Another sailboat, the 42’ long sloop “Grand Duc” had sailed in to the cove below the second camp while I was visiting and anchored. The skipper was standing aft fishing when I paddled past and his lady was just finishing bundling the jib into its bag and cramming it down the forehatch. I stopped to visit a bit and found them a great deal of fun. . .about my age I’d guess, French, have been sailing the past 30 years, first a 5 year circumnavigation in a 25’ bilge keeler, then a year and a half building Grand Duc, and sailing and chartering her through the Caribean, up to Labrador, through Polynesia and the Indian Ocean and up to Prince William Sound and last summer in Puget Sound and now here. They know my home waters as well as I do and this is not their first time here I gather. We talk about anchorages and winds and finally I paddle around the point back to the boat, get the anchor aboard and make sail, one reef down and the working jib.
Realizing I didn’t even ask their names, I sailed back north one long tack offshore and back in to luff up and heave to right astern of the Grand Duc. I ask their names. . .”Alain and Me-chew” the skipper answered. I didn’t hear that well enough, so tried again. . .Alain smiled hugely, made motions as though playing a guitar and sang in a loud, heavily accented voice. . .”Me-chew, Me-chew. . .deedly deedly doo. . .” I hadn’t recognized the tune and was drifting offshore at that point, so waved as though I’d understood, let the jib fill and jibed around on my course. The boat surged ahead on a close reach and grand speed. I finally studied the chart for the day ahead and decided to skip Puerto San Evaristo, even though by then I’d decided I should have brought more potatoes and there was said to be a shop in Evaristo. . .it was simply too close and this was such a fine fair wind for Isla San Francisco. I held course a little offshore of the approaches to Evaristo, to save a little in hand to weather in case the wind should head me as I approached Isla San Francisco.
Man proposes and. . .the wind disposes, in this case by simply blowing itself out halfway to Evaristo. There I sat on a left over chop with nothing in my sails and a reef pulled down. Shook out the reef and coaxed another mile or two out of her to the South and suddenly a strong breeze came up out of the Southwest of all places. I was now dead downwind from Evaristo, well downwind and 17 miles from Isla San Francisco and the wind was freshening. Pulled the reef back down and settled in to beat into Evaristo. Good grief. It was another three hours before the anchor was down in the excellent harbor of San Evaristo. On the beach were several palapas and a number of pangas. The crew of one panga was just finishing offloading fish onto a rough wooden table set up right at the water line where they’d beached. The palapas turned out to be the fish-buyers for the region, with large plywood boxes insulated with foam, covered with tarpaulins and filled with ice and new-caught fish.
The bottom was excellent sand where I anchored, about 400 feet from the beach and the fish buyers. The anchor never budged from where it landed I think. I went ashore for a hike and some visiting. Things were a little busy around the fish buying palapas so I didn’t bother them just then, waved and walked up the road behind the beach. A pair of much older, graceful but tired pangas sat behind the beach, filled with junk too good to actually throw away yet. Evaristo is served by yet another dirt road to the highway, but this time it’s over 80 kilometers. It’s actually quicker to drive up the unpaved coastline road and over or through the coast mountains to La Paz (or so I’m told) about 150 kilometers. I’ve not seen either road but can imagine they might both be very interesting. Although there were 11 other yachts in the bay and it was a fine day for a hike and a lot of afternoon and evening left, there was only one other couple from a yacht ashore. We spoke briefly and the lady of the pair rolled her eyes as she said that the store was a bit meager and the hike up through the houses was “interesting”. Well, the truth of the matter is that San Evaristo really isn’t a pretty little town. It’s harbor is probably the second or third best on the coast for yachts to anchor for shelter, but the town exists to serve the fishermen bringing their catch to sell and the men working the salt pans just north of the village. The people however are very friendly and fun to visit with, however briefly. I was nearly run over by a pickup loaded with fresh oranges (sweet oranges, senor, much better than you can get in the States. . .) “How much” I asked. . .”ten pesos per kilo senor”. . .he handed me a plastic bag which I filled with five or six pounds of beautiful oranges. I handed it to him across the pickup bed and asked how much it weighed. . .he hefted it very briefly and passed it back. . .”One kilo senor”. . .wow. I paid my 10 pesos with a 20 peso bill, got a 10 peso coin back and ate oranges every day for the rest of the trip.
The school was closed as I walked by, looked like two full rooms, white paint, chain link fence, cooking and toilet facilities behind the building and a little apart all very tidy but nobody there at this hour. . .several kids in fact visible riding bikes and playing in the area. I hiked on over the little hill to overlook the salt pans, the first I’d examined on this trip. The site was perhaps originally a mangrove swamp or just a swale behind a beach which faces almost due North and has thrown up a tall dike of coarse cobbles and sand. The bottom of the area had been neatly divided into squares by low dikes. Evidently there was some easy means to fill the place with seawater and wait for the sun to do its work. On the beach was a mound of salt of many tons, quite a bit of it bagged in burlap bags labeled “pinto beans”.
I’d rather hoped to find somebody selling tacos or soup or something on shore but, notwithstanding some excellent cooking smells from some of the houses, nobody seemed to have anything to sell. I asked to be sure but my suspicion was confirmed. . .no restaurant at all in San Evaristo. Oh well, back to the boat for another one of my variations on fried potatoes, sautéed chiles onions and garlic, with an egg scrambled in and an orange for dessrt. Perhaps I’d find potatoes for sale next day, though when I’d asked around it hadn’t sounded promising.
The 24th of January began promptly at midnight with a really violent onslaught of Northerly wind. I’m not sure if the first wavelets against the hull woke me or if I just happened to be awake when the first blow fell on the boat. You could feel her shiver all over and immediately go tearing off to the end of her anchor line to sheer violently back the other way. The sounds below were really loud, whining wind in the rigging, a low throbbing sound from behind the mast, a sort of grunting noise from the fairlead where the anchor line ran overboard, rapidly increasing splashes as the waves began to thump into the hull and then the boat began rolling (when she always makes splashing noises under her quarters). I tumbled out on deck to greet the stars again and watch the situation. The anchor never flinched, just dug in deeper I suspect and we were not dragging a bit. I sat for a good while in the spray on the foredeck being sure of it. Then I decided it was time to rig a spring and put the strain on the trailer bow eye rather than the cleat on the foredeck, so brought the turtle on deck, threaded it through the bow eye and put a rolling hitch on the rode. With the turtle secured I uncleated the rode and was amazed at how it pulled through my fingers. Without an anchor windlass we wouldn’t be getting the anchor on a night like this. The boat rode much better with the anchor line leading to the bow eye so low on the stem, and the noise from the fairlead was gone. Nevertheless, the noise and motion below was remarkable all the rest of the night, though it didn’t keep me awake the whole time. I checked on deck from time to time and all seemed fine. Nobody seemed to be dragging, though some of the boats behind me were quite close to the beach. . .the bottom in San Evaristo is excellent holding.
With daylight I found the only casualty of the night. . .the canoe had rolled over, and though the seat had stayed in, the old wooden Klepper paddle was gone. Hence rule #2 for the dinghy. . .never go to sleep with the paddle in the boat. A quick search of the leeward beach with the binoculars turned up the paddle about 25’ above the tide line trapped by a scraggly bush. The wind had not died off at all over night. Though it was only a few hundred feet to the beach upwind there were little miniature whitecaps all around the boat, perhaps 12” high, with their tops blown off in sheets and long streaks of white behind them. Spray was blowing over the cabin top into the cockpit every few seconds. I studied the problem of the missing paddle. The beach curved around in a long nearly circular arc of perhaps a quarter mile all told, including one awkward stretch of rocks and cliff. Nonetheless, it would be perfectly reasonable to drift down to the beach to leeward, recover the paddle, then, if I couldn’t paddle against the gale, to walk along the beach pulling the canoe until I got upwind of the boat. . .thence to drift down and return home for breakfast. I pulled the spare paddle out of the quarter berth, flipped over the boat and scudded quickly in to the beach, stepped out of the boat and it passed me rolling up the beach. No manners. With both paddles aboard, I dragged the canoe back down to the water, slid the seat well forward between the tubes and climbed in. With my weight so far forward the little boat had no choice but to weather cock straight upwind, so all my effort went into forward motion and nothing into steering. I didn’t look at the watch, but it probably wasn’t 15 minutes paddling (hard) back to the boat. My first pass at getting aboard was quick and successful. I pulled both paddles and the seat aboard and let the canoe out on a long tether, where she promptly flipped upside down the first time we came to the end of the anchor and tacked back. As I watched over the next hour, eating my oats and bananas, she flipped again at each tack, never failing. . .right side up as we tacked toward the beach, then, having reached the end of our swing, flipping over and making the trip back offshore upside down with perfect regularity. The canoe design (intended more for whitewater anyway I think) seemed never to scoop any water at all. . .she was always perfectly dry inside, whichever side was up!
There was no question of traveling this day. The sea outside was frightful without using the binoculars to look. Panga captains came down to their boats, gathered briefly in little knots to talk and disappeared back up the road. Shortly after breakfast Grand Duc came storming into harbor from the North under just her small jib and rounded to with a flourish a few hundred feet from me and quickly settled back on her anchor. Once again Me-chew on the foredeck had the jib put away by the time the boat had stretched her anchor chain and settled in. I got the canoe alongside again, put the seat and paddle back in her and set off to paddle to the palapas ashore. Though they were directly across the wind I paddled the boat almost perfectly into the wind and waves, only angling the least bit toward the beach. In a remarkably short time I was on shore tying the canoe to the heavy wood table, now well above tide line. The fish buyers were standing by in their palapas and made good company for a while, working around the problems with my Spanish to discuss the current events (the war in Afghanistan, the sadness of the 9/11 attacks, the sadness that people would train their children to hate anybody). It is hard to converse well when you have so little of the language, but there was no mistaking the compassion and concern here on the beach in the shade of the palapa and the searching wind. I learned much of how the fish business works. . .the buyers have licenses from the government to buy and sell fish. They keep the facilities on the beach waiting for their fishermen to bring them fresh fish. They keep tally books with everybody’s catch recorded and give the fishermen receipts for their fish. I’m not sure exactly how the prices are set on the fish, but there is no haggling.. .the fish are weighed and placed in the ice box. A receipt is written out. People say good bye and the fisherman leaves. How often is payday? Is the price of fish fixed or does it vary? Does the fisherman just receive a percentage? Every 3rd or 4th day they have enough fish to be worth a trip in a 4-wheel drive truck to La Paz over the mountains and back with more ice. The fish from all three palapas were consolidated this morning and made one good load. The plywood box on the truck was layered with ice and fish from the three main fish boxes and a heavy lid lashed on. A tight
canvas tarp was lashed over all and two men simply stepped in and left. No goodbyes or instructions. They will stop at many different fish markets in La Paz (I saw them later when I got there) selling as they go and be back tomorrow sometime.
I walked to the shop and asked a passerby when it would open. He wasn’t sure but assured me there were no potatoes this week at all. Oh well. I had lots of everything else. On to the school. I don’t know if recess was about to start anyway or if it was declared in order to interview the gringo. I’d picked up a stray tennis ball off the beach, still in bouncy condition, so produced it from my pocket and tossed it to the kids coming out of the schoolhouse. This started a good five minutes of keep-away before things settled down. The schoolmaster was a quiet young gentleman, a graduate of the University of La Paz at his first post. He has 17 students spread across all the grades (I’d guess that averages to one pupil from every house in the village, more or less). I asked how he can teach so many kids at different ages and he said simply “grade by grade. . .” There followed a funny stretch where an 8th grade girl and the schoolmaster took turns asking me questions in pretty good English and I tried to answer in my awful Spanish. Once I finished with the first few standard answers. . .”I’m from Seattle, yes that’s close to Canada, yes, it’s very cold there, yes it rains a lot, but we have tall green trees there, yes I like Mexico very much, no I’m not really on a yacht, it’s just a little sailboat . . .and with kids, the almost inevitable question. . .no, I’m not Santa Claus, I’m not fat enough. (which is always good for a giggle from everybody)I pretty shortly started having vocabulary shortages, but it was a fun game for both sides and we carried on until it became obvious that recess was supposed to be over and most of the kids had given up and were either ready to go back to their projects or about to be totally out of control. Suddenly everybody was back inside and I noticed the school cook working at her stove behind the school and watching me. I waved and she smiled largely and waved back.
On to the salt pans bending low to walk into the wind as the road crested over the little hill and down into the sheltered area below. There are several substantial houses along here, on what would have been the beach before the salt pans were built I think. The trees are mature and offer nice shade and the houses are quite nice. At first I saw nobody in the first two houses and was about to pass by when a young man emerged from the shade next to the first house, called out to me and came to the gate to unlatch it and invite me in. There are others there in the shade on the patio, washing clothes and vegetables and quietly talking. My host escorted me to them and introduced himself. “I am Jose and this is all my family, my father (seated, with his foot bandaged and a cane nearby) my mother, my wife and my son (perhaps 18 months old and perched on Mom’s hip)”. With this much visiting in two days I was getting better at the most likely answers to questions they might have and the conversation almost seemed natural instead of having to be prodded along. It turned out that Grampa in this case was the chief of the salt operation and explained its workings that I hadn’t figured out so far. . .basically, there’s a canal through the berm behind the beach that they block off by hand with stones when they’ve finished letting the water in. After that it’s just a matter of a short time and the water is gone and the salt remains. Then the men go into the salt pans with shovels and load the salt to carry over to the piles I saw on the beach side where it waits for buyers. As we sat a truck rolled out over the pans to the pile and half a dozen men began loading out the “pinto bean” sacks I’d seen the night before. I asked if it wasn’t very hard work and the old man smiled. . .”no, not really.. .the salt doesn’t weigh as much as stone you know!” I walked on, out to the tiny cemetery on the beach and read the head stones. Many people died young here in times gone by. . .and still had children to erect stones in their memory. Thence I stomped full length of the Northern beach, staggering sometimes in the gusts of wind and swept from time to time with big blasts of spray from the breakers. I studied that sea for quite a while straight upwind, perhaps 20 miles or more of fetch and it had been blowing since midnight. The bright blue water was ripped with gusts and streaked with foam, breaking on the steep beach in great rolling crashes. I was very glad to be walking on the beach with my little boat tugging at her anchor in a good bottom with a quarter mile of solid rock between her and those breakers.
At the far end of the salt pans I met the local burro tribe, five adults and 3 burritos. They are all fun to watch, but the little burritos are miraculous. Fuzzy, long legs, long ears, almost no length from front to back at all, they can bounce three feet in the air without moving their feet or legs! Such lively little creatures they are. I knew a burro years ago at my grandfather’s farm. He liked cigarettes but hadn’t much use for little boys. A very old man with a caballero’s white hat over his forehead dozed in a doorway as I passed. I thought to not wake him so kept walking quietly by but as I went I heard his quiet “buenas dias” and turned to return the greeting. He smiled and immediately his head nodded again. I passed on. Later, at another, even more substantial house I met the man who owns the fish buying operation at the far end of the beach. He offered coffee, which his wife brought us (boiling water in the mug, the Nescafe Classico, the sugar and a spoon separate). We talked of many things again. He is a very substantial man, drives a good 4wd truck, owns this relatively nice home, at least twice as large as most of the small houses in the village, is used to dealing with money and politics, has a large poster for the PRI party on the wall (elections are coming up in February in Mexico), by and large, content with his life I think, and though polite and friendly to me as a fellow man, seems not much impressed with the US or even yachtsmen in general. When he realizes mine is the little boat right in front of his palapa on the beach his attitude changes a little “. . .that one is very very small senor.” “Yes” I say, “but quite brave”. “The boat is brave??” he asks. . .well, she’s carried you here at least.” He decided to go to the beach and see how the fish were doing, so we rode together in his truck, stopping to visit with his associates twice along the way.
Back aboard I began a program of cutting off any projecting sharp items inside the cabin. My bald spot is a mess of scratches and dings from various bolts sticking out past their nuts. The gymnastics are pretty remarkable as the boat bounces around, getting at the ones around the fore hatch particularly, but finally everything that can be trimmed and filed has been done. Then I turned to my old sun-hat, which lacked a chin strap. The improvisation will never be socially acceptable, but it will stay on my head in a gale hereafter. I set a length of 1/8” line in a pair of eyelets on opposite sides of the canvas brim, gave them stopper knots and stainless washers to prevent pull-through and provided adjustment with a tiny stainless nut declared surplus from the spares kit. I finished off the chores aboard by washing my shorts and straightening everything in the forepeak and most of what’s in the stores lockers. If the wind dies down any time soon we’ll be ready for sea.
I’d invited myself aboard the Grand Duc as I passed by earlier and was formally invited back for tea after 4:00. Getting there, several hundred feet straight upwind in the canoe was a tussle, but worth it. The evening of visiting stretched on and on with tea, crackers, then wine, then supper (soup made from shellfish, then pasta with the shellfish meats and finally bread with home made banana and orange jam, to die for). Much much later we said good night and I launched back into the dark. Alain flashed his searchlight on the Gaviota so I could get started right and find her first try. It seemed as though, during the evening the wind had begun to die down. I went to bed hoping to sail again in the morning, at least as far as Isla San Francisco, with a swing by Isla Coyote and maybe on for the long open water crossing (17 miles open to the North for a long ways) over to Isla Partida.