April 17, 2019 - Barra de Navidad, Mexico

Being here is a balm.

The constant rumble of waves against the shore, the wind blowing through the room from the doors thrown wide open to the sea, the light reflecting on the ocean with brilliant intensity.
It soothes me. 

I didn’t realize how much I needed stillness, immersion in nature, (or as much as possible from a seaside condo).

Yesterday we went to Chantli Mar near Puenta Iguana for a lazy beach day. It was a wonderful walking beach and swimming in the ocean with Shay was like a revival of my spirit. 
As we were walking with Brisa Rosalia (the dog) down the beach so she could run along the wet sand chasing waves, the sea called to me and I went racing into the surf again. 
A few minutes later I am staring up at a very large wave about to crest on top of me. I dive under but it's only about 4ft deep and I get tumbled with the sand for a few seconds before pushing off the bottom and popping up for air. 
I am ok. 

I have learned never to turn my back on the ocean and as I look again to the sea I see another wave ready to topple. This wave inspires a quick, passionate prayer and I feel my heart race as adrenaline surges through me. 
Once more I am being scoured and tumbled inside the wave. 
Shay and Teri tell me later that from the shore they can see my body rise and fall through the wave. I only have a slight second of panic before I find the bottom and push up to grab at air. 
I make my way to shore where I fall to the sand, spent but happy. 
As we walk back to our beach chairs under our umbrella I remind myself not to test my physical limits . 

That call though, that I’ve heard many times before, is I think, the same pull to live on a boat and sail. 
To be a part of the natural world. 
The same desire to put on a backpack and disapear into the mountains. 
To turn away from society and embrace living simply with nature. 
Maybe this is what I am wanting from this cruising journey? 
To learn to live without, so that the empty spaces are filled with connection to the ocean, or the trees, and their sounds and sights and colors. 
Is it conincidence that I am most fullfilled when on the water? 
When I step on a boat I feel that I am finally myself. 
When I am in the middle of the mountains, or paddling across a lake my senses seem to expand and I feel soothed and alive. 
I can breathe deeper, and literally feel anxiousness sluff from my body. 

Wanting total immersion, but respecting my body’s limitations is at times a challenge for me. Swimming too far out of the bay, sailing on the edge of what is safe, choosing to enjoy the moment sometimes holds a very real danger. 

The time I got caught in the current when I was following a turtle in Solomon Bay, or when we couldn’t get a weather report and kept sailing north right into the storm, or yesterday when I went jumping into the ocean with the waves crashing overhead.

It's the desire to live fully, follow my bliss, that pulls at my soul; trying to catch a feeling of wildness, an impulse to connect with myself through nature.

There are a handful of indelible moments in my life, seconds sometimes, when the light is just right, or a breeze seems to be whispering in my ear, when the stillness of a moonlit night is more than it seems. 
That if I just listened hard enough, or held still enough that I could hear the message, the answer to my unasked questions.I sometimes feel like I am on the verge of knowing some ancient secret. 
If I only understood the language of trees, the pattern of rain, the depth of a blue sea, I could slip inside the moment and be one with the universe. 

And then its gone. I am left watching the sway of a branch, or the dance of a wave wondering if I will ever enter that magic place. 
And so I walk out to meet the ocean waves, I follow the turtle into the deep blue. I merge my physical being, and sometimes experience an ecstatic moment. 

But then the storm arrives, the current grabs, and I am human and breakable, and trembling with fear.

So perhaps this journey is a quest for magic places, immersion, or simply stillness. 

What would happen if I had months or years, to gaze at the ocean, to swim in blue, to surround myself with green and wind and light? 

Barra de Navidad, Mexico - April 14, 2019

It takes 18 days. 

Mast off and shade cover up

Gear from EM packed up

Our first day in Barra de Navidad and we feel, as Shay put it, “like we were slammed against a truck, multiple times.” We are very weary. Bone tired. No energy to visit Barra. We drove around once when we first arrived but since then we have been resting from the past 5 months of boat yard labor. Everything hurts, doing yoga this morning was terribly painful as its been months since Ive done anything other than stretch my legs a bit. There are knots and bruises everywhere and I just wanted to lay on the mat and take a nap.

Its an odd feeling to be stopped. We have nothing to do, nothing to fix, or wrestle off or on the boat, to paint, fasten, bang, unscrew, haul to the garbage, the swap meet, the other boat. We walk around the condo aimlessly, like our bodies can’t be still.

I feel weirdly guilty for doing practically nothing today. It feels like I’m supposed to be doing, getting done, focusing, but instead I am lazy/weary. 

It took 3 days to drive down from Guaymas. We stayed in Culiacan the first night. A big town on the highway, got up early and drive another 10 yours past Chakala, San Blas, and Mazatlan and thought about sailing north in Eileen May about the same time last year. Its weird and complicated, this journey we are on. 

Eileen May has probably been taken out to sea and scuttled by now. It somehow makes the memories of the our first and only voyage with her different.

The second night we stayed in Guayabito and then visited San Francisco for breakfast and then Puerto Vallarta to order much needed eye glasses from Costco, past Banderas Bay, Chemala, Tentacatia, all more anchorages that we visited with EM. 

And finally, we made it to Barra.

We are grateful. And excited to be here. But it’s unsettling. So much has happened in the past 5 months I don’t know how to process it yet. I hope that eating better now that we have a kitchen and having some fun swimming and walking, visiting friends will slowly untangle the knots and spasms  and will allow our bodies and souls a little healing. 

We did make an effort to take a walk this evening on the beach. We got about 200 feet and sat down to watch the waves and rest. “How many days did it take us to dismantle Eileen May?, “ I ask Shay. “Two and half week,” she replies. 

Eighteen days. It takes 18 days to tear apart a sailboat.  This is amazing to me. What a feat. I feel strangely prideful, but don’t think I should be for some reason. 

For 18 days we removed appliances, hoses, wire and more wire, plumbing, toilets, sinks, fuel and fuel tanks, electronics, a stove, rigging, a mast, an engine, so much stuff. 

The church in Guayabito

Some sold, some trashed, some stored under Holoholo, all of it had to be torn, unbolted, unscrewed, grinded, drilled, cut off and brought down a 12 ft ladder and then cleaned and stowed. Some items found new homes on other boats, or were given away to locals. We hope to sell enough gear to recoup the cost of funeral expenses for EM and yard fees. But it’s done now. She’s empty. And at the bottom of the Sea of Cortez. 

So far the universe is telling us that all is well because here we sit in a beautiful condo in Barra due to the generosity of people we don’t know well, yet. Its hard to feel sad when we have been given such wonderful gifts this season. Good reminders that there are unexpected wonders in an unconventional lifestyle. That loss bears fruit also. And we LOVE fruit.