Across the Lifeline

Part of The Underway Gourmet by Suzy O'Keefe

How long did it take me to get here? The only answer that makes any sense is "All my life" and, even then, most people don't begin to understand. That answer began as a sort of humorous retort during my time cruising in Mexican waters with Tim, but it was all too true. I came to realize that it speaks volumes to anyone who loved the sea...

So... which version of my tale would you like? The one that makes everything look/sound/feel wonderfully compelling? The one that causes you to envy my freedom and my independence? The one with adventures around each new headland?

Or, maybe you'd like the version that attempts to depict how horrible even the most gorgeous tropical paradise can be? The one that tells about sailing vessels that are quite different from what you imagine them to be? Wet moldy clothing... skippers who don't know how to drive their own boat... servitude?

I think perhaps both stories should be told. The truth is that these last few years have been a jumbled up mixture of all these elements. Being in the midst of such things, it is easy to fall into the negative side and write about how frustrating and lonely life aboard can be. By dwelling on the painful, boring, hopeless feelings I can create a powerful image of unhappiness, but there was a lot of good too. A little time and distance allows me to give more importance to the wonders and merits of the voyage. A huge storm, an evening with new friends, a place that holds special memories... I can make the tale much more appealing by leaving out a few pieces of the story, but that's not fair either.

After a while, it's possible to separate the good from the bad and smile again when remembering both.

I was born in the spring of 1990 at the age of 39 and it was sailing that gave me life. I'll spend the rest of my life making up for lost time. Trying to recover from the naiveté within me that resulted from living the first 18 years of my life in the South, the regimentation that the rules and regulations of a 20 year banking career drummed into my brain until that was all I knew, and the stress of marriage to man who conned everyone he ever met including me.

But sailing, why sailing? I don't know, I honestly don't know! There is absolutely no logic to it. I never lived by the ocean or even a lake. There is no history of sailing in my family. I'm not even a very strong swimmer. Strong, yes, but not much of a swimmer. I've been told I never learned to breathe and perhaps that's true. Also, I don't weigh very much (no extra body fat) so floating takes some effort on my part. These alone are 2 factors that could be enough to keep me away from the blue water, but they don't.

I can't attribute sailing to some novel I'd read or anything like that. I can't even blame my ex for his tales of the sea during his Navy days. His was of the Vietnam era and it was something he just didn't talk about. I will allow that to be the reason he was rather screwed up though... like I said, I was very naive back then and very gullible. I had a career and paid all the bills, while he continually pursued one scheme after another. In fact, he was (and had been for quite some time) in Mexico when the fateful day came. The decision was all mine.

For the first 15 years of my career, I actually enjoyed work. It was the people I interacted with daily and the ease with which I remembered names and numbers. The customers loved me, especially the older ones. I was quick to wait on them and chat a bit, but I never made those in line feel like I was wasting time. Eye contact and a quick smile always let them know that I knew they were there. Soon my memory for account numbers and paragraph & verse of the regulations , along with the ease with which I handled people brought me promotion after promotion.

Funny how the higher I got in the organization... the less fun it was. I never liked playing politics with "Mrs. Gotrocks" and being less than truthful with an employee because of the manipulating ways of management higher up. My employees had always respected me in the past and I had led them by example. After all these years, it was getting harder to respect myself. It could have just been me, or the job, or the management level I had attained, or the death of both my parents within 8 months, or being injured in a rear-end accident on the freeway that caused me a lot of pain, or maybe ,just maybe, it was that number 2016 that taunted me from the latest "Projected Retirement Date" information sheet. Whatever it was, the last 5 years were increasingly hell! More & more, I had begun thinking about sailing off into the sunset... Sailing! Escaping civilization as I knew it.

Somehow, I arrived at the decision that I'd be ready to make my escape when I had come up with a name for the boat I envisioned (the boat I didn't even own). As I drove home after a particularly difficult day of "playing politics", it came to me! It was perfect and timely and nothing could have dissuaded me from the name LeftBank or from leaving behind all I had known before. The next day I did just that.

No need to try to fake being stressed out. I was! I served out the last 90 days of my 20 year career on a stress related leave of absence and received both my salary and my "gold watch" by mail.

My husband returned from Mexico, rather abruptly I might add, but never tried to talk me out of it. We immediately began looking for a boat... the biggest one we could find for the money, that was our idea of the way to do it... and this required driving either north or south about 100 miles for each search since we were no where near the water. After about six weeks, we found "her" in Newport Beach - 47 feet WOW!, wide teak decks, roller furling - absolutely the wrong boat for two would-be sailors without a "clew". But hey, you'd be surprised how many folks find out the hard way. Too bad so many give up somewhere along the way and decide sailing just isn't for them when in fact they just bought the wrong boat.

But I'm jumping too far ahead. We sold the house, most of the furniture, and the cars, paid off all the credit cards, and bought that boat for less than half the asking price (that should have given us a hint). We moved her to San Diego even though there was a lot of additional paperwork to do because of the previous owners divorce proceedings (another unheeded omen). By the time we were ready to head out to Mexico, the papers still weren't ready so we obtained "permission" to take the boat across the border anyway. This actually worked to our advantage because that meant we took delivery outside of the country.

We did a myriad of stupid things. I, at least, had the excuse of believing my husband when he said he knew how to sail... "Usta teach sailing all the time when I was in the islands". We bought a horrible red inflatable whose name I won't mention to protect the guilty, engine driven refrigeration, a tiny watermaker, installed a swim platform and davits to carry the dinghy while underway, and a freeway legal motor scooter that we carried on the aft deck... all completely inexcusable to the experienced cruiser. We even had the hull painted dark blue - Dark Blue - to go to the tropics! Why didn't someone tell us??? Most of those around us were "newbies" too and those that weren't just stood by and shook their heads.

"Naked and Clueless" as they say, we had most of the work done by the first boatyard we came to in Mexico and in the process my husband proceeded to chop off the end of several fingers while "borrowing" one of the boatyard machines. More money spent, more time spent at the dock, and when we finally continued south it was primarily as a motor boat with all the sail handling and anchoring being done by my ten fingers.

In spite of the above, I was having a wonderful adventure. I had been relegated to driving the car down from Newport to San Diego while our friend helped my husband sail the boat, so other than the short day sail to Ensenada, this was my first real passage. The stars and the feel of the sea rushing by completely captured me and held me suspended in a state of utter joy. I was hooked. I had made the right choice and nothing else mattered.

Our first stop was the tiny anchorage at Isla San Martin. Little more than the tip of an extinct volcano with a small crescent shaped reef mostly awash, it was heaven. No sooner had we anchored than the local fishermen came along side in their 22' panga offering to exchange lobsters for rum! A bottle of cheap rum, some candy bars and a baseball cap later we had four large live lobsters sloshing in a bucket on deck. Lobster Thermadore anyone?

For me, Cedros Island was the high point of this passage. There were several anchorage choices on the east side of the island. We chose one of the non-village ones and settled in. We had hopes that some friends we'd met in Ensenada would catch up and anchor there with us so we planned to stay a few days.

The island was alive with sea life. Sea lions covered the beach and darted about the boat. Birds attached any fish that ventured too near the surface.

The first night was filled with amazing sights and sounds. Bioluminescent bubble trails criscrossed the anchorage. It was as if the water were a mirror image of the sky exvept all these stars were "shooting". Every few minutes something would hit the hull and the water would be alive with splashing & the evidence of a creature speeding through it. On shore, it sounded like a kid's pots-&-pans orchestra being played over an amplified sound system pointed directly at us... clanging echoing erie sounds.

Eventually, we figured out that the sea lions were using the dark colored hull of our boat as a fishing tool. Yep, pretty smart these sea lions. They like to eat flying fish. Flying fish like to escape by sailing up and out of the water for a couple of hundred feet. The sea lions chase the flying fish in the direction of the boat. Flying fish knock themselves silly against the dark hull they couldn't see in the night. Sea lions saunder over and casually eat them without much effort. (Don't paint your boat a dark color if you like to sleep at night!)

But the other noise, what on earth could it be? I could only guess it was the sea lions, but I'd never heard anything like it. By daylight, it had all but stopped. Scanning the shoreline with the binocs I happened to be looking directly at a sea elephant when he sounded off. A huge bull sea elephant with a snout that quickly explained the name. They made that pot banging bellow! As odd and loud as it was I had to go ashore for more.

The whole shoreline almost undulated with the movement of life there. Dark masses of sea lions and elephants covered almost all of the sand & rocks that fell out from the cliffs of the island. Once in the dink and armed with cameras, we slowly motored along parallel to the shore searching for a likely spot to land. We inched closer and could see that most of the animals were babies, pups... thousands of them. We were watching them and they were watching us. We were the only boat in the anchorage and possibly the first one of this El Nino year.

I swear, the Moms all said "Oh alright, you can play with the humans" 'cause all at once the babies ran down the beach and into the water. The small round rocks clattered as if a huge wave had just pushed them up the beach so they could tumble back down. Birds flew away in fear and we were suddenly surrounded by hundreds (maybe thousands) of sea lion pups as curious about us as we were about them. They dove and rolled and skittered under the dink all the while their eyes watching us. Their heads were inches from our hands in the water. They weren't quite willing to be touched, but they were certain we were not a threat. The Moms looked on from shore with a smile. "At last, a moment's peace!"

The big bull sea elephants hardly raised an eyebrow (if they had one) and continued snoozing. I mean, afterall, they had been up all night defending their territory! We landed the dink in a sandy area and started the shore excursion. I headed straight for one of the huge sea elephants spralled out just up the beach. Not quickly, but deliberately. I walked with a slow even pace speaking in a low voice reasuring the creature I approached all the while making eye contact. I stopped at intervals then continued until I nealt beside one that I'm sure weighted well over 1000 pounds. As I spoke, I reached out my hand and stroked the flipper nearest to me. His eyes moved from mine to my hand, but he made no effort to move away or show agression of any kind. Again he returned my gaze and I continued to "pet" him. Satisfied I had accomplished my goal to make contact with these amazing creatures up close, I stood and stepped back a few feet. I said my good byes and turned away. I listened to be sure I wasn't about to be chased, but I felt no fear. Just the exiliration of this wild place.

The friends still hadn't shown up so we moved on to Bahia Bartholome where we encounted our first real village. We performed the fueling drill at pier that looked much like the skeleton of a 2 story building sticking out of the water. We climbed the ladder from the water to the top carrying empty 5 gallon fuel jugs and lowered the full ones down to the dink via a length of line. Back to the boat to dump them into the tank and back again to the fueling operation. I don't rmemeber just how many trips it took, but a beer was definately in order when we were done.

"Pacifico, Nada Mas". I had my first cerveza there and I was hooked. Funny, I'd never liked beer in my past life. Not even the smell of it. But here, in this new life, I loved it. Something else I can't explain I guess.

Now cases of beer went aboard along with other fresh provisions. Laundry was the next order of business. I didn't see anyplace that looked like a laundrymat, but then what would one look like here? I asked the fellow that ran the fuel dock. We'd gotten to be friends fairly quickly. He pointed toward a blue house nearby and said manaña. Now what seemed like mounds of dirty & wet clothes had to make the trip up the ladder and then to the house I could see from the pier, but was at least 2 blocks away via the rutted dirt road.

It didn't look like a laundry, but there was a washer in the yard?!??!? I had nearly no Spanish language skills at this point, but the lady of the house was expecting me. My friend at the fuel dock lived there and had told them to expect me. It must have been obvious that I was somewhat confused by what I saw. The washer was full of water that looked like it had already been used. Nearby was a hose and a large washtub filled with water, fabric softener & a load of clothes.

The lady explained and I finally understood: wash all the clothes (as many loads as I have) in the same water and set them aside... drain the water from the washer and refill it with the hose... rinse each load in this water and set them aside... second rinse in the fabric softener tub... hang everything on the line... come back tomorrow when they're dry. Simple!

She fed me lunch (something wonderful that I couldn't pronounce) and hovered to be sure I managed the washer okay. It all seemed surreal. The entire family got into the act and I knew I was the afternoon's entertainment. Doing the laundry took the entire day. When I finally finished, I tried to pay them. That was apparently totally out of the question. They wouldn't take a peso. I needed to do laundry and they had a way to do it. This was a favor for a friend, that's all there was to it.

I thanked them over & over and headed back to the boat at anchor. Next day, I came back to find most everything already folded and bundled to make them easy to carry. I wasn't surprised. I was most grateful and this time I was prepared. I brought T-shirts, candybars, baseball caps, and toys that were placed on board to "trade". We were all happy.

(Now, I've heard lots of storys about this village and it's people since then. Many not so plesant, but these people get all manner of boats and crew there needing fuel. I expect that the people who had a hard time brought it on themselves. It's been a wonderful place with friendly people each and every time I've been there... must be 5 times so far.)

After all this, it's no wonder that my husband wasn't having a wonderful time. By the time we had reached Puerto Vallarta, he'd had enough and drove his scooter back to the US to "work for a while". Right! He left me and the boat with $200 in a broken-down marina outside PV with 2 months rent paid and basically never came back (well, that's not quite true, more about that later).

It was now June 10, 1991 and the rainy insect season was eminent. But not tonight. Tonight there was a potluck and the beginnings of a strange new lifestyle.

I think I knew he wasn't coming back. In a way, it was a relief for him to be gone. I enjoyed living on the boat! I didn't have any idea what I was going to do next... I did know that eventually I would get some money in settlement of the auto accident. When and how much were the questions. I could make the $200 dollars last about 2 months (maybe) without scrimping much. There was plenty of nondescript food on board and I could buy fresh chicken, veggies, and fruit for next to nothing. I could even afford to continue my beer consumption at it's current rate. That's something that had become almost a ritual since my arrival in this marina... something I would never have believed. I always hated the smell and taste of beer... in my past life.

Beer and the social activity that accompanied it were the best parts of this little marina outside Puerta Vallarta. The "Tienda" provided both the beer and the venue. A tiny store and laundry at the top of "C" Dock, it occupied the corner section on the bottom floor of a partially finished structure intended to be luxury condominiums. Somewhere along the line, construction on this and two adjacent buildings had stopped (perhaps years before) about the same time that the marina began to deteriorate.

Wide cement steps extended the length of the building and the Tienda was set back so that a large shady area was created outside the entrance. The beer was very cold and very cheap and only a few steps away from the boats. There on the steps, the cruisers gathered starting about 11AM. The men wearing cutoffs, sandals, and nothing more were lined up on the steps facing the marina. This attire frequently revealed a bit more of their "anatomy" than one might usually see in such mass. Fallout, that's what I call it! May I say that this was all a part of my education and significantly reduced my naivete.

There were only a few women in the marina for the season and I was now the only ostensibly "single" one. At least I was fair game as far as the guys were concerned. I loved it. I had never experienced being such a center of attention.