Voyage of the Sea Bear

A little smile, a little wave

Many Parades look the same. To a small extent, this one was no different. But a little careful examination of these pictures does show that there is a difference here. Children were present in almost every float and dance troupe.  Peeking under the plastic bushes, or out of the cab of the truck were little smiling faces. For me, it made this parade a bit more memorable.

Here are some of the other images I captured:

Little Dancers

Good drummers, and another little watcher

King of theWorld... in a few years

Oh baby. Not all the dancers were little children.. And not all were girls..

Dolphin and a few male dancers..

Over all it was a great show. Zihuatenajo is a vital and colorful community. Carnival is a good way to see what the town is really made of… good, energetic people.

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Jesus is with us when we beach our dingy.

The dingy is how we get to shore. It’s like your minivan or car. If we want to go visiting, or shopping, or go out to dinner, we get dressed up, and put our shoes and stuff into our water resistant backpack. Then I climb down the stern ladder into the dingy. JC lowers the outboard engine to me, using the davit, a little crane-like device. I bolt the engine to the dingy, JC climbs down into the boat, and we’re off.

We are currently using the Port-a-bote, a cool folding boat that’s 12 ft long, and will carry four adults easily. With just JC and I in it, it gets up on a plane quickly, and is much faster than the inflatable Zodiac we have. It’s a bit weird in the ocean, because if flexes when it hits waves and such. So there is a bit of excitement whenever we’re zipping about.

Landing the dingy can be trecherous. Some ports have a dingy dock, and you just pull up, tie off, and climb out. Other places, like Zihuatenajo, have a designated part of the beach you are expected to land at. Timing is important, in the approach, in exiting the dingy, and in departing. If you ride a wave into the beach, and lean back in the boat, the ocean can do most of the work for you. Just before we  hit sand, I have to take the motor out of gear, kill it, and tilt it up so the prop doesn’t hit the sand. JC bounces out as the wave retreats, and should be in little or no water when she does. Then I climb out, and we drag the dingy up over the high water mark.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. Many things can go wrong. I’m facing backwards while I kill/lift the outboard. That means I’m NOT looking at the beach. If the bow digs into the sand on an outgoing wave, the next incomming wave will hit the flat stern, and probably gift us with several gallons of seawater into the boat. If we slam into the sand quickly, both JC and I can fall forward, throwing off our well-timed ballet. Even after one or both of us are out of the boat, if it is allowed to turn sideways, we can get swamped. So it’s not a trivial process.

This is where Jesus comes in. He is often standing on the beach, in his red tee shirt, waving us to a clear parking spot. He wades out into the water, to steady the boat and guide us in. After we’re both out of the boat, he helps us carry the boat up the beach. He watches the dingy while we are in town, and helps carry the boat back to the water when we are ready to leave. We tip him 10 Pesos both on arrival and departure. That’s about $0.80.

Having someone with solid footing help us out when our foundation is moving is a great help. Just knowing he is there makes me more confident, and more likely to move in rhythm with the surf. And if I do screw up, he usually reduces the severity of the price JC and I both have to pay. It’s good knowing he’s there, to help us, day or night.

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It’s becoming a bit of a tradition to be on deck for sunset to watch the sun go down. Usually we have a drink and enjoy the show. Tonight was no different except that one of the usual bit-players did some grandstanding.

Ever since I scrubbed the critters off of the bottom of Sea Bear’s hull, several schools of fish have been hanging around. A couple of times a day they come up to the surface en-mass and they seem to be eating bubbles. I guess there is more there than what we see, but it LOOKS like they break the surface of the water, creating the  bubbles, then  go nuts eating them. Some sort  of low calorie fish diet, I guess.

Anyway, when school is in session, they attract attention. Bigger fish swim by, and birds dive out of the sky. It’s like a big rock hitting the water when those birds dive in. The birds are mostly Boobies, with some white long tailed hawk-like birds as well.

Tonight’s show started with the regular bubble-fest. The little guys were really going to town, and both the grey surface feeders, and the silvery flashers were playing right off the side of the boat. Two Frigates were circling high up, and a couple of the white hunters were diving in, and scoring about a third of the time. A single Pelican was also touring this end of the bay, but I didn’t see him dive in. About a hundred feet away, this little dark fish jumps out of the water. Straight up he comes, and it’s not an exaggeration that he cleared 8 to 10 feet of air. Right behind him was a 24 to 30 inch silvery fish, and the big guy also cleared 8 feet at least. JC and I both shouted, it was amazing. A few seconds later they both jumped again, and repeated the stunt. Dolphins jump like that, but I’ve never seen little fish get so far above the water.

Anyway, it made for a spectacular sight. Sunset was like a postcard. We keep hoping that one of these evening we’ll see the fabled “green flash”, but in all honesty, I’m happy with the sunsets just the way they’ve been. Birds diving into the water, and fish diving out. Who knows what we shall see tomorrow.

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The closing SailFest BBQ / beach party is today. Sorry for the lack of postings the past few days, we had a glorious lightning storm that took out the WiFi Radio. And of course, the Mexican TelCel radio failed to re-activate this month, I´m working on getting that turned back on. So right now I´m in one of the common INTERNET cafes catching up on email, etc.

The weather has been a bit strange, they say it <NEVER> rains here this time of the year. We got two and a half days of down-pour.  Thunder and lightning. A bit of wind. Anyway, the Sea Bear still has a few leaky hatches, and the dorades leak as well. I´ll work on them a few at a  time.  I bailed  6 to 8 inches of fresh water out of the dingy three times (should have saved some for washing / showers). But the weather has been wonderful the past few days, we did our first-ever sailboat race yesterday and it was quite educational.

This next week is Carnival, that too will be my first. Masks, ribbons, and signs are going up across the streets, and this festive town is getting even more so. We´ll hang around for another few weeks before we start back northward.

Off to the beach for lunch, then to a friends house to watch the Superbowl. Till next time, this is Captñ Harold, from Zihuatenajo…

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Even here in paradise there are chores to do. Especially here.

Yesterday I put in my ear plugs (still fighting a bit of an ear infection), flippers, mask and snorkel. Grabbed a scraper and took a look at the bottom of Sea Bear. There were 2 inch long white bi-valve seashells, with long pink tongues hanging out, all along the white “water line” painted on her hull. These things weren’t there two weeks ago. I also noted round perriwinkle thingies and a lot of green mossy grass-like stuff. Farther down are bunches of “dark stuff” I didn’t inspect closely.

As I scraped these things off, I soon had lots of little buddies. FISH! Anywhere from 3 to 12 inches long. They did a pretty good job of making sure the shells didn’t reattachthemselves. After a while, bigger fish arrived and when I got done, pelicans and other birds were there making sure the bigger fish didn’t get too cocky as well. Ahh, the food chain in action.

Since I will be wearing ear plugs, I really can’t go much more than 6-8 feet down. I float like a cork, so I’ll need to dig out the weight belt.  I have no idea about what works best to scrub with, so maybe I should go buy a few scrubby-tools. Plastic scraper, shiny steel wool, green sponge pads, maybe a metal spatula for the tough guys. Anyone have any suggestions? It’s a red ablative paint there under the water line, but I can see round 1 inch spots where the paint is completely missing. I sense a new paint job in my future. Sigh. I bet bottom paint isn’t cheap, either.

  Anyway, suggestions are always welcome.  If you know of any tricks, tools, or specific products to make the cleaning and maintenance of my bottom any easier, add a comment to this article and let me know. Or you can sent regular email to me at “seabear at  miller period org”.

I’d better get to the hardware store and see what they have on the shelf. The SailFest race is Wednesday, and the parade is Saturday. I gotta make sure my bttom is smooth. pretty.

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