How I became a sailor...

The idea was first propossed to me by Roberta, who suggested that I should try and find a spot crewing on a yacht over to the mainland. I felt this was an excellent idea, so bright and breezy on my first morning in La Paz, I strolled down to Marina de La Paz to pin up my notice and catch "The Net" - what basically amounts to a morning gossip session between sailors via VHF radio. I got on the radio and put out my generous offer of help to the sailing community of the capital of Baja Sur. For some reason there was not an instant clamour of voices on the radio taking me up on my offer, I just couldn't figure it out. At this point I met Valaska and Philip, an Austrian cycling couple, who had been on the road for three years, they were also looking for a spot to crew over (the ferry was $100 a head). Over coffee they enlightend me to the evil ways of this capitalist world: spots on a boat where in short supply and high demand, we -the potential crew- were in high supply and short demand. Hence the boat owners could pick and choose at their descretion and mess around with timing as much as they pleased and we could either lump it or piss off and take the ferry. They had been trying for three days and had decided that this was their last (a ferry was leaving the next evening). I spent the morning with them chatting up people at coffee hour, chasing potential leads around marinas and ultimately at the ferry ticket office in dissapointment. At that moment I decided I'd give it one more try in the morning and if unsuccessful I'd cut my losses. So the next morning a call comes over the net: "looking for crew over to Puerta Vallarta"- bloody brilliant, to cut a long (and tedious) story short I got a spot on the boat heading out in three days time. I have become the very essence of thrift on this trip, consequently I packed up my panniers and cycled out of town with my new Austrian friends, they to the ferry terminal and me to the free camping beaches 10 km further north. Here I met Mo and Lynn a couple of snow birds from Vancouver Island who treated me like a grandson, feeding me coffee in the morning and delicious meals at night. On the second day came Dom and Sadie a British couple travelling the world. Now Dom and Sadie were the first young British people I'd met and the inevitable outcome was the three of us getting a little merry on the old tequila in Mo and Lynn's caravan, while they looked on in bemusement. I like to think I'm doing the Brits proud out here. Two days after I was steering captain Bill's 42 ft cat, Moontide, out of La Paz harbour. This first day was just a hop down to a bay from where we'd make our passage across the Gulf of California. After a spot of whale watching we spent the next morning doing boat projects, downing tools at noon sharp: "Do one project a day and if it takes you past noon, its a two day job". The afternoon was spent sunning oneself beside the pool of a luxury hotel drinking beer, reading, generally enjoying ones leisure time. The next morning we left before the sun had cleared the horizon, setting out for Bahia de Banderas (and neatly steering round an island penal colony in our path). After a little more whale watching and a superb sunset Bill informed me I'd be taking second watch 10-2. Now I had never done a night watch before and to be put in charge of the fate of this craft and our two lives made me a touch anncey. Accordingly I completely failed to fall asleep before my watch, however all was ok: my nerves (and overload of caffeine) kept me up and down like a yo-yo checking the radar, scanning the horizon, trimming the sails; you name it I was doing it. After my heroics I figured on a nice long sleep, not a bit of it. Back up again at sunrise so that Bill could sleep after his 8 hours of watch. I was starting to get the old itchy eyes when I noticed some sea gulls off to the left: "supper time" I'm thinking, as I change the course 90 degrees- where there are sea gulls, there are fish. Well these fish turned out to be, not fish, but a pod of 20(ish) dolphins and as the boat approached they came to swim with us diving out the water in triplets and racing under the hulls. After taking us off our course for a couple of miles I realised this might not go down too well, so after a quick adjustment of course, I went to get Bill up and take a nap myself. After cat napping on and off all day I was still tired going into the second night and then Bill informed me I'd be taking 2 of the night shifts, hmmm. Well like a good trooper I signed up for them and to be fair the second one was fine, with plenty of coffee in me and interesting things, like islands, to look at on the radar, and the sunrise, a little before 6 to enjoy. The first one however was real hard work, I allowed myself only one cup of coffee (so I could sleep between watchs), so had to constantly fight the tirdness. It is amazing the lengths I came up with to keep myself occupied: I had a pack of 6 oreo's I allowed myself half every 5 minutes, that's one hour squared away, bosh; a ship came up on the radar I spent half an hour working out its course and speed from the radar blips (I know half an hour is a long time but I was tired). At 10 when Bill relieved me I hit my bunk with a crash and was out before my head had touched the pillow. Sailing into Banderas bay, the huge surf crashing around Punta Mita, I got my first sight of mainland Mexico. To be honest I was a little surprised. I was expecting something pretty similar to Baja, maybe a bit more in the way of agriculture maybe a little more greenery but not this. This was mountains shooting up out of the sea, teeming with Jungle and a steamy heat pouring off it...I did not fancy my chances of long days on the bike in that stuff. My Sailing story was completed with a last night on board (actually on board Glen's boat) drinking more of Mexico's finest with Bill and two of his friends, Glen and Dave. I'm not entirely sure how we made it back to Bill's boat in one piece and dry but in the morning I woke up with a delightful throbbing about the temples and the prospect of my first day on the mainland to look forward to.