Sailing to Guymas on "Phoenix"

Fresh fish

Jose Guadalupe spends his nights very near my boat waiting for small fish to tangle their gills in his net. Then first thing in the morning he heads to the fish market to sell his catch. Sometimes while he is waiting we talk "platicamos" and share the details of our lives. One night I went with him to "Levantar sus chinchurros" (raise his nets).

While he waits for the fish he sleeps in the bow of his "Panga". The other night he tied up to Liberty and during the night it began to rain pretty hard. I checked on Lupe and he had simply wrapped himself up in a tarp and gone back to sleep.

The smoke in the background is the power plant.

A few days ago he stopped by and borrowed my knife (his had fallen in the water) and cleaned a couple of fish which he then gave to me, insisting that I cook them now. It would have been rude to refuse so I cranked up the stove. He told me this type of "pescado" were called "muñecas", which means doll or wrist in Spanish. I'm not sure which the fish is named for... doll or wrist.

I find it interesting that the word for fish is pez, and that's what they are until they are caught and then they are pescado, which translates literally as "fished".

Jose Guadalupe "Lupe" a pescador.

Lupe scaled and cleaned the fish and I fried it in oil. It was delicious.

A Mexican Wedding

When was the last time you attended a wedding reception with a band that contained 13 musicians? Or fireworks? Or all the food and beer you and 200 other guests could eat and drink until three in the morning?

I just attended one in Mexico, and what makes it remarkable to me is that the bride and groom are poor young Mexicans from a very middle class family. The lavish wedding was paid for by family members pitching in what they could afford.

It was the wedding of Paco's cousin Doroly. Actually she is the daughter of Paco's mother Lupe's nephew... so I think that makes her a second cousin although in Mexico there is no such distinction. A cousin is a cousin, no matter how far "removed" they may be. There doesn't seem to be any sense of removal.

Bride and Groom (Novios) at the altar.

That's me with the fresh haircut and corbata (tie).

Paco, Cheli and America - she was a flower girl.
Actually her job was to hand out little momentos
of the wedding called "recuerdos".


Paco with the bride - Doroly, and groom - Fili.

A cool ride for the bride.

Traditional "Banda" playing Sinaloan style music.



The reception was beautifully decorated and held at
"Hacienda Los Angeles" an event park on the edge of Mazatlan.

Keeping her pretty

Liberty is a wooden boat in every aspect except her hull, which is heavily made of fiberglass. There is lots and lots of teak above and below. I love bright varnished teak trim on a boat, but periodically it needs to be re-varnished. I'm in the process of redoing all the teak and hope to be finished by the end of June.
Unfortunately the old varnish has to be removed. The pain of scraping and sanding is the price paid for the pleasure of brushing on a beautiful new coat.

Repairing fishing nets and rocking chairs

A couple of Saturdays ago Paco and his brother Julio and I went to visit Paco Senior at work. He doesn't usually work on Saturdays but there was an extra job and a chance to pick up a few extra pesos. A fishing net needed to be repaired.

Making and repairing fishing nets (chinchurros) is what Paco has done since he was 8 years old. He has worked side by side the other old fellow in the photo (sorry, don't remember his name) for over 40 of those years.

I watched Paco tie knots with blinding speed. His hands long ago ceased to need instructions from his brain. I counted a knot per second.

A few days later I met this guy. The local rocking chair repairman. This is a profession in Mexico. One that may one day exist in America as the "disposable society" can no longer afford to throw things away.You'll see these rocking chairs all over Mazatlan. They're made of welded steel rod and then covered with a web of synthetic cord or small diameter rope. The rope wears out long before the frame does... if it ever does. It took this guy about a half hour to re-string this chair. And it will be good for another few years. He stays busy and supports his wife and five kids by making the rounds all over Mazatlan bringing new life to old rockers.

Liberty Makes The Front Page

Imagine my surprise when I glanced at the front page of the Noroeste, one of Mazatlan's daily papers (there are at least three) and saw my boat in the same photo with the President of Mexico.

I was on the boat at the time and knew el Presidente was just across the way near the Chihuahua Star - the ferry that runs daily to La Paz. I heard the military bands followed by cannon fire and popped my head out the hatch to see the smoke. I didn't count but it could have been a 21 gun salute. The occasion was El Dia De Marinas.


If you look at the photo you'll see President Calderon near the center of the photo. He's the one without a hat. And Liberty is in the upper right. The sailboat with the dark blue hull.

Pretty cool huh? I could have lived in Mexico forever and not had a photo of my boat with the President of the country. Instead it only took six months.

A friend is missing

Billy Landers aboard Emily Pearl moments before leaving Mazatlan harbor.

I spent three months anchored within 100 yards of Billy Landers. He left for the Marquesas on March 15th. I got this email today. I feel sick to my stomach at the thought that this good friend may be lost.

Emily Pearl is sunk in 45 feet of water off the west coast of Nuku Hiva. The skipper Billy Landers has not been found. The Dinghy/Life-raft is not aboard, it is a dark green Portland Pudgy, which is a hard plastic sailing dinghy, and a certified life boat.
No indication yet as to whether it was launched or drifted away. Search continues today by air and sea and the local gendarmes will be searching the shore near the wreck as well.
Local divers found no one aboard, professional divers will be investigating the wreck today.
Anyone in the are please keep your eyes open.

Erik Dix
S/V Sidetrack

Then I received this update with more details from Erik a few minutes later.

Bill left on the morning of May 3^rd from Nuku Hiva for the island of Ua Pou.

Bill did not arrive a Ua Pou, he was heard making trying to reach a few boats by VHF radio later that afternoon, but apparently wasn't able to receive the answering hails. He sounded calm, and didn't issue a mayday.

The next morning, a guitar, a laptop, and some wreckage were found floating near Nuku Hiva by a local fisherman. A private search found Bill's boat, the Emily Pearl sunk just off the SW coast of Nuku Hiva. The dinghy which doubles as a life-boat (certified life-boat, nearly unsinkable) was not aboard, but no one can be sure at this point if it was launched or if it broke free.When I visited the site today, the boat was within 50 feet of shore.

A safety harness was found in the water on the rocks near shore. To my knowledge Bill always wears his safety harness underway.

The shoreline around the wreck was searched by boat and by plane today but there was no sign of Bill or of the dinghy. Tomorrow divers will inspect the boat to try and determine what happened. A land search will begin tomorrow, in case Bill got ashore and is attempting to hike back to a road, this side of the island is largely uninhabited and pretty steep. A private fisherman will be setting off for a nearby uninhabited island where the dinghy may have drifted to.

I've asked that the divers searching the boat search especially for Bill's hand held VHF radio as

I'm sure he would try to take it with him if he had to abandon the boat.

A waterproof bag containing US currency and US army pins in a cigar box was also recovered today. I'm 99% positive they were Bill's.

It looks like one of the lifelines (plastic coated wire that serves as railing around the deck) broken. If that happened before the boat was sunk it could indicate falling overboard.

All of the divers that have been on the boat say that he is not still in the boat.

If Bill is on land, the local authorities are confident he would not have been able to reach a road by this time. Bill is very competent to survive on the terrain, water and fruit are available, and the climate is warm.

Guests aboard

Yesterday - Sunday May 3rd - Sheila and Mike entertained guests aboard Liberty. Cheli's sister Luli and her husband Juan Carlos brought the "primas" (which is what I call the girl cousins) for an afternoon of fun and food.

Sheila, Luli and Juan Carlos with the "primas" standing behind. Edna and America (seen on the foredeck) passed on the group photo.

Cousins Edna, Minerva, and Lupita (Lupita's Quincianera will be in November)

From left to right Katya, America and friend Daniela

Sabado at the beach

Semana Santa is the week before Easter and THE biggest holiday vacation in Mazatlan. Tens of thousands of Mexican vacationers head for the beach with their families. We joined them on Saturday.

Paquito, always ready for a good time, and the life of any party no matter how large, donned his Mexican wrestling mask and a straw hat. I would say it was for anonymity but all day long friends of his kept recognizing him with a big "Que onda Paco?"

We called him "Macho Libre".
Macho got an invite to the stage to participate in a dance contest.

The beach was packed.

Paco Senior recognized the leader of the band as being from the barrio and joined him for a song and did a little dancing as well.

Finishing the roof

Saturday and Sunday were important days for our construction project. I had done all I could do without the help of a professional - uncle Ricardo - who makes his living as an albanil (brick mason). Saturday was spent installing the "tarimas" which would support the concrete of the roof. Tarimas are like heavy wooden boxes and one rents them along with the "puntales" (wooden posts) which support them.

Ricardo installing the tarimas that will support the concrete roof while the cement cures.

Mixing cement in the street.

On Sunday there were eight of us - Pacito's dad and two uncles, three neighbors and myself. We would need a lot of hands to install the "barrillas" (steel reinforcing bars) and mix three hundred buckets of cement, all of which would be transported by hand up to the rooftop to be poured into place.

The block and tackle for lifting the cement is not OSHA approved. But it worked flawlessly.

Each bucket was lifted with a block and tackle, hooked with a "gancho" (metal hook) tied to the end of the "soga" (rope) which ran through the block (I don't know the Spanish for this rig). I was the "chalan" whose muscle pulled the rope that hauled each bucket up to the roof. I figure it was 15,000 lbs of cement. My arms aren't sore today but I could barely close my hands this morning.

Paco and his brother Ricardo are installin the "magera" (plastic hose) for electric wiring for lights, all of which will be securely buried in the concrete roof. Supported by a gridwork of metal rebar.

The roof is partially filled with cement.

Recorded for posterity in the fresh cement - the names of all involved.

Relaxing after a long hard day's work.

Paco ready to go to his security gig Sunday evening. He works 6pm to 6am.

Liberty in the fog

I like this photo of Liberty. I took it one morning as I was rowing ashore. Spanish for fog is niebla.

My huaraches

I bought a pair of huaraches. You might call them sandals but they are the traditional footwear of campesinos and vaqueros, "country boys" they might be called in the U.S.


Huaraches are cheap (about $6.50 US) - made from a single long leather thong uniquely braided, and the soles are made from the rubber from an old tire - and comfortable. Manuel, who sits all day beside one of the sport fishing docks I pass each day told me "Huaraches nunca huele mal." Huaraches never smell bad.

My Mexican friends laugh when they see them. It must be extremely funny to see a gringo wearing huaraches.

Erik and Bill bound for the South Pacific

I've met many other solo sailors since I arrived in Mazatlan but two of them were here long enough to become good friends... Bill and Erik. Bill arrived the same day I did.

Eric on "Sidetrack"

Over the weeks we've been here we've spent many hours together walking the streets of El Centro, eating and "internetting" at the Molto Amore Cafe - a cruiser friendly coffee shop close to the anchorage - and just generally hanging out together.

Both of these guys departed Sunday, headed for the Marquesas, thirty days away in the South Pacific. It's the first stop on their way to Australia. They are on seperate boats but hope to stay in touch with one another along the way via SSB radio.

I took these photos just moments before their departure. Erik's anchor chain was encrusted with barnacles and as he raised it I was in my dinghy beating them off with an iron bar.

Bill on "Emily Pearl"

Bon Voyage guys. I may be right behind you... give or take a year or two.

Poverty is Relative

If I were to take you to Paco's father's barrio (neighborhood) you would undoubtedly, as an American, see it as impoverished - without the neatly trimmed green grass and well kept homes of even a middle-class residential area in the U.S.

If I were then to take you to Pacito's casita - where we are adding a second bedroom - you'd be correct in observing that it was an even poorer neighborhood.

But just a few blocks from Pacito's little house is true poverty by anyone's standards. They call it an "invasion". We'd call it's residents "squatters", and might call the barrio "Hooverville", a name that dates back to the Great Depression and it's beginnings under the administration of President Herbert Hoover.

Here are a few photos I took the other day as we drove past. The homes are made of whatever scraps of lumber and canvas or plastic can be scavanged. The photos don't begin to tell the tale. There are hundreds of homes and thousands of Mexican families living on this piece of land that belongs to someone other than they... but someone who doesn't seem to mind their presence.


Forty years ago Paco Senior's home was in an "invasion" and his home was made of plywood. In time the squatters were able to buy their little plot, usually 7 meters by 20 meters in size, although the sizes vary and it is obvious from the odd angles and varying widths of the houses that the final dimensions followed the original lines measured with paces and lines drawn in the dirt.

In time Paco's wooden shack was replaced with brick and cement and expanded the same way we're currently adding a room to Pacito's home. Though his casita is part of a planned subdivions and all the houses are tediously the same. That sameness is disappearing as individual homeowners are modifying their casitas, sometimes extending them to the sidewalk, adding storefronts (one neighbor has opened a tire store complete with service garage large enough for one customer).


In time this may become a neighborhood with brick and concrete homes and a paved street, if the future follows the form of the past. But for now it is a poverty stricken place served by one water well, and a single electric wire strung from a nearby home.