On the hard

Nearly seven months and 3500 sea miles after leaving San Francisco Bay, we put Odyssey in dry storage for the summer. Our insurance requires us to have the boat above 37 degrees latitude and in dry dock for several months during hurricane season. The past few weeks in Mexico have given us a little taste of the hot weather to come, and we gladly set our sights on cooler climates of Wisconsin, California, and Oregon for a short time.

Marina Seca San Carlos, Sonora, has an elaborate system of removing craft from the water without a hoist, transporting it to the dry storage area, and positioning it for stability and safety.

Boat owners have the job of prepping the boat...washing and stowing canvas, lines and sails, plugging through-hulls to keep insects and spiders out, cleaning out food, cupboards and refrigerators, securing halyards and protecting hardware from the wind, rain and dust. It's an extensive process and wears you out! It took us three days, working pretty much non-stop to finish.

Sitting in the shade of a solar panel on the aft deck, our last gesture was to finish off the open bottle of wine, along with some cheese and bread, as a toast to our trip so far.

Boat chores

A Peterson 44 has lots of brightwork.



Marv has gained a reputation on the docks as being someone who "works all the time," and the quality and beauty of the teak on our topsides is a tribute to his efforts. These kind of boat chores help with his tan, too.

Cruisers

There is a complicated interface between local residents and cruisers. John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts (The Sea of Cortez [1941]; The Log From the Sea of Cortez, [1951]) spoke of it from their experiences during their six-week journey collecting invertebrate marine life in the Sea. They reflected on how different the reality of life was for each party, but how, for all people, “it is through struggle and sorrow that [they] are able to participate in one another—the heartlessness of the healthy, well-fed, and unsorrowful person has in it an infinite smugness.”

We have found our interactions to be many things—pleasant, informative, gratifying, confusing, disconcerting, uncomfortable, and curious. Our Spanish improves, poco a poco. In some anchorages, local residents come asking for water, offer to take your garbage for a small fee, or provide fresh fish for “whatever you want to give me.” Everyone is polite, business-like, and straightforward.

Even so, at times, there is an undercurrent of discomfort on both sides…unspoken feelings: "What is a 'fair price'?” “I hate to ask like this...it is beneath me to do it, but you have so much, what can you give me?”

There is much we can give…but the relationship where that which is given and received strengthens all involved is elusive.

We talk with shopkeepers, fishermen, marina staff, and others about their work and lives, listening to their stories, finding out who they are. We answer their questions about what it is like to live at sea, from details of daily life (“Tiene una estufa abordo? Un ventilador? Hace fria afuera?” “Do you have a stove to cook with? A fan? Is it cold?”), to feelings (“No le da miedo estar afuera por la noche?!” “Doesn’t it scare you to be out on the ocean at night?!”).

This sharing of stories of our lives, the very mundane as well as struggles and sorrows, is a first step in participating together.

Historic town

Santa Rosalia was a copper mining town in the 19th century, run by a French company, Campagne du Boleo. The French brought their culture to Mexico…buildings were constructed of wood, the church designed by Gustav Eiffel, the bakery offered French breads.





Today, the primary industry is fishing, a little copper smelting, some tourism. It is a dusty town, one legacy of the mines, and there is much debris in corners and abandoned buildings. Even in the center of town, where shops and restaurants are vibrant and well-stocked, the century-old wooden buildings give an air of gentile dilapidation; it feels a bit like New Orleans’ French Quarter—without the jazz. Santa Rosalia has a very different flavor from other Mexican towns, and it has been good to get to know a little about some of the people who live and work here.

Eiffel Church

Designed by Gustav Eiffel, displayed (and shared a prize for design with the Eiffel Tower) at the 1889 World's Fair in Paris, reconstructed in Belgium, and then shipped to Mexico, the Iglesia de Santa Barbara is a landmark of Santa Rosalia.

Calamari anyone?

For over 100 years, the Santa Rosalia harbor has been sheltered by two immense jetties, leaving it with about a quarter of a mile opening at its entrance. The harbor is a small, closed body of water, and fish cannot be cleaned inside it. So, pescadores gather in a small, open bay just south of the harbor to clean their catch, including squid. The Humboldt squid (or Diablo rojo [red devil]) can be big, up to 40 kilos in weight, 4 to 5 feet in length. We were told that each panga returns with up to a ton of squid aboard; watching one come in with about eight inches of freeboard, we can believe it.









On the night we were out, the pescadores were fishing close to Santa Rosalia. To the northeast, beyond the breakwater, hundreds of lights, a veritable city of lights, bobbed on the horizon. They began returning about 11:00 PM, pulling into the open bay to clean the squid by the light of a single bulb in the stern of the boat. With the squid cleaned, they motored into the harbor and came aground at the wharf where fish are weighed and prepared for transport to one of three local processing plants (two Korean, one Chinese). Fisherman tossed squid into large crates, about 2-by-3-by-4 feet in size, emptying their boats quickly to make room for others. Each panga filled 7-10 crates, which were stacked, weighed, and loaded into waiting trucks. A “buyer” kept track in a notebook of the weight to be credited each fisherman.

We were fortunate to be there the night two biologists from La Paz were in town. They told us they came to Santa Rosalia every 15 days to collect specimens for study at the laboratory in La Paz…how large are the squid, what do they eat, are they males or females, what are the trends from one collection period to another? Samples are collected from other sites as well, giving a snapshot of fish life in the Sea.

Squid fishermen

We're losing sleep here in the marina at Santa Rosalia.







Fishing is a major industry and squid are in season right now. The pangas leave the harbor between 3:00 and 6:00 PM and return anywhere from 11:30 PM to 3:00 AM. They go right by our boat. There at least 200 of them.









And they are fascinating. The other night we got up at midnight to see what they were up to as they came home.

What is it?

We had been sailing for an hour just north of Isla San Marcos. Marv was at the helm when he saw what he thought was an eagle ray. We’ve seen these beautiful spotted rays, sometimes as big as 8 to 10 feet across. But this time it wasn’t a ray wending its way through the current line.





Seeing the fin and tail of a 25-foot shark can be quite a shock; for sure, it makes one appreciate being in the boat—not the water—at the time. This was a whale shark, some of which grow to be 60 feet in length, lazing through the water, mouth open, sifting out the plankton, small animals, and other edibles to be found in the current. No less than a dozen small fish were attached to its fins, tail, and upper back, taking advantage of scraps that came their way. We turned on the engine, hoping it wouldn’t be frightened away, and slowly followed it for a mile or so. It paid us no mind, probably wouldn’t have bothered us if we were in the water with it, but we were happy where we were!