Happy Thanksgiving!!! 11.26.09

I sure hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving. Spending time with loved ones, taking time to give thanks for all that we have, and of course eat, eat, eat!!! 



We had an incredible celebration here. Michael, once again, volunteered to head up the turkey day celebration. He worked very closely with both Elvira, the office manager at Marina Mazatlan, and Ray who is a boat broker with Mazatlan Yachts. Elvira performed her magic again this year, getting deals on everything imaginable. There were 120 tickets available…and they sold out.

The evening was wonderful. The setup/teardown committee did a great job of scouring the tables and chairs that were delivered and the decoration committee followed making the tables beautiful.



There were so many volunteers, it was mind blowing. Some helped with taking tickets at the door, some helped with selling drink tickets, pouring beer, wine, margaritas, clearing plates & silverware, counting linens & place settings both before and after the event, and ultimately, the tear down of all of the tables & chairs after the last partier left.

The day was filled with fun. I was able to get onto a Skype video call with my grandpa and mom & dad, and Sue, which was great. There was a non-denominational mass (I know, kinda an oxymoron, huh?!) with Father Ignacio where a handful of people joined together for songs, scripture, & communion. After the service, Father Ignacio performed a blessing of the fleet – he was in a large panga and shuttled up and down each and every finger of the marina and threw holy water on every boat, even the empty slips! We stood on the back of our boat as he drove by as we need all the blessings we can get for our travels. I believe he may have even given us an extra blessing.

The celebration started at 5:00 for Happy hour.



Everyone invited was asked to bring hors d’oeuvres to share with the plan being for everyone to mingle, try out the different items from each table and loosen up! It worked last year….this year the crowd was a little different and there wasn’t much mingling going on. Also last year, the folks working the bar were painfully left out of the whole happy hour offerings so I volunteered to bring them goodies from each table. This turned into a lot of fun for me! “Um, Hi, my name is Rene from Ahea Kali. I am going to take 3 or 4 of your appetizers over to the folks working the bar….I promise it will make it over there. Yum….maybe I’ll need one more…” haha! I actually had a lot of fun mingling with everyone while doing my ‘job’. But the gesture was appreciated by Mike & Julie and Larry working the bar. And there were some really scrumptious offerings! My favorites were the homemade focaccia bread with goat cheese and a homemade cranberry maple sauce, a date stuffed with an almond which was then wrapped in bacon & baked, a piece of asparagus wrapped in a piece of prosciutto and baked, and one spicy cream cheese dip….YUM! All while happy hour was going on, a live band consisting of four cruisers performed – Lori was lead singer & guitar, Ken was bass guitar (they’re from S/V Esprit), Bill brought his drums from S/V Teka, and the harmonica player was off of S/V Althea (I forget his name…). They were AMAZING!!



Everyone was bummed when they stopped playing. Lori has an incredible voice, very bluesy, and both she and Ken has played with the jazz greats from San Francisco. Truly, truly amazing talent.

At 6:30 it was time for dinner! Table by table was alerted it was their turn and the serving went much smoother than last year. It was a full dinner! Turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, & dinner roll. Once everyone was served, seconds were offered as was dessert – our choice of either carrot cake or an almond cake – or both! Yum! After dinner & desert was finished, a DJ played music the rest of the night. Everyone had a wonderful time dancing the evening away. It was great to let loose & enjoy. I forget just how much I enjoy dancing and how infrequently I do it when I am back in the U.S. I’ll have to fix that.

There were the occasional setbacks – not enough ice, wrong type of bar delivered, a giant blow-up beer can which was part of ‘payment’ for the use of tables and chairs from Pacifico that was setup in the corner. But nothing that couldn’t be dealt with. The final partier left around 10:30 or so, all of the leftovers were gone, tables & chairs stacked, bar shut down, a preliminary count of inventory completed….and we were back on the boat by about 11:00 along with Mike & Julie. It was an amazing celebration, again. It makes us realize how thankful we are to be surrounded by such great people. I added more pictures to the photo album…enjoy.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone….
Rene & Michael

Hard Work! 11.9.09

Man this is hard work! This is cruising stuff is not for the unorganized... There are so many things to keep straight from day to day! Monday Night Football, Tuesday night Domino's Pizza parties,



Wednesday dinghy out to Deer Island for a much needed day of rest from all this tough work,





Thursday Dunia's shrimp ladies run, Saturday night baseball games....whew! And let's not forget the every afternoon, 4:30 dock party on Dock 6. haha... It's tough keeping our social schedule straight at times! It's a rough problem to have... It's great to see everyone returning to their boats, almost daily, and catching up, hearing about what has happened since we last saw them, and what their plans are for this season! We have such a wonderful group of cruisers on Dock 6 - the dock is very busy - and we all can talk for hours it seems when we get together. At the 4:30 party, it is often difficult to walk down the dock as there are so many chairs gathered.

And of course our organized trips are a ton of fun as well. This past week it was a planned visit to Dunia's, one of our favorite shrimp experiences in Mazatlan. You take a bus downtown (or a pickup truck taxi in our case!) and on one block in the downtown area are the 'Shrimp Ladies'. They have buckets of every different type of shrimp you can imagine. You purchase your uncooked shrimp and then head over to Dunia's, a bar just around the corner, where they will cook your shrimp for you for little to nothing while you enjoy some ice cold beers while you're waiting. We were bummed to find that Dunia's was closed (apparently for tax issues) but were directed around another corner to 'La ankla de oro' or 'The silver anchor'.



We were escorted inside to a small side room where our waitress was intent on getting us drunk as you weren't even finished with one beer when another one appeared! There were buckets of beer right on the side of the table and they brought lots of appetizers for us to enjoy - ceviche, marlin, and a fried fish that turned out to be very yummy! Our shrimp was cooked to perfection with most of us getting garlic & butter or just boiled. There was a live band which was deafening but entertaining.

Of course it's not all fun & games... Work, work, work...that's all we seem to be doing! And there's lots more where that came from, but we're getting through it slowly but surely. We escaped the boatyard on Saturday morning with no leaks (woohoo!) and are getting settled again in our old slip in Marina Mazatlan.



Finally we have some space to use and not keep throwing everything in the van! When we were in the yard, we took all of the sails to the van and anything that was in the way because, of course, we had projects going in all areas of the boat so no area was safe!

Back at the slip Michael has been working to re-insulate the refrigerator using a 2-part pourable foam. Our refrigerator was working a little too hard down here in the heat & warm water so we figured we would pull up the bottom and re-insulate it. That has turned into a fun project! The bottom of the refrig was sawed out & all of the old insulation was removed, which turned out to be styrofoam. Once it was cleaned out he made a false bottom with lots of holes about 5 inches up from the real bottom and then poured in the foam. Next the bottom will be reinstalled and fiberglassed in.



Hopefully that will be today - we hired Rick from Capestar to take care of that for us. They should only have to put the bottom down & tape in the seam! Of course it is about 2 feet down inside a hole that measures about 16" x 14" and the worker will spend most of the time upside down, feet in the air, leaning on his hip. It's not a fun job...hence why it's been tasked out!

In the meantime, work is still being done on the boat. Halyards raised, lots of cleaning, systems checked, rearranging, etc, etc. We're still targeting leaving the marina around the end of November, after Thanksgiving, which Michael is again in charge of putting together. Whew! As I said, it's WORK!!! ;-)

More to follow...
Rene

Dia de los muertos 11.1.09

We arrived in perfect time to participate in the Day of the Dead parade again this year – woohoo! This is our 2nd year and we were a little wiser to the activities and probably enjoyed it a little more. I injured my foot in the past couple days so I was worried about walking the entire parade route but I did OK.

Just like last year, we had a group of 'cruisers' who all went downtown together for the festivities - Mike & Julie on S/V Slacker, Merry & BJ on S/V Willow, Tom from S/V Kewao, and Eva & Rene from S/V Babeeze.



We all jumped on the ‘green’ Sabalo Centro air conditioned bus, which went up in price to a whopping 9 pesos (about 75 cents) and exited near the Mercado, walking a few blocks to the center of the festivities, Plazuela Machado. The place was not as busy as last year and the vendors were missing this year and we actually wondered if we had the right night! But we all asked and yes, it was happening....we were just early! So we started off at a restaurant, the majority of us ordering fish or shrimp tacos (yum…) and we timed it perfectly as once we finished with dinner, it was time for the parade!

I know I've said before but the Day of the Dead to me is like a combination of Memorial Day, Halloween, & the 4th of July all wrapped up in one. The Day of the Dead is a big deal here in Mexico, often more celebrated than Christmas.

Every year, on November 1st (All Saints Day) and 2nd (All Souls Day), the Day of the Dead festivities take place. While it's strange for most of us to accept the fact that "death" and "festivities" can go hand-in-hand, for most Mexicans, the two are intricately entwined. It isn't difficult for foreigners to interpret dancing skeletons, candy skulls and general drunken revelry as disrespect for the dead and grief at human loss. Nothing could be further from the truth. For those accustomed to hushed voices, formal clothing, a solemn priest and an absence of children as fitting for the graveside, this festival flies in the face of propriety. Bright flowers, loud music, colorful decorations and seasonal sweets are characteristic of the first two days of November.

This all stems from the ancient indigenous peoples of Mexico who believed that the souls of the dead return each year to visit with their living relatives - to eat, drink and be merry. The living invite the spirits of the family to return home for a few hours of laughter, tears and memories. It is a time for remembering friends, family and ancestors. The cemeteries come alive and altars are created which are filled with flowers, candles, a selection of the deceased favorite food & drink and fresh water, photographs of the deceased and offerings. Even families with very limited budgets spare no expense when preparing the altar to honor their family.



They want their spirits to enjoy the offerings and to return each year to continue this special spiritual companionship. The spirits of the dead are expected to pay a holiday visit home and should be provided with an enticing repast and adequate sustenance for the journey. Frequently a wash basin and clean hand towel are provided so that visiting souls can freshen up before the feast. The offering may also include a pack of cigarettes for the after-dinner enjoyment of former smokers, or a selection of toys and extra sweets for deceased children. The smell of burning copal (incense) and the light of numerous candles are intended to help the departed find their way.



While most altars are laden with the favorite foods, sweets, drinks, and harvest fruits of each family spirit, even the most basic altar includes these basic needs:

WATER to quench the thirst and for purification
SALT to season the food and for purification
BREAD to represent the food needed for survival

It is a time of lively reunions at family burial plots. Some bring along picnic baskets, bottles of tequila for toasting the departed or even a mariachi band to lead a heartfelt sing-along. To preserve the tradition, government and private institutions have recently increased promotion of commemorative altars displayed in museums, educational centers and other public venues.
This may all seem morbid and somewhat ghoulish to those who are not part of that culture. But, for Mexicans who believe in the life/death/rebirth continuum, it's all very natural.

By the time the parade began, there were thousands of people in the plaza. The parade is not something to be watched, it's something to participate in. We followed Mike & Julie's lead and headed to the front of the parade route where it was easy to duck into doorways as everyone was walking by. There was a lead vehicle with spotlights shining onto the crowd and fireworks were shot out every few minutes. The fireworks are a signal to help guide the spirits home. Behind the lead vehicle were thousands of people, who walked the entire parade route (about 20 blocks). Everyone sang & danced to music provided by brass bands evenly spaced out throughout the procession. There were the 3 burrow-drawn carriages decorated with flowers that carried kegs of beer and a couple men whose job it was to keep the beer flowing.



During the procession, you simply sidled up to the carriage and were poured a cup of beer (which sounds so much easier than it was!) and then continued to walk along the parade route.



You drank the beer in remembrance to those who have passed. Of course, the beer carriages were always surrounded and there was lots of noise when the keg ran out! All ages were represented and it was not unusual to see an entire family walking along. Some participants were dressed in elaborate costumes,



but mostly everyone wore black & white of some sort.



At the end of the parade route, which took us right back to Plazuela Machado, students of the local ballet school performed “La Catrina dances, too” depicting death & rebirth. Incredibly, most of the group managed to meet back precisely when we were supposed to and we jumped back on a bus to the marina! It was a great night!!

Rene