that their mast was parallel to the water); the boat that came in behind them lost their rudder; and a power boat towing their fancy $20K dinghy had their dinghy flip, damaging the outboard engine. With all of this in mind, Capn FretALot was a bit on edge.

“It’s ok,” I reassured him. “This is a perfect opportunity to break out your new Big Girl Panties!” You see, my family loves Toro, and when they read that his old pair had gone AWOL, my mom and brother Bob teamed up to find a replacement pair. My brother delivered them when he visited us back in February.

“You’re right!” cried Toro, rushing below to don his new briefs. A moment later he was back on deck, a changed man! He checked our lines, scanned the horizon, then bellowed confidently, “Let’s do this thing!”

The channel entrance looked calm and we headed in. When we were just outside, a set of three large waves added excitement, but posed no threat. We motored in and dropped the anchor without a hitch. Then, as soon as we were ready to shut down the engine, the throttle became loose so we couldn’t give it any fuel.

Capn OCD immediately went into Fix-It mode, tearing into the binnacle to diagnose the problem. Luckily, it was just a loose nut. We couldn’t believe our luck! It had waited to come loose until we were anchored in calm water, in broad daylight! Had it happened ten minutes earlier, when we were passing near the rocks of the breakwater, it would have been a crisis. Instead it was just a quick project for Toro- just a matter of tightening up his nuts! We decided we must be blessed.

We were all thrilled to be back in San Blas, which has so much to offer: a quaint town, friendly faces from our first visit, great tacos, a calm anchorage, internet access. What’s not to love? (Biting insects aside, of course. We joke that Longfellow’s poem The Bells of San Blas was originally titled The Bugs of San Blas.)

There had been a few changes since we were there two months ago. Most notably for us, our favorite taco place had posted a new menu, which included vegetarian tacos. Having enjoyed the vegetarian sopes in Barra, I thought these might be tacos with zucchini, tomatoes, beans, etc. So I ordered one.

Several minutes later, the friendly waiter placed my vegetarian taco in front of me. It was a tortilla. Not a tortilla with vegetables, not a tortilla with cheese, just a plain tortilla! “You can put stuff from the salsa bar on it,” he explained. Capn Carne Asada and his sidekick, Torta Girl, thought this was hilarious!

I was paralyzed by the thoughts running through my head: Was I on the Mexican version of Candid Camera? Were we being served by a man with a razor-sharp sense of humor? Could they seriously charge 10 pesos for a plain tortilla, the same price as a quesadilla or a steak taco? In retrospect, in case it was a joke, I should have sent it back to the kitchen with a complaint like “It’s too salty” or “It’s too dry”. Instead I just piled on the salsa and beans, and resolved never to fall for a “vegetarian taco” again!

Since we had to motor a good part of the way here, we were running low on diesel. Not wanting to take his precious Sugata up to the concrete fuel dock (where she might be scratched!), Toro came up with the idea of rowing the dinghy back and forth to the fuel dock, using our 5-gallon jerry can to transfer the fuel to our boat. “How do you say ‘4 times’?” he asked me. “Cuatro veces,” I replied.

About half an hour later Capn Polyglot was done with his task, having made four round-trips to the fuel dock. “How’d it go?” I asked. “Great!” he said proudly. “I told the guy, ‘Quiero comprar ochenta litros, y regresamo cuatro meses‘”. I burst out laughing. “Is that right?” Toro asked.

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I explained, “Well, you made some slight errors, but roughly what you said was, ‘I want to buy 80 liters, and I’ll return in 4 months’!” “Oh,” said a disappointed Toro, “No wonder he looked at me funny.”

Koiya continues to enjoy knitting (thanks Auntie Cindy!). Her recent projects include a pocket purse and a sunglasses case that she gave me for my birthday. Her latest kick is making “forts” below decks, using blankets, folding chairs, towels, clothing, etc. Unfortunately, her forts sometime prohibit access to the head (toilet), so she suffers great disappointment when my need to pee requires their destruction! I try to look at the bright side, though: Living on a boat is no longer exotic; it feels so natural that she has to spice things up with these fantasy creations.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at 10:48 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.