We passed the monastery, but before we got to the cave we turned off onto a different road. We passed through several more small villages. One of them was the village where we had gone to the wedding with 3,000 guests a few years ago and has a reputation for being one of the most traditional villages left today. In another village, we spotted a 16th century church that looks like it is still in use. We tried to go in, but it was closed.

The towns are nothing more than a small cluster of closely set buildings in the middle of raw land as far as the eye can see. We think it is funny that with so much empty space around them, they choose to live on top of their neighbors, both figuratively and literally speaking. You rarely see houses outside of the towns.

Unfortunately, archeological sites on Crete all close fairly early in the day, and we had seriously underestimated how long the drive would take. We forgot how windy and slow go the mountain roads in Crete can be. There was no way we could make it to the ruins before they closed. So, instead of Axon, we went to another village near it called Zoniana. Zoniana is on the tourist map for some caves that are supposed to be cool, but its real claim to fame in recent years is that it is a mafia village.

Apparently, two years ago a man from Zoniana was arrested. He drove a Porsche and allegedly had millions in the bank, which is suspicious for a guy from a farming town. An investigation started. It seemed that the village was growing cannabis in the olive groves, where the pot was blocked from view by the olive trees. They seemed to have a hashish plantation hidden in the hills outside the village. They seemed to be dealing drugs. They seemed to be involved in a series of armed robberies and protection rackets. So, 40 officers went into the town to do a raid. Before they could even enter the first house, 20 gunmen attacked the police with assault rifles. The police retreated. 75 special force officers were flown in from Athens a couple days later and, along with 55 local police, there was a 6 day stand off. Andronikos said that most everyone in the village was shooting at the police, including women and children. We can totally imagine the little 5 foot, 90 pound great-grandmas wielding automatic weapons. The older generation of Greeks are tough as nails. The police eventually were able to get the situation under control, conduct searches, and make arrests. Apparently, in addition to everything else they were up to, they were also gun runners and had copious amounts of explosives. The trials for that fiasco are going on right now. 42 are on trial.

Anyway, we decided to go to Zoniana instead because 1. we thought maybe the caves would be open later than the ruins were and 2. Andronikos was curious to see the infamous village. For the most part, Zoniana looks like all the other towns in the general area, though bullet holes are definitely noticeable in many buildings. The streets were mostly empty and all seemed to be quiet. We didn’t see any police around, nor any armed men hiding behind door posts lying in wait for the police (and we had our eyes peeled). How disappointing. We were hoping for some action.

We were looking for the caves when we came across the Potamianos Museum. It was open, so we went in. The museum is small and visually cute, with lots of photos and art on the walls and many displays featuring cartoonish looking wax figures. However, some of the content was actually a bit disturbing. While some of the museum is devoted to the history of Crete, most of it is about the horrors of the Turkish occupation

So, starting with the non-disturbing information. Many Cretan leaders from the Byzantine Era through today were highlighted, including war heroes, writers, poets, painters (including the famous Il Greco), and politicians (including a Byzantine Emperor and the founder of the Greek liberal party). There was an interesting exhibit of how Greece’s borders have changed over the years. There were some pretty photos, paintings and drawings of Crete throughout history. And they talked a little about how they managed to keep the Greek culture, language and religion alive during the Turkish occupation.

We want to preface the disturbing stuff with some commentary. As you know, the histories of Greece and Turkey have been strongly intertwined since ancient times. When we were doing research for the History of Greece and the History of Turkey posts, we were struck by the total disparity between the two different interpretations of events. In fact, the slant in perspective is so significant that you would swear that the two sides could not possibly be referring to the same incidents. The one thing that most strongly resonated with us in writing those posts is that anger begets anger, and violence begets violence. When one side commits an atrocity, whether justified or not, the other side feels obligated to get even. The side receiving the counter attack feels equally horrified by violence and feels the need to get even, and so the cycle continues. One thing that is clear is that war is equally painful for all sides.

So, that said, this museum showed only the Greek perspective. It was clearly designed by someone who hates the Turks passionately and wants to preserve the hate for future generations. For example, the majority of photos on display showed the damage done by Turkish soldiers around the island, which is factual. But someone had drawn images of blood dripping on the matting, which clearly was intended to provoke additional anger. Another example is one of the larger wax figure scenes that was absolutely gruesome. It showed the various methods the Turks used to torture and kill Greek rebels, so wax figures were hung, impaled, etc. We feel that a verbal description of the events would be enough and the graphic depiction was geared at inciting anger. And there were several more exhibits and displays geared at eliciting emotion. We agree it is important to preserve factual history, but not hate. We feel strongly that this generation of Turks should not be demonized for something their great grandparents and great great grandparents did.

After the museum, we decided to head back to Bali. We chose a different road that looked like it would be shorter. Eventually the scenery started to look familiar. We realized we were in Aghia, the town where Koralia’s family has a business. We found the shop with little difficulty and went inside. Koralia’s uncle, grandmother and great aunt were there minding the store. They were definitely surprised to see us, but seemed to be happy we came by.

We had planned a quick stop to say hi and bye, but they insisted on feeding us. Even though we kept saying we didn’t want any food, they brought out a ton. It was like the scene in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” where the mom asked the fiancé if he wanted a sandwich. He replied no and she handed him one anyway, fully expecting him to eat it. Koralia’s grandma actually whipped up a batch of her delicious goat milk ice cream right then. While waiting for the ice cream, they served yummy chocolate pastries, cookies, those awesome candy figs, and candied oranges. We have tried the oranges before, but we think we forgot to mention them. The entire orange, peel and all, is candied and eaten. They are absolutely phenomenal. I can see why Costas adores Koralia’s family so much. They are all incredibly kind, generous, welcoming and hospitable people. We stayed for quite a while before we realized we needed to get going for dinner with the family back in Bali.

Tomorrow we are heading back to the States, and we would be leaving for the airport before everyone got up, so we said our goodbyes tonight. Eric still wasn’t feeling good, so he went to bed fairly early, but Christi stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, trying to make the most of the time left.

Christi is ashamed to admit this, but she had no idea that DaVinci was a renowned scientist and inventor. She thought he was only a renowned artist. Generally speaking, people have artistic talents or scientific talents (left brain/right brain dominance), and it is incredibly rare to find someone with such amazing gifts at both ends of the mental spectrum. Because she knew so little about him, Christi found the exhibit to be absolutely mesmerizing. Everyone else liked the exhibit, too.

There were some videos telling about Da Vinci’s various accomplishments in all fields and about his overall life. As a total side note, he was probably gay. He never married and had a life long male companion. As another side note, the Mona Lisa was his favorite piece of art. It wasn’t commissioned, so he made it for himself and kept it for his entire life.

Anyway, most of the displays were essentially pages from his notebooks, where he wrote detailed observations about how things work or came up with engineering plans for assorted inventions he had dreamed up. There were also models of some of the inventions.

To give you a few examples of his study on how things worked, for many years Da Vinci studied the human body. He would sneak into mausoleums to dissect bodies of newly deceased people. He sketched each body in extreme detail, inside and out, including every organ, blood vein, etc. One of his biggest complaints was that the bodies decomposed faster than he could dissect and sketch and he had a hard time getting a complete sketch of any one body. Here is a sample sketch.

He also did the same detailed dissections and drawings on assorted animals. Another detailed study he did was on the flow of water. He would put dye in flowing water to track where it went and what caused it to move the way it did. The water study was inspired by engineering work he did in designing and building canals and bridges. Here is a model of a swinging bridge he designed.

But the part that we all found fascinating was the wide assortment of things he invented. We can’t get over his foresight and visionary abilities. Much of DaVinci’s work was as a naval engineer, and he came up with all kinds of inventions to aid in on the water warfare, including snorkels, fins, a diving suit with a metal breast plate to protect against water pressure, double hulls on boats (then revolutionary and today standard), underwater cutters to destroy others’ hulls, and probably a submarine (he alluded to the submarine but never detailed it, saying it was too dangerous for men to have). He also invented a machine gun, steam powered cannon, tanks, and siege ladders. And those are just a few examples. Here is his machine gun:

Da Vinci also invented the bicycle, the helicopter, the hang glider, the parachute, printing press, wind meters, odometers, and many other things that were way before his time. Here is his hang glider:

And all the while, he was still doing his artwork. Talk about an incredible person!

In the evening, all the out of town guests went to Rythmeno for a big dinner. Tomorrow some of the guests would be leaving, so it was a final farewell of sorts. Costas picked an adorable taverna on the water, in the heart of the historic Venetian waterfront portion of town. Since the last time we were in Rythmeno we didn’t take many photos, here are a few of the waterfront. There is an outer harbor and an inner harbor. The first shot is of some shops that line the outer harbor. The second is of the entrance into the inner harbor, where it is super protected. The last picture is of some of the shops that line the inner harbor.

We had a huge meal. After dinner, we walked around the oldest part of the city, taking in the charm and history. It was a nice night for a walk and a lovely setting. The Venetian architecture and appointments are pretty, and the authentic Venetian buildings, fountains and so forth that are left definitely exude oodles of charm. At one point, we walked by a philo dough factory, so we stopped and watched them work for a while. They were stretching the dough into incredibly large and thin layers. Of course, the paper thin layers are what make philo such a fine pastry. After watching how much work it is, I would never want to try to make my own philo dough!

It was a good end to a good day.

We arrived at the church 20 minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start. The tradition is that everyone stands outside and waits for the bride to arrive. The groom meets her outside and they walk in together, then everyone follows them in. It was a small wedding with only 900 guests, and the courtyard outside the church was jam packed. Were we being facetious when we said “small wedding?” No. In villages, the whole village is invited, and weddings with as many as 5,000 guests are common. We went to a wedding with 3,000 people once a few years ago. It was crazy. In the cities, though, weddings tend to be much smaller. We noticed a few men were dressed in traditional Cretan costumes. Here are some of the more traditional dressers posing with Costas.

The church is at the top of a hill, with a long path that leads from the parking lot up the hill. Here is a shot of it from the parking lot.

We knew the bride had arrived when we heard a symphony of car horns down below. A few minutes later, Koralia walked up in a stylish white gown, accompanied by her parents, sister (maid of honor), and five adorable little flower girls.

They were met at the edge of the church courtyard by Costas, Maria (Costas’ mother), John, and two groomsmen. Everyone in the group exchanged greetings, then Koralia and Costas joined hands and led the rest of the bridal party towards the church entrance.

A priest was standing outside the church doors, holding a framed picture of the Virgin Mary. Costas and Koralia stopped in front of the priest. The priest said some words in Greek that Eric and Christi couldn’t follow. Both Costas and Koralia kissed the picture, the purpose being to venerate Mary’s divinity. Then the priest stepped aside and the entire entourage went in.

Nine priests stood in front of the altar. The adults in the bridal party formed a horizontal line about 20 feet back from the altar, each person facing it. A small round table stood between the wedding party and the priests. The first picture is of the altar area before the wedding started, so you can get a sense of what it looked like. The second shot is of 7 of the 9 priests. Well, 5 whole priests and two half priests. There was no way we could get all 9 into one shot.

No, it is not normal for there to be nine priests. Usually, there is only one. Costas’ maternal grandfather used to be a teacher at the seminary, and several of his devoted students had wanted to be the one to officiate his grandson’s wedding. Apparently, instead of choosing one, they let them all do the ceremony together.

Now, you are probably assuming that with 900 attendees and 9 priests, this must be one huge church. It isn’t. In fact, it is tiny. There are no seats at all inside the church, and with everyone standing shoulder to shoulder, the maximum capacity of the building is probably around 75 people. Once the wedding party had entered, the spectators started shoving their way in behind them. Eric, Christi and Andronikos shoe-horned our way to the family section, just to the right of where the wedding party stood. The rest of the bride’s family stood to the left of the wedding party. Needless to say, we were packed in like sardines.

One of the priests approached Costas and Koralia. He picked up a book with a silver cover off the table. This was a liturgical book of sermons. He read a short passage aloud, then pulled out a ring and waved it around as he spoke. We are guessing at this point he was saying prayers over the ring. He spoke some, read some, and waved the ring around some. He put the ring on Koralia’s finger, then repeated the process with Costas’ ring. While this was going on, the flower girls quietly pushed through the crowd handing out packets of rice.

When the priest was done with the rings, the bride, groom, groomsmen and flowers girls walked forward to the altar. The maid of honor and all four parents stayed behind. There were two small crowns on the table. A priest picked up the crowns, placed them on Costas and Koralia’s heads, then took them back off, then repeated two more times. He was speaking the entire time, and we assume they were more prayers. Then the two groomsmen did the same thing with the crowns – putting them on and then taking them off Costas’ and Koralia’s heads three times. The priest had put the same crown on their respective heads each time, but the groomsmen had deliberately rotated the crowns back and forth between Costas and Koralia.

Still wearing the crowns, the bride and groom, along with the groomsmen and flower girls, circled the small table three times, which is actually supposed to be a dance of sorts. Everyone in the crowd threw rice at the wedding party as they made their circles.

Then the party went back to the altar, where the priest took off the crowns. The ceremony was now over. Normally, there is a sermon in the ceremony somewhere, but Costas and Koralia had decided against a sermon. We found it funny that they had so many priests, yet no sermon.

Costas, Koralia, their parents and the flower girls went out the side door and lined up, preparing to greet their guests. Someone placed a red ribbon around both Costa’s and Koralia’s necks, which is a Cretan specific tradition. Every single guest walked through the church and out the side door to congratulate the bride, groom and their parents. The flower girls dutifully made sure each and every person got a favor. The line was extensive and slow moving, and it took them a long, long time to greet all 900 people.

After everyone was greeted, we took professional photos, then headed to the reception. Inside, the hall was enormous and virtually every seat was filled. The seats were crammed in close together, too. As is typical of Greeks, they started feeding you literally the minute you walked in the door. There was a canapés and champagne station at the entrance and an assortment of appetizers already on the tables, including salad, cheese slices, beets, bread, lamb, liver, meatballs, octopus, and zucchini and eggplant stuffed with ground beef and topped with mashed potatoes.

Costas and Koralia made a formal entrance, with the DJ announcing their arrival. Pretty much as soon as they walked in, they sat down and the formal meal began. There was not a prayer before the meal, which shocked Andronikos. The main course was another type of lamb dish served with rice, and the portions were huge. For dessert, everyone was served fruit slices and small pastries. Oddly, well after dessert had been cleared, another small plate of food was served – pasta with cheese. We can’t emphasize enough how much food there was and how stuffed we were!

Almost as soon as the bride and groom sat down to eat, a professional dance troupe came out wearing traditional costumes and performed several traditional Greek dances. The dancers were accompanied by a Greek band using traditional instruments. Greek music is similar to traditional Eastern style music heard in places like Turkey, Egypt and Oman.

When the troupe was done, Koralia and Costas were called out to the dance floor to lead a dance for their guests. Dozens of people poured out on stage to join the dance. Everyone danced in a ring, but Koralia was the head of the ring. People took turns dancing next to her. From then on out, the dancing was non-stop. For every single song the dance floor was packed with people, and not the same people, either. It seemed like every guest took their turn on the dance floor. Since dinner was going on, the people would eat a little, dance a little, eat some more, then dance some more.

All the dances were similar in that everyone would do the same steps while moving in a ring. People would sometime take turns “solo-ing”, meaning they would go out to the center of the circle and do some flashy moves. When someone went into the middle, everyone else would stop and watch, then the circle would resume motion as soon as the person in the center rejoined the group. The dance floor wasn’t dominated by women, as it often is in the US. There were as many, sometimes more, men out on the dance floor, and the men tended to be more exuberant in their dancing style. The men seemed to do more solos — often jumping in the air and hitting one of their feet with their hands while in mid-air, and some even went so far as to simultaneously spin while jumping and hitting their feet. The traditional dancing lasted for five solid hours, and was lively and fun the entire time. Then the music switched gears to popular rock, and the dancing continued on for another two hours.

Seeing this reception made us stop and think about American wedding receptions. Americans have a lot of rituals. Here there were no speeches, no toasts, no first dance as a couple, no father/daughter/mother/son dance, no cake, no cake cutting, no cake feeding, no garter toss, no bouquet toss. We wonder how we wound up with so many customs and where they all came from.

Christi has been diligently working on her Greek. She had learned how to say “beautiful wedding” this morning. As we were finally leaving the reception in the wee hours of the morning, Christi went up to Koralia’s mother and said what she thought was “beautiful wedding”. Argiri turned white and looked horrified. Later, Christi found out that she has mispronounced one of the words and had actually said “great sex”. Seriously offending your new in-laws always gets relationships off on the right foot. Fortunately, Costas thought it was hilarious and said she knew I had made a mistake.

Two things that are significant to Ensenada happened on the same day, three days ago. One, the news reported for the first time on the Swine Flu outbreak in Mexico City. We are kind of shocked at how out of control the story has gotten in such a short time. You would think the world was ending because a few people got sick. Why does it affect Ensenada? Because the media is warning people not to go to Mexico. Ensenada is thousands of miles from Mexico City and there is not one single case in the entire state of Baja California, but for some reason the entire country has been deemed unsafe. That is a horrible blow Ensenada’s already depressed tourist industry.

The second is traffic signals were installed along the main drag. This was desperately needed. There were crosswalks along the boulevard, but no stop signs or traffic lights. When pedestrians used the crosswalks, it was something of a chicken run and cars often did not stop and would bare right down on the pedestrians. Likewise, when you were driving and wanted to go straight or left, that was also a chicken run. Usually it was easier to make a right and go around the block than it was to try to fight traffic on the road. The lights haven’t been turned on yet, but when they are, it will really help make that road safer for all.

Eric got the bikes out and we have been going out for a ride every day. Ensenada is a great place for the bikes. The outer areas are hilly, but close to downtown it is flat enough land that riding isn’t painful. One day we rode along the boardwalk. We got busted by a cop who told us we had to walk our bikes. Oops! The boardwalk is scenic. Here are a few shots along it.

Interestingly it looked like there was some kind of cheerleading competition going on. There were dozens and dozens of cheerleaders from several different schools walking around along the boardwalk all in full dress. Here and there, we would see a group practicing assorted routines and stunts. It was fun to see.

We went to the northern downtown area, which is even more touristy than the southern end, where the marina is located. Somehow, we never made it that far north last time we had Kosmos here. The northern end is mostly souvenir shops and nightclubs, but visually is just as charming as the southern end is. The big name places, like Hussongs and Senor Frogs, are at this end.

We have also explored more of the city beyond the downtown tourist center, going to restaurants recommended by the locals and to assorted non-tourist businesses as we do our life chores. The rest of Ensenada, visually speaking, is an ordinary looking city with little unique charm. It is not especially clean, nor is it dirty. Few buildings stand out as being either run down or super nice, most are pretty average. And, like the rest of Mexico, there are quite a few half built buildings dotting the town. And we haven’t seen a single military person patrolling at all.

We have had some great food. We have found that non-tourist restaurants have big portions at low prices. One morning we went out to breakfast and had Mexican eggs benedict. Instead of English muffins, there is a tortilla, and instead of hollandaise sauce it is a cilantro cream sauce. Yum. It has the usual poached eggs and ham, of course. Our breakfasts were served with a basket of assorted pastries, which Eric loved. Christi finds Mexican pastries to be too dry for her liking. Here are what Mexican pastries look like:

We had lunch one day at a sushi restaurant with some very creative rolls, using ingredients like spicy mango salsa, bananas and cilantro sauce to jazz up more traditional rolls. They were great.

We went to a mom and pop restaurant that only serves one thing a day, with the menu changing daily. That one thing was chicken enchiladas accompanied with beans, rice, salad and vegetable soup. Man, was it good. Enchiladas are one of Christi’s favorites. Seasoned meat or cheese is wrapped in corn tortillas and smothered in a smooth, spicy sauce, then baked. It is topped with cheese and sour cream. The vegetable soup was clearly made from scratch, with big chunks of assorted vegetables. Mmmm….

We tried chili peppers stuffed with some kind of tuna concoction that were also really good. Chili peppers stuffed with cheese and deep fried are a popular Mexican appetizer, but this is the first time we have seen them stuffed with tuna.

We have hung out with Stephanie and Lance some more, as well as made some new friends in the marina, including a couple who have also circumnavigated (on a sailboat). We have also befriended a couple security guards at the marina, too. We definitely spend a good chunk of our days socializing.

As for chores… we hired someone to wash and wax the boat. He didn’t do the greatest of wax jobs, but he was cheap, so we got what we paid for. The important thing is that he got out all scuff marks from the paravane chain that we got on the run to Nicaragua. It amazes us that no matter how much we beat Kosmos up, she always seems to clean up just fine.

We went to the dentist. The dentist here is cheaper than it is in the states with insurance when you factor in the co-pay and deductible. The cleaning was exactly the same as what we get in the States. We wonder where we can hunt down a dentist who does the amazing hi-tech cleaning like we got in Singapore?

Christi is desperately trying to get caught up on blog writing, knowing she won’t have time once she goes back to work.

We are also taking care of lots of little things that we know we’ll never get to once we are working again. Like what, you ask? Oh, just odds and ends. One example is writing a complaint letter to AT&T to try to get a refund for the phone fees for the last couple of months since she still has no service. Another is looking into plane flights for our upcoming trip to Greece. Yet another was arranging a slip in San Diego.

We are enjoying the slow pace of life here and wish it could last. We are living in first gear right now, and when we get home we will have to jump to fifth gear right away. Now that we have slowed down, we can’t imagine going back to the hectic pace of life we used to live. We know adjusting back to that pace is going to be really hard for us.

We walked by the new construction near the marina and were kind of surprised to see that little is done beyond the frame. This project has been planned for several years now, and grading work had begun while we had Kosmos here. And, come to think of it, the sign was gone. There used to be a big sign saying a museum was going to be built here. We wonder if that means the museum project has been abandoned.

Along the rest of the walk, everything else looked much the same. Several buildings were occupied by different businesses than before, but the buildings still look the same. There are a lot of coffee houses now. Coffee houses must be the new rage.

The restaurant was every bit as good as we remembered it. Eric and Trevor had one of Eric’s favorites, which is a frittata served in a bowl and smothered in a tomato sauce with cactus, red bell pepper (capsicum), black olives, cilantro and green onions. The cactus pieces could easily be mistaken for green bell peppers, though they are more bitter.

Christi tried a new dish, eggs scrambled with shredded manta ray meat, peppers, tomato and onion. We’ve never eaten manta ray before and she thought she’d try something new. It was very fishy.

By the time we got back, the marina office had opened. We went to Kosmos to grab our check in paperwork. As we started down the dock, we saw Stephanie and Lance pulling away from the dock. We went running down the dock, calling out “hi and bye”. They replied that they were getting fuel and would be back soon.

We picked up the paperwork and Eric went to the office to check in. The dock master is gone, but has been replaced with someone who is totally sweet. She went through our paperwork and made sure everything was in order. Then she got a package ready for us to take to the Port Captain’s office.

While Eric was in the office, Trevor packed his bags. He is going to take a bus to the border. His car is parked in San Diego, so from the border he’ll take public transit to where his car is parked. Trevor is really excited to be going home so much earlier than anticipated, both because he misses his girlfriend and because he has a lot of work to do that has been piling up while he has been gone.

The three of us all walked out of the marina together. On the street, Trevor hailed a cab to take him to the bus station and we all said our goodbyes. Eric and Christi strolled down the main drag to the other end of downtown, where the Port Captain’s office is located. We know we keep harping on this, but it felt so good to know exactly where we were going, so good to be somewhere familiar.

As we walked, we laughed about the first time we came to Ensenada http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2006/05/20/first-night-run-and-ensenada/ with Kosmos. Eric had driven the boat down from Dana Point with a couple crew, Tom and Jeff. The path of least resistance to getting Tom and Jeff back to Dana Point was for Christi to drive to Ensenada in her car, pick them up, and then deliver the crew back to Dana Point.

Christi had never driven in Mexico before. She was terrified about driving down after all the bad stories we have heard about reckless drivers and crooked cops that stop tourists to demand bribes. She carefully followed the speed limit and obeyed every traffic sign, even though it infuriated the other drivers around her. She was driving incredibly defensively and considered the other drivers “scary” since they didn’t drive as politely as US drivers tend to. Somehow, she took a wrong turn and wound up on the free road south instead of the toll road south. Supposedly, the free road was laden with banditos that would rob cars stopped at red lights. She was in something of a panic every time she hit a light. Eventually, she saw an entrance to the toll road and was relieved – until she saw that the toll booths had several few armed soldiers around them. The soldiers terrified her and she expected to be shaken down for money above and beyond the toll booth fees by them. She was a wreck the whole drive down and pretty much everything seemed to frighten her. But she made it to Ensenada with absolutely no problems and realized that driving in Mexico isn’t nearly as bad as all the hype makes it out to be.

She was waiting at the marina when Kosmos pulled in. The four of us drove to the officials together, which are conveniently housed in one building. We went round and round and round trying to find the office. Had we walked, we would have found it with no problems, but we had chosen not to walk because somehow we felt incredibly vulnerable being out on the street with our precious boat documentation in hand.

When we did finally find it, we were nervous wrecks. We were both absolutely terrified of checking in. What if they asked for bribes? Could they deny us entry and make us go back to the States if we didn’t pay the bribes? What if there was something wrong with the paperwork? Would they arrest us and permanently confiscate our boat? After all, this is a foreign country where the crooked officials can do anything they wanted, right?

We almost passed out when it turned out there was indeed a SNAFU with our paperwork. Since our boat was brand new, we hadn’t gotten the original hard copy of the coast guard certification in the mail yet. We were trying to check in using a fax copy f the certification, which the Mexican officials wouldn’t accept. Oh, Lord, here comes the request for the bribe in order to take a fax copy. Our worst fears had come true! The boat was going to be confiscated!

But no one had asked for a bribe and they never alluded to confiscation. They simply wanted to verify that the boat wasn’t stolen and is legally flagged. We were so on edge over our irrational fears that we were about ready to have a heart attack over the “horrible ordeal”. But, with a few phone calls to the right people, the issue was all cleared up in a couple of hours. The officials were pleasant and didn’t seem at all like they were “out to get us”. They were simply trying to do their job. We were the ones who made the situation stressful by overreacting to something that was truly no big deal. In retrospect, we should have been thanking them for their diligence, not freaking out about it.

In so many ways we are different people now. The Christi and Eric of today wouldn’t have stressed at all about the SNAFU. We would have calmly made the phone calls and patiently waited for the clearance to take place. We can’t believe how much we feared “foreign” and “different” only 3 years ago. Now we embrace both. And we think we were silly to ever be afraid of those things. It is funny how illogical the fear emotion is. Humans on the whole generally don’t fear things that are truly dangerous but familiar, like rush hour traffic. But humans tend to fear the unfamiliar, even if it is perfectly safe. Humans tend to let the smallest and most obscure negative stories about the unfamiliar to become bigger deals in our minds than they are in reality, which increases the clouds in our already clouded vision as to what is safe and unsafe.

Anyway, back to our day. The Port Captain took less than 5 minutes, and we enjoyed our leisurely stroll back. We got back from the port captain’s office about the same time Stephanie and Lance got back from fueling up. Because the blog is so far behind real time, they thought we were in the Caribbean right now, so they were absolutely shocked when they had seen our boat next to them this morning. Here our the two Nordies, side by side

We visited with them some, then they offered to take us out to lunch to celebrate our accomplishment, which was very nice of them. Interestingly, they picked a seafood restaurant we have eaten at only once before, with Richard and another couple that own a Nordhavn 40. The only two times we have been to this place were both with Nordhavn owners. What a small world.

While we were out, we noticed that the town seems to be dead. There aren’t many tourists around at all. The cruise ship is in, but it seems like not very many people are getting off the cruise ship to walk around town. Stephanie and Lance told us that the combination of Americans having less money for vacations, the drug wars, the tomatoes with salmonella, and the kidnapping stories have had a devastating impact on the tourist industry in Ensenada. We had forgotten about the salmonella outbreak last year. Tomatoes infected with salmonella have been a big problem in the US for the last 10+ years, with most of the contaminated food coming from Virginia. Did people stop going to Virginia? No. But last year’s contamination was traced back to Mexico and now people are afraid to come here. How sad. Ensenada is such a great place. What we think is even more sad is that the people on the cruise ship are already here, but are so encompassed by fear that they are missing out on a neat cultural opportunity. As Eric said “You can’t run from the lows in life without also running from the highs, too”.

The afternoon and evening were low key. Eric rinsed the boat. Christi tidied some inside. We played on the internet and watched a movie. BTW, the internet here is really good and pretty cheap.

We are still reveling in our achievement and keep referring to each other as “circumnavigator”.

The most odd thing that happened today was a private jet flew by so low that it showed up on radar. It was definitely flying at less than 1,000 feet, and maybe was even as low as 500 feet.

We were all in incredibly high spirits all day. Christi and Eric were on cloud nine, really. The stars have to have aligned for us for this run, because everything about this leg has been so perfect in every way (except Trevor being sick, of course). The amazing weather. Completing the Baja run in about 1/3 to 1/4 of the time we had anticipated it would take since we didn’t have to stop. Seeing the whales. And now we were literally counting the minutes until our circumnavigation was complete. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. We got word from Eric’s company that a project he has worked on for the last 8 years has finally come to fruition. Wow. His project and our circumnavigation are basically done the same day. That is just unbelievable! It is seriously too good to be true! As you can imagine, after we got that news, we were beyond elated. And Trevor was so excited to be sharing the joy with us.

At 18:29 exactly, we officially reached a point we had been to before. We crossed the circumnavigation line, near the island of Todos Santos at 31- 46N and 116-46W.

It’s real. We did it.

Our chart plotter numbers each and every waypoint we enter into it. After we got to that mark, we made a course change to follow our previous line back into Ensenada harbor. That was waypoint number 892. Once back on the line, the next course change was at waypoint number 6. Number 6! It seems like a lifetime ago in so many ways. Even though Ensenada is not our home, we spent three months there with Kosmos and we absolutely fell in love with the town, so we were elated about being back there again.

We approached the Ensenada harbor entrance at around 1945, just as the sun was getting to be low in the sky. The breakwater is different from when we were last here. Thank God we made it before dark. When we first made the decision to speed up to try to get to Ensenada before the weather turned bad, we had debated long and hard. We knew we were cutting it really close and that more likely than not we’d arrive after dark. What had ultimately swayed the decision was the fact that since we had been to Ensenada before, we felt comfortable with making a night entrance. But, now that we see the breakwater is different, making our charts off, a night entrance would have been very stressful. Had we not arrived before dark, we would have done circles in the bay all night in rapidly deteriorating weather. That was yet another thing that went right today. We still can’t get over how perfectly everything has worked out for us and how much good news has abounded.

There was a funky looking huge boat near the breakwater entrance. The machine was in operation and we could see the various mechanical parts moving as it inched along painfully slow. We figure must be a dredger.

But, despite the breakwater wall being different, most everything else looks the same. The giant Mexican flag that Ensenada is famous for was flying proudly. A cruise ship was in port. Sigh. The one and only thing we don’t like about this marina is that the cruise ships park next door to it. Those big ships put out a lot of soot that makes the boats in the marina really dirty.

When we were near the breakwater, Eric called the marina on radio. No response. Eric decided we need to advertise our accomplishment and put out our 30,000 mile pennant on Kosmos’ bow (Jeff had brought it to us when we were in Panama even though it was premature at that point. He had faith in us to make it to the 30K mark, though).

Inside the breakwater, we did notice that the sunken ship in the middle of the bay (clearly marked on charts) looks different somehow. Maybe it is more sunken than it was before. We seem to remember it being more obvious than it looked now. We also noticed some new construction around the marina on a plot of land that used to be vacant.

We pulled into the marina and tied up at an empty floating dock normally used for very large yachts. We were bursting with pride. We felt like there should be a tickertape parade through the middle of town to celebrate. Everyone should be celebrating with us on this magical day!

A security guard came running over to us and whisked Eric off to write down our boat info and to find us a slip. Here is a shot of the sunset in the marina.

While Eric was gone, Christi and Trevor danced up and down the dock, with Christi repeating over and over again, “We’re circumnavigators!!! Woo hooo!!!!” She just couldn’t contain her excitement! After the initial burst of energy died off, they watched the sea lions on one of the other docks. There were 4 sea lions laying on it, and clearly they have claimed that dock as their own. They were excitedly barking away, and a juvenile was playing in the water next to the dock. It was so cute to watch.

Eric saw that our old slip was empty and asked if we could move there. The guard said sure. Eric had noticed that there was a Nordhavn 40 located two slips down, in the same spot that Richard (crew member for the Pacific crossing) used to keep his boat. We untied and pulled around to the slip, passing the sea lions. As we neared the 40, we got a look at the name on the back and were thrilled to see the boat belongs to our friends Stephanie and Lance. Yay! We were going to be welcomed home by old friends!

We barely finished tying up before the last bits of twilight were completely gone and it was totally dark out. We have such good timing today! We immediately cleaned up and went to dinner. Christi even put on a skirt since it was such a special occasion. We did knock on Stephanie and Lance’s door to invite them to join us, but they didn’t seem to be home.

This is the first time in 2 full years where we have arrived in a port already knowing the lay of the land. This is the first time in two years where we didn’t have to go exploring. Obviously, we think exploring is a lot of fun, but it felt really good to know exactly where we wanted to go for dinner, exactly where the restaurant was, and exactly how to get there. We are almost reveling in the familiarity. To use an analogy, going to a new port is like wearing a brand new pair of jeans. You are excited about your jeans, but they are stiff and a little uncomfortable. Each day you wear them, they become more and more comfortable. Each new port is exciting, but there is a level of discomfort in trying to learn a new place. Arriving in Ensenada feels like putting on our oldest and most comfy pair of jeans.

So, where did we go to celebrate such a momentous occasion? We went to one of our favorite restaurants, called Los Valeros, which is a short walk from the marina. It was nice to have some old favorite foods. One of the things we love about this restaurant is the awesome creamy cilantro salad dressing. It is still just as good. Being in our old slip added to the nostalgia of the whole dinner experience. The entire dinner event, walk and all, felt to us like we had been transported back in time by 2.5 years.

Over dinner, we debated about when we should return to San Diego. Eric really wants to arrive back on a Saturday so that friends and family can come out and celebrate with us. We talked about going back this Saturday, but decided it would be better to go back next Saturday. We are both worn out from the extreme amount of sea time we did over the last month. We know that the minute we arrive back to “regular life” in the States, we will be busy all the time, so if we wanted some time to rest, we needed to stay here.

We were all exhausted and we totally crashed right after dinner.

We met the dock master. It just so happens that he wrote a book on how to do the Baja Bash, so we bought a copy from him. Knowing we have a book full of pointers is making us feel a little less nervous about the last leg.

Next on the “to do” list was to go to the airport to pick up Trevor, who is going to be crewing for us to Ensenada. It turned out his flight was early, so he was waiting outside and ready to go when we pulled up. That was easy! By now it was lunch time and we were ready to eat again. Patrick took us to a non-touristy part of town, a place where local Mexicans live as opposed to the ex-pat/tourist communities we have mostly seen so far. This section of town looks a lot like La Crucecita and has a blue-collar, lower middle class feel to it. Here is a street shot to give you a feel for what it looks like.

Patrick took us to a restaurant that serves only one thing: carnitas. Carnitas are shredded pork fried in lard and coca-cola, and seasoned with salt. The restaurant is basically a concrete patio with plastic patio tables and chairs. Off to the side is a small, open kitchen where a woman was making fresh tortillas on a grill. Yum… fresh tortillas. This was going to be good. It had to be.

Like the al pastor meat restaurant in Huatulco, the menu offered carnitas served in a number of different styles, such as tacos or burritos. We took Patrick’s advice and skipped the individual meals and simply ordered a kilo of meat for the 4 of us to share. It was served with several baskets of tortillas, four kinds of salsa, radishes, limes, jalapenos, onions and cilantro to build your own taco creation. We like carnitas a lot in general, but these are definitely some of the best we have ever had. And, it is cheap! Patrick said that this place will often have a line around the block.

While we were eating, some mariachi singers came out and performed. Mariachi singers are pretty common in Mexican restaurants. They wear traditional Mexican costumes and play traditional songs, and will take requests if you tip them. They add some local culture to the meal.

After lunch Patrick took us to the historic part of San Jose del Cabo. The town was first established in 1730, though none of the buildings here today are anywhere near that old. And before that, pirates used to hide out here in between raids on Spanish ships. San Jose is kind of like Barra Navidad in that the village is old and charming, though it looks much different than Barra. The buildings here are mostly low one stories. The village actually looks a lot like the oldest parts of Del Mar and is really cute. There is an artist district that Patrick wanted to drive us through, but, unfortunately, the streets were blocked off so we couldn’t see it.

We didn’t actually stop in old San Jose, and after driving around some, we went back to Patrick’s condo, which is along the road between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. He has a great place on the beach with fabulous views. Here are Patrick, Trevor and Christi on the beach with Patrick’s condo complex in the background.

After a quick tour, we all piled back in the car and went back to Cabo San Lucas. The plan was to take a water taxi over to Kosmos so that we could give Patrick a tour and drop off our groceries and Trevor’s luggage, then go back to shore to get dinner.

We had to wait for a few minutes at the water taxi stand before we took off. We were surprised to see that there were a lot of sea lions in the water around all the boats. We watched them happily play, doing somersaults and flips and general frolicking. One sea lion was especially cute. He was lying on his back, with his feet, fins, and flippers sticking straight up out of the water. What a great life sea lions have!

On board Kosmos it was unbelievably rocky. There were a lot of jet skis, water taxis and glass bottom boats zooming by at high speeds, leaving behind big wakes that caused incredibly confused seas. We are so glad that we haven’t been on board all day. This anchorage is really uncomfortable by day. We were thankful that we were going to be back on shore before the obnoxious sunset cruises started, which would just add more discomfort to the setting.

We are always bummed when people see Kosmos for the first time when she is looking bad. After such a miserable passage, the inside was an absolute mess. The outside was completely encrusted in salt and dirt, even at the top of the pilot house! She was looking well used at the moment. We are just thankful that she cleans up so well. After a good scrub down, she’ll look new again.

Anyway, back on shore we went to dinner at a sushi restaurant inside the fancy mall. We tried a couple rolls with some Mexican flair that were definitely different from anything we have had before. One had scallops, shrimp tempura, tuna, smoked salmon, avocado and was topped with cilantro sauce. We liked that one a lot. We are big cilantro fans. The other had soft shell crab, mango, cilantro, mint, smoked salmon, asparagus, and cooked tuna. It was dry. We think if the tuna was raw it would have been much better.

The water taxis only run until 1800, and when we had come to shore, we had made arrangements with the taxi driver to take us back at 2000. He had agreed to it since it wouldn’t be dark yet, but had demanded payment up front. We thought the payment up front was reasonable. After all, if he waited around an extra 2 hours after work and we never showed up, he would have waited around for nothing.

Anyway, coming back from the restaurant, we got caught in horrible traffic. We started to panic as the clock went past 2000. At about 2010, we realized we could walk faster than we could drive and Patrick dropped us off where we happened to be, at a hotel on the boardwalk. We said a quick goodbye and ran around the outside of the hotel towards the boardwalk. We were crestfallen when we saw a big fence. Drat. Rather than wasting time back tracking, we jumped the fence, then ran down the boardwalk as fast as we could, arriving at the water taxi stand at 2020. The whole time we had been praying he would wait for us. Otherwise, we had no way at all to get back to Kosmos.

We were so relieved to see our driver at the stand, looking annoyed as heck as we ran up. He was furious that we were so late, keeping him from his family. Once again, we are amazed at how selfless most people are. The agreement was for him to wait until 2000, and it would have been perfectly justified if he went home at 2001 and refused to wait for us. But, he knew we would be stranded and he didn’t want to leave us in a bad situation, so he waited. We thanked him profusely and gave him a big tip.

On board Kosmos, we were rolling like crazy. There was no wind at all. The wind usually keeps you pointed into the waves, so you kind of bounce along them. But with no wind, the boat just rolls around in the waves. And we were really surprised by how wavy it was. We felt like we were at sea. It was no fun. Thank goodness we aren’t staying here.

We got Trevor situated and then all went to bed. We were planning an early morning departure and we needed to get as much sleep as we could.

We got ready and called a water taxi at 0730, figuring he’d get us to shore by 0800. The taxi showed up at 0800 and dropped us off at the water taxi stand, which was a good mile from where we had asked to be dropped off. Here is a shot of Kosmos and Cabo San Lucas from the water taxi.

We called Patrick and told him we were at the wrong place. He told us to stay put and he would find us. We checked out our surroundings while we waited. We were on a boardwalk that wraps around the man made harbor within the natural bay. As far as we could tell, the buildings along the boardwalk appeared to be an endless line of hotels and restaurants. Everything looked to be new and upscale. A cruise ship was in port, and there were lots of tourists walking up and down the boardwalk, along with a lot of touts selling tourist knick knacks and offering assorted tours.

Like Huatulco, Los Cabos is a large, sprawling area. And, similar to Huatulco, 30 years ago there was nothing in Los Cabos except three tiny fishing villages. And like Huatulco, the area has grown explosively in recent years, primarily as a result of tourism. The main tourist center is Cabo San Lucas, where we stood now. It is famous for great sportfishing and really wild bars where you can party hard until dawn.

A few minutes later, Patrick strolled up. It was nice to meet him in person. We walked over to his car and we drove a few blocks back to a popular breakfast haunt. Off the waterfront, it is not as upscale, but it is still nice. The few blocks we saw looks just like an average, middle class area in the US. There are a lot of cars on the road, and both traffic and parking seem to be a big problem. And, it seemed like most of the cars were SUV’s. Are we in LA or Cabo?

The restaurant has the self-proclaimed best French toast in the world. The bread is stuffed with cream cheese and topped with pecans and fruit. It is really darn good, but we still think the place in Nicaragua wins. We also got a lobster benedict and a crab cake benedict, which we’ve never seen before. They were both a typical benedict, with an English muffin, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce, they just swapped lobster/crab for the ham. We like seafood and benedicts, so we liked them a lot.

After breakfast, Patrick volunteered to shuttle us around as we did our errands, which was very kind of him. The first thing on the to-do list was to go to the Port Captain to check in. Patrick didn’t know where the Port Captain’s office is, but he figured it would be on the waterfront close to the marina. We decided to go to the marina to ask for directions. We hopped back in the car and parked at a mall just off the boardwalk, a couple miles away from where Patrick had picked us up. We walked through the mall to get to the boardwalk. The mall is super swanky, with beautiful fountains and high end stores.

When we commented about how “American” Cabo looks, Patrick said that Cabo San Lucas has been nicknamed “Beverly Baja”. The name definitely fits. Anyway, from the mall it was a short walk to the marina office, which is on the boardwalk. Interestingly, there is a boat yard right next to the mall. When we commented about that being odd, Patrick said he thinks the boat yard owner also owns the mall. Ah.

We were surprised when the marina told us that the Port Captain’s office was a few blocks inland. We guess the office in Bahia Navidad isn’t as unusual as we first thought. They gave us a map and we walked over to the office. Here is a street shot to give you a sense of what it looks like.

The Port Captain’s office was crowded and we had to wait a few minutes before being helped. We chatted with the others in line and found out some useful information. First, we could have had the Port Captain in Huatulco clear us for all ports up through Ensenada, which would have eliminated the need to check in and out of each port. Oh well. We gather the officials don’t like to do that since none of the port captains we checked in with ever volunteered that information. And, since our next stop is Ensenada anyway, it is too late to try it out now. Second, the moorings were privately owned and the land was on a 20 year lease from the government. When the lease was up, the government didn’t renew it, so now there are no more moorings. Third, now you are supposed to call API on the VHF to request permission to anchor before actually dropping the anchor. We committed a fairly serious no-no by anchoring without permission. Oops!

Next on the to-do list was to stock up on “bad sea” food – food that is easy to eat when it is rocky and miserable and your tummy isn’t happy. That is food like chocolate (tastes the same both directions), fruit, potato chips and crackers. We don’t even really like potato chips and almost never eat them on dry land. But they are great in rough seas!

Patrick drove us to a grocery store in one of the other towns in Los Cabos, called San Jose del Cabo. We took a highway that parallels the water northwest for a surprisingly long distance. We hadn’t quite realized how far apart the two towns are. The stretch of highway is interesting. The side closest to the water is hilly and rife with upscale development, and looks much like Dana Point or any other newer, expensive California beach community. We were shocked when Patrick told us the prices of the hotel rooms, condos and houses on that side of the road. They are the exact same prices you would pay for something comparable in Southern California. Unbelievable!

There are quite a few pockets of land that haven’t been built upon, but most of that land looks like it has been graded for development, so in a few years there may be no vacant land left at all on this side of the road. The other side of the road is almost like a different universe altogether. It looks just like California’s inland desert cities, such as Palmdale. The land is arid and dry, dotted with low growing scrubby and sparse plants. There is a lot of new construction, but there is still tons of vacant land left intact. The construction on this side looks more middle class than on the other side. The prices on this side of the road are significantly lower than the ocean side. One block literally saves you hundreds of thousands of dollars on a house!

The weather in Los Cabos is a bit unusual. It is very close to the Tropic of Cancer line, and the tropical storms don’t usually make it quite that far north (but tropical storms can happen and boats have been damaged in hurricanes that have tracked through here). But, since it is so far south, it also doesn’t normally get the cold Artic storms from the north, either. So, they just don’t get much rain at all.

To be continued…

Eric got up shortly thereafter, rising with the first light of the day. Christi was feeling even better, the wind was lighter, and it was coming from a different direction, so she decided she was up for a kayak ride in the lagoon. We hopped into the kayaks and paddled out of the marina, planning to follow the same route Eric had taken yesterday.

As we passed the fuel station, we saw the sportfisher was tied up to the dock. We paddled up to the boat and said hi. There was a couple standing on the dock talking to the people on board. An early adolescent boy was amongst the group on board, so Christi was now 100% sure we had found the right group.

The sportfisher owner didn’t recognize us. Eric said “We are on the trawler next to you. We met a couple days ago”. The other couple on the dock said “Oh, you’re the couple on the Nordhavn? The ones who have almost finished your circumnavigation?” It turns out that this couple had chatted with the Kadey Krogen owner yesterday, who had told them about us. This opened the door for Eric to comment about how great – and stable — our boat is. Ah, poetic justice. Eric was able to set them straight without them ever realizing we had overheard their remark.

Anyway, we chatted with them all for a few minutes. The couple also owns a Kadey Krogen located in the marina and invited us to come by after our kayak ride. The paddle was nice. It was a beautiful day. The only bummer is that the tourist boats were out in full force, and we were constantly dodging water taxis, banana boats, sport fishers and other recreational water toys that were flying by at high speeds. They tended to get disconcertingly close and to make huge wakes, apparently oblivious to the fact that wakes can be a problem for kayakers.

We cleaned up and went over to our new friends’ boat. We wound up staying for hours. We are definitely kindred spirits and we had such a good time with them. They have been cruising for 25 years, starting in their early 20’s, and have been pretty much everywhere in the entire world. We want to be like them when we grow up.

For dinner, we went to yet another restaurant in the hotel. This one served Asian food, and we tried a couple unusual sushi rolls. The first had crab, salmon, avocado and macadamia nuts. The best part was it was covered in a Japanese aioli sauce that was just phenomenal. The other one was prawn, coconut and avocado covered in a mango and ginger caramel. That was not as good as the first one, but still tasty.

The forecast for today was nice weather, so it was time to head out. We are making great time up the coast so far and are ahead of schedule, but we still shouldn’t dawdle here. The Cabo to San Diego stretch is notoriously vicious and chances are we will have lots of delays on that run, so by moving now it gives us the luxury of being choosier about the seas we travel in for that leg. We are both very nervous about that leg. A boat sinks just about every year doing that run up the coast.

Anyway, we were up early and immediately went to work on getting the boat ready to go. We had scheduled a bottom cleaning for 0800. Christi isn’t going to get in the cold water. Period. But even if the water were warmer, we may have hired them anyway because the price was reasonable at $1 per foot. Three people were down there working on it at once, so the cleaning went fast.

We untied and pulled out of the marina at 1030. Getting out of the slip proved to be challenging. A 116 foot Azimuth behemoth was tied to an end cap directly across the way. It was so monstrously big that it ate up most of the channel and left us little room to maneuver into. The crew was scrambling to get fenders out, terrified that we were going to ram right into them. But we were able to maneuver out without hitting them, clearing them by a good 2 feet (2/3 of a meter). Nothing bugs the eyes out of mega yacht people than close calls like that.

As we were exiting the channel, we saw at least half dozen boats all anchored in close proximity to one another right at the mouth of the bay. It looked like each boat had a diver down that was picking up shellfish. The people on board were shelling the seafood the divers kept bringing up. Interesting.

When we first left, the wind is coming from the south so the wind waves were with us, though the swell was still coming from northeast. The waves were gentle and the ride was pleasant overall. Our speed was really good, averaging close to 7 knots at 1700 RPM. We were grateful for each and every “easy mile” we did because we knew it wasn’t going to last. Oh, and we also saw two big turtles, which was exciting.

At around 1600, the wind started to shift around towards our nose and the seas picked up. The wind was light, though, and after a few hours the seas calmed back down. We suspect they picked up because the change in wind direction was causing confusion, and once the wind had settled in one spot, the confusion died down. We were both really green during that period of confusion, and as soon as it calmed down, we both felt better.

As of this writing at 2200, our speeds were still good, so Eric decided to speed us up to 1800 RPM’s in the hope we can make it to Cabo in 2.5 days instead of 3. We’re keeping our fingers crossed!

That night was a restless one for Christi. She woke up often to blow her nose. In the morning, she felt absolutely miserable, too weak and tired to do much of anything. Christi waking up sick sort of made the decision about moving for us. We were staying. Life in a marina is so much easier than life at anchor, and when you aren’t feeling good, easy is definitely the way to go. Also, in this marina we are plugged into both power and water, so she was able to take very long, very hot showers to help clear her sinuses. Because of limited hot water, neither of us has been able to do that any of the other times we have had colds on this journey.

Christi slept most of the day. Eric puttered around the boat, not wanting to leave her alone in case she needed anything. Christi did get up long enough to go to lunch at one of the restaurants in the hotel. On the way out, we stopped by at the boat next to us to say hi to the people on board. It is an expensive sportfisher from San Diego. We introduced ourselves and the owner kind of blew us off. He wasn’t rude, he just made it clear with body language that he didn’t want to talk. A few boats down the dock there was a Kadey-Krogen (a trawler brand quite similar to Nordhavns), so we stopped to say hello to them. This owner was much friendlier and we had a nice chat for a few minutes. When we told him we have almost completed our world circumnavigation, he was pretty astounded. Of course, most people are.

These are pictures of Bahia Navidad from the restaurant. The photos aren’t taken from the same vantage point, but if you lay the photos side by side, you still get a good sense of the area. In the first photo, the Barra Navidad peninsula is to the left, where the glut of buildings are, and you can see how the lagoon expands behind it. In the second shot you can see the marina to the left and the anchorage off to the right. Obviously, the restaurant is on one of the upper floors of the hotel and has panoramic views.

Anyway, we didn’t do anything else all day. A solid day of rest seemed to do the trick, because Christi woke up this morning feeling much better. She’s still sick, but not nearly as bad as she was yesterday. Right after she got up, we went into town. We walked around the places we had missed the other day, including the sandbar and the pier. The first picture is of the fairway, taken from the pier at the tip of the sandbar. You can see the hotel on Isla Navidad to the right. The marina is on the backside of the hotel. The second photo is looking back down the sandbar from the same spot.

We didn’t mention this the other day, but we’ll bring it up now. Here in Barra, there are a few military personnel patrolling the streets, and there is one car checkpoint where every car is stopped. We asked the cruising couple about it the other day and they told us that there are normally never any military personnel here, but since we are in the middle of Santa Semana celebrations, the military was here to ensure order. (Mexicans celebrate Easter for two weeks, called Santa Semana, and many Mexicans take holidays during this time, similar to American’s Spring Break). So, now we are back to the theory that the military in Huatulco were doing practice drills. They are probably making every military person work these two weeks and were training them extra hard knowing that there was a real chance for drunken violence and disorderliness over the holidays.

When we were confident we had seen all of town, we went to a restaurant for lunch. For an appetizer, we got empanadas camarones, filled with shrimp, cheese and tomatoes. These empanadas are different than what we are used to. The crust was more like a thick corn tortilla than a pastry and they seemed to be baked instead of deep-fried. The filling was excellent.

We headed back to the boat and got our kayaks down. We saw a box or porcupine fish in the marina grazing on the growth on the docks near Kosmos. It is pretty cool to see. Christi was planning to go for a ride, but she backed out at the last second. The wind was gusting at 15 knots in the protected marina. Wisdom says you are supposed to paddle against the wind until you are tired, then turn around and glide back in with the wind. But, we had no choice but to go with the wind on the way out of the marina. Christi was still feeling a bit weak and wasn’t sure how much physical exertion she could handle. She felt like it would be too easy to get herself into trouble by going out too far and not being able to get back in.

So, Eric went for a ride by himself in the big lagoon. He stuck close to the shore of Isla Navidad for better wind protection. The whole island is hilly, just like the area where the hotel is. He passed the fuel dock located close to the marina.

He passed the small village of Colimilla. People on Barra like to take the water taxi over to Colimilla for lunch, and there were several restaurants along the water to choose from. There were also four or five houses scattered about up the hillside behind the restaurants. The hillside is covered in the same dry forest like in Ixtapa and the other places we have stopped lately.

He passed a big golf course that we believe is part of the hotel grounds, though it seems kind of far from the hotel. Beyond the golf course it becomes mud flats and mangroves. In there he saw a big iguana up in a tree, which he thought was pretty cool. He rounded the tiny satellite island in the lagoon off of Isla Navidad. Here is a shot where you can see the satellite island to the left, Isla Navidad to the right and the mud flats/mangroves up ahead.

On the other side of the satellite island, Eric got a good view of the lagoon and was surprised at how big it is. It was definitely larger than he expected. He stuck close to the satellite island’s shore for continued wind protection. There seems to be a single private home on the island with a slew of cute little guard dogs that barked like crazy at him. It was actually kind of hard to see the house amongst all the mangrove trees surrounding the island. He emerged in the anchorage area, which is more exposed to the wind. Unfortunately, the new friends we had met the other day weren’t on board, but he found some other cruisers who were around and chatted with them for a while.

He considered heading over to the other side of the lagoon to explore some more, but decided he should head back since the wind was progressively picking up. He paddled back over to the shore of Isla Navidad and followed the shore back to the marina. By the time he got back, the wind inside the protected marina was at 25 knots, and on the VHF we heard the wind in the anchorage was a full 40 knots. There were white caps in the normally flat lagoon. Because the kayaks are so low to the water, he didn’t find the wind resistance to be a problem, even in the most exposed areas. But he did get pretty wet from the wind chop.

When he got back, we laid the two kayaks on the dock and went over to the pool. At the pool, Christi watched something that horrified her. A boy who looked about 7 or 8 and spoke no English got into the pool. One of the kids tried to talk to him, and when he didn’t respond, an American boy that looked about 10 or 11 started tormenting him, calling him names like “stupid retard”, flipping him off, kicking him, etc. The American kid seemed to think that English speakers are superior beings and it is OK to be mean and violent to someone solely because they don’t speak English. After a few minutes, it was clear neither sets of parents were around to break this up and Christi screamed at the American kid. The American kid left the pool. It is people like that boy that give Americans a bad name. Seeing that boy has made Christi dread going back to the States and the ethnocentric mentality some Americans hold. Even though most Americans don’t think like that, it seems like the ones who do are usually the most vocal.

We were at the pool for only an hour. When we got back to Kosmos, we saw that one of the kayaks was gone. Oh no! Where did it go? Then we spotted it in the marina, over at another finger dock. It must have been blown into the water by the strong wind and floated off. For it to have floated such a short distance, it must have just happened within the last few minutes. Wait a minute. It wasn’t moving with the current. Hmmm… Eric hopped in the other kayak and went to rescue it. It turns out it was tied up to the dock next to a mega yacht. The crew on the mega yacht had seen it floating off into the lagoon and they hopped in their dinghy and saved it for us. That was so nice of them. Christi had coincidentally just made cookies, so we delivered some to them as a thank you.

We decided to have dinner at the hotel. We went to their nicest restaurant. All the food was excellent, but the only thing that we found unique was the lobster cream soup. The menu said was made with cognac and crème, so we expected it to be like a bisque. It turned out to be nothing like a bisque in terms of texture or flavor, but was delicious none-the-less.

This restaurant is also up high with an excellent view of the ocean beyond Barra Navidad. The wind hasn’t let up at all and it was chock full of white caps in the ocean. It would definitely be a nightmare to be out in that! We are so glad to be in a calm marina right now. The server told us it isn’t normally this windy here.