February in Mexico

19 February 2011

San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico

It happens here that the seasons get confused in your head.

I imagine it is summer, but it is not.

At home the snow piles in banks as high as my shoulders.

But here, the red mountains glitter in a green sea,

and the pelicans drop cleanly into the water. 

25 February 2011
San Juanico, Baja California Sur, Mexico

Still, it is cold here.

Nights drop below 10 degrees C and we huddle in the cockpit beneath blankets, marveling at the stars.  It will snow today on the California coast, and tomorrow on Tucson; on Sunday, here in the Baja, we will reap a harvest of wind and more cool air.  Then, next week perhaps, warm.  Strange to walk in the desert unparched, feet, head and arms cool.  

 

The air smells of sage and bitter oranges, the buzzards circle overhead, cacti twist and spread, but the earth is cracked and broken, the ocotillo clatter into the sky, leafless, the whole plant forcing just a single scarlet bloom.  This, or death.

Cholla lose their bark, shells sink in the dirt, the grasses are bleached yellow and grey.  

Even the water is cloudy, the birds scarce; for the moment a hard season here.

But the mountains remain, their peaks and cutaway faces shifting colour in the light: grey, yellow, rose, ochre, green, sanguine, blue, violet, black.

 

Images

Bougainvillea blooms, pigeons on a wire--San Carlos, Sonora

Moon sets above reddening mountain, early morning, Bahia San Carlos, Sonora

Quoddy's Run in Bahia San Juanico, Baja California Sur

Scrub growing on the lowlands, La Ramada, BCS

Desert track into the mountains near Bahia San Juanico

Ocotillo branch scrapes the sky near Bahia San Juanico

Buzzard in flight

Dried grasses, La Ramada

Scarred Cactus 

Cactus covered peak near oasis, Bahia San Juanico

Rocks bordering northern anchorage at sunset, Bahia San Juanico

To the Marina Seca

25 May 2009 San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico

Quoddy's Run exits the water today to lumber, an ungainly creature on borrowed wheels, up the highway to the Marina Seca or "dry" storage.

Boats always look naked and vulnerable as they leave the water, faintly obscene; we are not supposed to see them like this, their bottoms showing. As soon as they leave the water, they cease to be in their element, their glory.

For boat owners, too, this is a fraught, heart-stripping moment: so many things could go wrong! But the Marina Seca in San Carlos is a brilliantly conceived and impeccably run place and the trailer with movable arms that lifts the boat out of the water and cradles her as she travels the two kilometers up the highway to the dry marina is a marvel of engineering, and always expertly handled. Besides, we tell ourselves and others, to try to calm that anxious flutter in the heart, we've done this before--twice already! But you never do feel utterly, fully prepared.

Nevertheless, the moment of the haul arrives. We are towed from our too-shallow, too-tight dock to the slip at high water. The trailer is there, sunk in the water, waiting for us. Quoddy is pulled forward, gently, over and between the rocker arms, which are then adjusted and readjusted by a little remote control box.




Finally the boat is settled on the trailer to everyone's satisfaction. Slowly, slowly, the driver of the front end loader that will pull the boat out of the water backs up. Everyone watches carefully; last minute adjustments are made, and the boat inches out of the water--up one foot, another one--the eye that Dee painted on her bow to ward off evil in full view, then the keel.

There's a last minute check of all pads and arms and angles, then, thumbs up! the boat can go!





She's off, up the ramp, through the driveway, past Barracuda Bob's cafe and the laundromat and the chandlery to the highway, where--backwards!--she'll sail past the Oxxo store, a Pemex station and blooming cacti.


One turn, a long driveway, past a workshop where an abandoned panga rots, and through the gates. This is the Marina Seca, an enormous desert storage yard for thousands of boats.

Quoddy's Run is parked between two sets of "hurricane poles"--steel poles set in concrete, secured with jackstands, and sprayed down--that's it for the barnacles and seaweed collecting on her undersides. They're gone!

Marike pulls her enormous covers over the boat; we stuff all of the through-hulls with scotchpads, put foil backed insulation material over the windows, close and batten down the hatches and port-lights, place open buckets of water in the cabin--an effort to keep the teak from cracking in 140 degree F summer desert heat, remove the rest of our bags and lock up the boat.

Back down the steep ladder to the ground, and that's it for another year.




One backward look--Quoddy we'll miss you!--she really is like a live creature; we feel we owe our lives to her...

Wait, we can't leave yet. One more backward look--how will we ever find her again?


Now we're ready--off to an air-conditioned condo with hot running water, a pool, a bed that neither moves nor slopes at peculiar angles, wireless internet access, cable television in three languages....too bad we're staying just one night...




Images:
Panga at shop near Marina Seca
Hauling Quoddy's Run--from water to highway
Quoddy's Run in the Marina Seca
Marina Seca view from the deck--boats as far as the eye can see
View from Condominiums Dorado, San Carlos
Cool Mexican condo humour--polar bear plates