Welcome to the Trump Apology Tour of Mexico!

A crowd in Mexico burned a Trump effigy back in January. 

It wouldn't be the last.

Chris and I remain in La Cruz, Mexico preparing to sail north for summer in the Sea of Cortez. I'll talk about the "Trump Apology Tour of Mexico!" in a minute. But first:

Images from around Banderas Bay:

Evening in La Cruz 

This is a first class golf course in Puerto Vallarta. One little problem, though. 

Notice the sign. It says:

"Careful. Crocodile Habitat."

Um. Okee dokee.  Not sure how playing golf on a crocodile-filled golf course works.

 It probably adds to the inherent drama, though! 

It's Easter week here in Mexico, which is a huge deal.

Altar for virgin Mary in San Pancho

After countless hours of frustrating work and problem solving by Captain Chris, 

our used watermaker is FINALLY up and running. 

Chris studying the watermaker components aboard Espiritu

While Chris worked hard on the watermaker, I put in a couple of more shifts at the orphanage in Bucerias with my friend Marne of s/v LeaHona. 

Little Charlene had a high fever. 

We took her to the doctor for medical attention. 

While the big kids are still at school, a little one eats lunch alone in the 

dining hall as the cook Anna Maria checks facebook

Little Priscilla says her prayers at the orphanage

Bucerias boy shows off his new Captain America action figure. 

Why don't they make Captain Mexico action figures? 

Lovely scene in Punta de Mita

Clowning around with my buddy, La Cruz local Ernesto

These wild bananas are growing next to the La Cruz marina. Does that mean 

they're free?  Unsure, we left them for the locals.

Laser sailboat race in the bay

La Cruz is the meeting place for sailing friends old and new:

James and his every growing family, crew of s/v Jean Marie

Reunion of sailors we met in El Salvador in 2012: crews of 

s/v Sundancer, s/v Dawn Trader, s/v Espiritu and s/v ChanteyV

Reunion with besties Howard and Lynn of s/v Swift Current. These two kept us 

sane during our months in Costa Rica and Panama back in 2012. 

Chris and Nico of s/v Yellow Feather. He's a single hander who left the insanity of Silicon Valley, jumped on a little yellow sailboat alone, and will be leaving for the South Pacific in 2 days.

 By himself.

 Fair winds, my friend.

Meet new friends Jon and Shannon of s/v Prism.  We were thrilled to find out they're musicians as well! We broke out the instruments one rainy afternoon and had an impromptu jam aboard Espiritu.

Chris on the fiddle, Shannon on the mandolin

Adding Jon on mando and me on guitar made for an amazing rainy afternoon.  A few days later, our new friends shoved off for Central America. They're actually famous online, with many thousands of followers of their blog and YouTube videos. Fair winds, kids! 

This cucaracha climbed up through the manhole, looked around, and returned to the depths

And speaking of cockroaches...

Saturday night we were in the La Cruz town square enjoying a lovely Easter festival with music, dancing, rides for the kids, etc. I was chatting with my friend Marguerite and her family, all lifetime La Cruz locals. 

Suddenly one of them looked at me and said in an agitated voice:

"Trump. Trump. Que paso?"

The happy conversation stopped suddenly -- all of the Mexicans in the group stopped talking. Then, eyes wide, the whole group of them turned and looked directly at me for my response.

I can't be sure, but I think the carousel stopped turning, the children stopped playing, and the entire TOWN went suddenly stone silent, turned, and looked to me for my response.

 They looked frightened and concerned. Scared.

You see, nearly every family in Mexico has a young son, niece or nephew living and working in the United States. So, they have skin in the game. They're worried.

Remember, Donald Trump said that Mexican immigrants are rapists and drug dealers.

He did NOT say that SOME of them are rapists and drug dealers.

When pressed by journalists to clarify, he did not clarify -- instead he doubled down on his statement.

He looked right into the camera and calmy, impatiently even, repeated it as a fact (as if it's so obviously true that it should be clear to everyone): Mexican immigrants are rapists and drug dealers. 

Period.

Sigh.

When we first crossed the border into Ensenada back in December, I told the locals not to worry, that it was only a small number of people who followed Trump, and that he would never be elected.

Fast forward to today, and he's about to be nominated for President by the Republican Party. He could very well win the election.

And in case you're wondering, Trump coverage is 24/7 down here in Mexico. The populace here is fully aware of his every move.

I have no idea what to say to my Mexican friends anymore.

 I'm out of excuses for the American people.

From here on out, when a Mexican fearfully asks me about Trump, I'll simply shrug, wave my hand, say "No se," (I don't know) "La gente son loco," (the people are crazy) do a Sign of the Cross, and say: "Dios, ayudamos." (God help us all).

Today they burned another big effigy of Trump in Mexico City, to the joy of cheering crowds.

I really don't know what to do. All I know for sure is, tonight our American flag is coming down off of Espiritu's stern.

Not because I'm ashamed. But because I'm kind of afraid.

Well done, America. 

Stormy Spring Break

Black storm clouds threaten the La Cruz anchorage

Espiritu had her first bath in weeks recently when 

a major storm blew through from the north. 

But before the actual rain, wind and lightning arrived, we got really big swells.

Check out this photo below: it's taken from the deck of Espiritu. The mast you see in the photo is our closest neighbor in the anchorage. The swells are so large that the boat itself appears to be completely engulfed by the water. After lifting us up 5-10 feet high, the swell promptly dropped us and barreled towards shore. Yikes. Scary but kinda fun. 

A crazy-huge swell appears to engulf and swamp our nearest boat in the anchorage

It was a cold storm, too. Everybody dug out their cold weather gear, tucked away for weeks.

La Cruz Chihuahua wears his "McCloud" style wool lined jacket

I know, kids, not only have you never seen the classic 70's TV show "McCloud," you've never even heard of it, or its star Dennis Weaver. It was a cool show. He was a wild west cop who rode his horse around New York City fighting crime in his fur-lined jacket and cowboy hat.  I know, it sounds preposterous, but back then it seemed pretty cool and believable. 

But I was 13, so what did I know?

A laughing gull heads ashore to hunker down for the storm

Dark clouds gather over the anchorage

A storm cell deluges nearby Bucerias

What this ominous photo doesn't show is the lightning and thunder (yikes) 

We had a sleepless night of lighting, rain and 20-30 knot winds, with everyone on anchor watch. I still don't really know how we survived 6 months in the Central American rainy season. This was the stormy, scary scenario pretty much every day and night in Costa Rica and Panama. It became routine, I guess -- like an employee working under a cruel, abusive boss becomes routine. You adapt and learn to live with it, but the stress wears on you.

The morning after

Anyway, the storm blew through, the balmy tropical weather returned, and we hopped the bus into Puerto Vallarta to buy some watermaker supplies.

After we jumped off the bus in PV, suddenly dozens of dozens of girls wearing nothing but bikinis sauntered past us on the street.

Well, it wasn't ALL girls, but the girl/guy ratio was easily 20/1. Not only were 

they wearing only bikinis, they didn't even have shoes on!

Where did they come from? Where were they going?

They walked up to a resort hotel and plopped down outside the front entrance.

I asked them what the story was, and I found out they had just 

arrived from Penn State for Spring Break. 

I can't be sure, but I think these girls just stepped right onto the plane in Pennsylvania wearing only bikinis. Really, it's all you need for spring break, right? They don't even need purses, because if they play their cards right, they should not need to actually buy any of their own drinks.  And flying without any luggage or carry-ons, well, come on, it's kind of a brilliant idea. I might try it the next time I fly to a tropical locale.

This girl on the right was the ONLY one (out of dozens) in a cover-up. I'm not certain, but I think she was promptly shunned forever for this act of aggression, and excommunicated from her sorority.

But the question remained: where were the guys? 

Dozens of Penn State beauties fly to Puerto Vallarta for spring break wearing nothing but bikinis, and practically NO male students come along? What's going on in Pennsylvania? Are all of the young men in Iraq and Afghanistan? Seriously. I'm actually a little worried...

This guy, though? NOT worried. I heard him mutter 

"Fish in a barrel..." as he passed. Yes, surely he had himself 

the most pleasant of all Spring Breaks!

The next day, I returned to the orphanage in Bucerias 

for an afternoon shift with the adorable kids.

Me and a few of the girls (as opposed to my Penn State friends, these little ladies were actually wearing CLOTHES) at the orphanage singing and goofing around

It was the cook, Anna Maria's birthday, so we sang 

her a rousing "Feliz Cumpleanos" 

Left to right: Natalia, age 6, Charlene, age 5, and feisty little Priscilla, age 2

The cook Anna Maria has her own family whom she returns to every night, but really she is the closes thing to a mother that these kids have.

They bought her a little present, and the best gift of all -- heartfelt hugs

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. 

We are tied to the ocean.

 And when we go back to the sea -- whether it is to sail or to watch it -- we are going back from whence we came.

-- John F. Kennedy

New Photo Journal: Around Banderas Bay

Cloudy morning in La Cruz, Mexico 

We rise early every morning on Espiritu to watch the sunrise.  We saw these very strange clouds one morning last week, and we hadn't seen anything like them, before or since:

The whimsical, strange clouds had the appearance of whipped meringue

At the restaurant La Glorieta in La Cruz, 

where we watched the futbol Americano playoffs on TV

Bucerias children with their pet chicken

This guy was juggling machetes in the middle of the highway, obstructing traffic. Imagine if this happened on the 405 in SoCal -- the police would have immediately shut down traffic in both directions for several hours to deal with it.

Here in Mexico? No big deal. Nobody calls the cops. Everybody just shrugs, laughs, and drives around him. 

Welcome to Mexico!

Pipeline on La Cruz beach 

Catholic church in Puerto Vallarta

Every saturday night La Cruz has a band and dancing for the locals at the gazebo in the town square. Our tradition is Chris buys his handmade ice cream bar and we hang out watching the festivities.

Chris dances off his ice cream sugar 

high by getting his boogie on...

This La Cruz local takes her dancing very seriously...

These blooming yellow trees are erupting all over the area

We made a Costco run with Bret and Marne of LeaHona, which involved a long bus ride and a mile walk in the midday sun.

Yes, even in Puerto Vallarta, pizza and a big 

Diet Coke are a vital part of the Costco experience!

Cats, dogs and chickens inexplicably live completely peacefully amongst one 

another on the street here in La Cruz and throughout Latin America. Perhaps there is a lesson for us humans here?

Hillside above La Cruz

We took this shot of the La Cruz anchorage a few days ago. 

Espiritu is somewhere in the middle of the shot. 

This river cuts right through the middle of bustling Puerto Vallarta

There was a big cruiser's bonfire this week, and I played real

 Mayan music with real Mayan locals. Wow. How cool is that? 

They have yacht racing every week in Banderas Bay. We dove in and did a buoy race aboard Wind one afternoon. Chris was bowman extraordinaire.

I helped douse the spinnaker and jib. Just like the old days racing in SoCal...

...Speaking of which, we ran into our old Newport Beach racing adversary Scavenger down here in Banderas Bay. She was bought by two lovely young Australian ladies and is now a cruising sailboat bound for down under (note the flag)! 

I volunteered at the Manos de Amor orphanage in Bucerias.  There are 24 children ages 2 - 14 living there. I did laundry and washed dishes, but mostly I just played, talked and read to and with the children.

 What a privilege. It was a powerful, emotional experience, and I can't wait to go back. I need to be fully healed from my Dengue Fever before they let me back (go figure -- ha!). 

A generous Canadian benefactor donated these brand new "Canada" hoodies to the kids at the orphanage, which they happily and proudly wore on their way to school in the morning.

One blustery afternoon a couple of weeks ago, the cruising sailboat Rage suddenly broke free from her anchor and began hurtling toward the rocks (Noone was on board).  Several of us jumped into our dinghies to try and help save her from disaster.  

Cruising saiboat Rage. One moment she was resting in the anchorage with the rest of us, 

five minutes later she's on the rocks.

Several dinghies and pangas tried to help. But the waves were just too strong. In fact, not one, not two, but THREE dinghies were flipped trying to get close to Rage. Before our eyes, she broke apart. There was nothing to be done except help rescue the rescuers in their flipped dinghies.

It was a sad day, and a grim reminder that anything can happen to any of us, at any time.

Be safe, life well, live NOW. Make hay while the sun shines.