LURCHING TO SEA; MORE IMPRESSIONS OF MEXICO; MORE INTERESTING SAILORS WE HAVE MET
Thursday, 01 December 2005

As wonderful as our culture infusion was last weekend, this week by comparison has been fraught with frustration. It was brought about because I want to get the boat ready to sail farther south. Doing anything on a boat in a foreign port by way of maintenance is like walking on three unsteady legs; you make one step forward, rock back and forth, drag another leg up perhaps as far as the first leg and then struggle to get the third leg ahead of the first two. On the end you either get the jobs done or you don’t; you either you give up the struggle and wait at anchor while your boat bottom grows whiskers made up of tropical marine flora and fauna or just leave port anyway.

Take our batteries for instance. We are trying to establish whether in fact the batteries are any good still or whether they will have to be replaced at a price running between about US$ 150 and US$ 450. The prices vary widely depending on what type of marine battery you get: wet cells or sealed (including gel, AGM and Optima technology). They also depend upon how large the Reserve Capacity is, i.e. how long you can use the power stored in the battery before you have to recharge it. And finally, it also depends upon what country you buy them in (U.S.A. or Mexico) and who the seller is from whom you actually in the end buy them. As usual, whatever the cost we can’t afford them.

I nurse a sneaking hunch that if the two 12-volt batteries we use for lighting, running lights, computer, etc. can be “equalised” (i.e. charged for a while at 15 volts instead of the normal 13.5 volts) so that the “sulphated” cells can be rejuvenated and the batteries’ useful life can be extended. This is where Heribert AKA “Eddy” comes in.

I have mentioned Eddy before; Eddy is the gentleman (I use the word advisedly) who is the boson at Club Náutico. He is around most days to keep an eye on things. He is not only a very good tenor (he gave me a demo one day when I pressed him), he is also a facilitator for the various cruisers who use the Club’s facilities. When I explain my battery problem to him, he calls a friend of his who has a battery shop. Hermano, the friend’s son, comes down to the Club, picks up the batteries, takes them away, replaces the acid, charges them up and delivers back down to the dock – all for Pesos 100 (about US$ 10). The batteries take the charge and seem to be holding it especially now that we are getting bright sunshine every day and the solar panels are pouring power into the panels.

My second big problem has been an engine-oil leak in recent months. I finally identified the problem the other day; when the engine is running and the oil is under pressure, oil gushes out from the top of the oil filter. I am out of the replacement paper cartridges that go in the oil filter. So, taking the Purolator and NAPA part numbers with me I head off on the bus to find an auto parts store (Refracionnes or Autopartes) so I could buy some filtros de aceite para mi motor. These errands can improve your Spanish, at least.

Finding an auto parts store takes quite a while of bus-cruising through the city but eventually I find one. The men, there are of course no women, look at me blankly and tell me that they don’t carry these types of filters. In a land of cheerful, patient and helpful people, the manager of one store, who actually speaks English, is the most miserable SOB I have yet run across in Mexico; he is actually quite rude. Although he did give me some help he did it so impolitely and coldly that it made be furious and I walked out in the middle of his patronising explanation.

I got back on the busses to find Gonher’s local distribution centre on the outskirts of town. Gonher is a Mexican manufacturer of filters, batteries, shock absorbers, and other automobile parts. Their office and warehouse, as it turns out, requires a change of busses and a few more miles of suburban sprawl. When I arrive, the very helpful people say they cannot find the filter numbers I have brought with me in the “equivalents catalogue” but, if I should care to bring in the old cartridge, they will certainly be able to find one to match. I trek back on a series of busses including one that takes me in completely the wrong direction. We have invited our neighbours in the anchorage for dinner and I myself am going to be late.

The next morning I set off again (this time with Kathleen) to find Gonher again. True to his promise, the stockist leads me back into the warehouse, fishes around a bit behind some boxes at a particular shelf and pulls out four filter cartridges. I compare them to the old one and think that the new ones are perhaps just a tad bigger around though they appear at least to be the same height. I am hesitant in case they might not fit; it will all depend upon how much spare room there is in the canister that holds the filter insert. Of course, this morning, when I try to fit the cartridge into the holder it turns out to be too big. Himmel, Zwirn und Flädelsuppe! Ding, darn and double-drat! Thank goodness I only paid a fraction of the retail price for the four filters. I guess I shall just give them to Eddy along with a number of other things that we are clearing out of the boat. I can’t imagine spending another four hours travelling all the way back to Gonher.

Frustrated, this morning I tell Celia and Roger on S/V St Briged about my problem. They suggest looking in the cruisers’ listings from Marina Mazatlán. Sure enough! Under “filters” is “Bob on S/V Griffin”. I call him on Channel 72 from the Club Náutico office and he actually delivers two filters of the kind I need to the dock within 90 minutes after I reach him on VHF. So, in this case, from lying flat on my back, all three legs have now made a lurch forward.

Before I go ashore this time however, I remove the whole filter assembly from the engine. Before reaching “Bob” I am as certain as God made little green apples that I will have to buy a complete new filter assembly in order to be able to use local filter cartridges. But after “Bob” arrives it takes me about forty-five minutes to remount the whole oil-filter assembly and, crossing my fingers, turn on the engine. Success! No oil drips at all. Even Bob Valine would be proud of me. How my little goes pitta-pat, pitta-pat. Kathleen calls me “my hero”. “Ronald Bird, Boy Spot-welding King of the World; Captain Epoxy” strikes again.

Of course, that leaves the puzzling problem of our VHF radio, which seems to be having a mental breakdown. It is a good brand and has worked well since we bought it in Vancouver in 2002. Recently, however, it sometimes just refuses to switch channels. It seems to enjoy just hanging around on Emergency and Hailing Channel 16 to the exclusion of all other channels. This is fine for an emergency. But for any other uses such as chatting with a mechanic or your boat-neighbour, you are out of luck.

I ask around at Club Náutico for a radio-repair shop; Mario gives me an address. “They don’t speak much English, I think,” Mario said. I think I might put off leaving for another day. I have a basic rule that it is only possible to get one job done per day on a boat. Everything seems to take so much time; not only are you are stranger in the port and have to find the right place or right person to go to. Just because it is a boat, you also usually have a much bigger problem getting the part out or back in or even just to get at whatever it is you need to work on. I’ll take care of the radio tomorrow or maybe in Puerto Vallarta.

However, while I am draped over the engine to remount the oil filter, a boat pulls up to request us to tell our neighbours that the radio-repair man will be here at 1800 to look at the neighbour’s defective radio. We ask him if he can look at ours too. Well before 1800 the radio man himself actually shows up at the boat, checks the radio, and takes it away to his shop for a bench check. He thinks it might be something internal and nothing to do with our power source or corrosion or dirt. It is going to cost us Peso 250 (ca US$ 25) to run a check plus any necessary parts. But he will return with the radio either around 1800 tonight or in the morning just after lunch.

We just lurched forward again. It looks like we might be able to leave tomorrow afternoon for Isla Isabela National Park (85 Nm) and then San Blas (42 Nm farther along). We have been here two weeks now and, much as we have enjoyed Mazatlán and can recommend it to anyone, we are now ready to move on. We might be in San Blas by Saturday though we shall probably toddle a little at the park. Puerto Vallarta is another day or two of sailing from San Blas.

I feel so good about having the engine, sail and radio repaired and am glad that we have had this taken care of here. It always takes quite a while to get plugged into a new harbour and at Puerto Vallarta I think we shall not be able to anchor as close to the city as we have in Mazatlán. We almost have roots here: this morning two fishermen, Manuel and Antonio, waved and shouted to me as they were heading out. I had met them by chance on the bus in my parts-related travels this week. We are already on “amigo” and first-name terms.

More impressions of Mexico

“Filter Bob”, who always delivers the filters he sells to your boat, an excellent service, made the statement that Mexicans do not understand “service” the way Americans do. They see themselves as distributors and make no effort to close the sale by delivering. “They wouldn’t care if all the customers just disappeared and left them alone,” he stated flatly.

This has not been our experience at all. Take this past day or two, for example: the battery shop picked up and delivered and did not try to push new batteries at us; the radio man showed up at short notice and gave us a specific time when he will return with the radio. Yes, I had to go hunting for filters initially. But I am not sure that the tiende para refraccionnes would not have delivered had I know what I wanted and knew just where to go. When we wanted bottled water to fill our tanks, Eddy brought ten 5-gallon plastic bottles to the dock and returned the bottles later to la planta para agua purificado. He did not ask for money for this; I simply paid him the amount on the receipt he brought from the bottling facility.

I think Bob’s statement might be true of some things. But I also think it tells me more about Filter Bob than it does about Mexicans. What it unfortunately illustrates is a certain brand of arrogance in Mexico. I noticed the same thing amongst many foreigners in Germany; they can rhyme off all the negative aspects of life in Germany and often state things in a way that is pejorative. They often feel that any difficulties are actually thrown in their path deliberately. Statements like, “They can all speak English if they want to. They just don’t want to talk English with you.” are not uncommon.

What it usually boils down to, however, is that after many months and in some cases many, many years, these new arrivals are still on the outside looking in. They were probably apprehensive about life in a new and strange country, unwilling to give up anything of themselves to become part of the local scene. Many arrive with an innate and frequently unrecognised sense of superiority. I know that I am only reporting on the ones that stand out in this way; the ones who have integrated and have a better attitude of course to do not stand out in this way. Who knows: they may, I hope, be in the majority.

Cruisers can easily fall into this trap. They arrive on a boat and wind up living amongst other cruisers. Marina de la Paz, San Carlos Marina, Marina Mazatlán are little American-Canadian ghettoes. It’s like being in a marine version of Oberursel-am-Taunus. There are people overseas who have been around for years and still speak only broken Spanish if any at all and who still talk about “the Mexicans” or “the Germans” in broad terms when, as anyone can tell you who has got to know a few persons, these people are just as varied and individual as Americans and in many cases more so. Tell me that they drive on the left in England and I will understand. Tell me that the Germans are cold and arrogant and I will laugh in your face.

We remind ourselves regularly not to make generalisations in Mexico or any other country. Get to know the language (we are progressing) and treat everyone as an individual and not as “a Mexican”. There is no need to be afraid of people here. We have already been through the integration process in one language so are perhaps more easily able to make the jump than those visiting Mexico as their first long stay in a foreign country. They are (almost without exception) polite, patient and helpful. It opens up so much more opportunity for adventure.

More interesting sailors we have met

Portia is mid-twenties and grew up in a family that sailed the tropics from Hawaii. Sailing is in her blood; she doesn’t actually remember learning about sailing from her parents, she has always known how. She told us that, when her parents and other adults had been partying too much, she and her small sisters would get the boat back to harbour.

S/V Genoveffa out of Hawaii is a 35 or 40-year-old fibreglass boat that she bought in San Francisco and recently sailed to Cabo San Lucas. She picked up a crewman to help stand watches. Not an experienced sailor, Leo is a slow-spoken circus-trapeze artist originally from western Massachusetts. Although also in his mid-twenties, he has travelled to Japan and elsewhere and wanted to try his hand at sailing. He showed up in San Diego, asked around, and got a berth on Genoveffa. Here in Mazatlán he is looking for another crew position and even possibly at buying a sailboat. He might not actually be “sail-struck” but he has been bitten by the sailing bug. There are several boats going cheap here; the owners have taken sick or passed away and quite big boats can actually be purchased for under US$ 10,000. Maybe he will get one.

Portia is very eager to get going. But she has had trouble with her gasoline-fueled “Palmer” tractor engine since before Cabo San Lucas. Intending to sail to La Paz to have it taken care of, the northerlies that brought us down from La Paz were all headwinds for her and she finally gave up the idea and sailed across to Mazatlán. Here Eddy has helped her to find a mechanic (Victor Gamboza, another one of Eddy’s contacts and reputedly the best marine mechanic around). Portia normally does most of her engine and other boat work herself. But she has not been able to get the parts she needs for the cooling system. Victor has been coming down and helping her. But yesterday she went and bought two eight-foot lengths of roughly one-inch thick dowels and some boards. She is going to make two makeshift oars and forget about the engine. Now, that’s determination.

Roger and Celia own a plywood trimaran called S/V St. Briged, Astoria, Oregon. They, like us, are budget cruisers living on a small pension but with plenty of time. We first met them in Ensenada in February and ran across them again in La Paz in November after we had spent the spring and summer in the Sea of Cortés. They arrived a couple of days after us with tales of storms on the crossing. They will spend a few more weeks here working on their boat and collecting charts for the sail south. They are very mañana people, easy-going and convivial. I am sure we shall run into them again.

Ryan, also mid-twenties, the owner/skipper of S/V Godspeed, had bought his 34-foot sailboat in San Francisco although it too has a home port in Hawaii. He brought two friends along as crew, Pete and Kiono. They were headed to Puerto Vallarta because the two crewmen had flights to get them home. Ryan was going to bring his boat back up to Mazatlán and moor it for six weeks at Club Náutico while he went home to visit his parents in Colorado.

The old harbour here by El Faro, the lighthouse, is more likely to attract budget cruisers like us, Roger and Celia and the twenty-year-olds. Marina Mazatlán is at the far north end of the city in an open field beginning to be filled up with expensive ex-pat housing. Some of the houses there are already completed, huge “trophy” monstrosities in “gated communities”. Disgusting. The Mexican tourist development Fonatur (spelling), is building a new marina to exploit the cruiser market.

Down here there are no marina piers; except for one or two docks at the Club Náutico, boats are just anchored off in the bahia next to the harbour entrance and under the shadow of the mountain with the lighthouse on it. Along the isthmus between the city and the lighthouse island you will find Club Náutico and a half-dozen sports-fishing “fleets” all cheek by jowl. On the other side of the road from the harbour is a sewage treatment plant that can be a little unpleasant when the wind is right and the sewage is ripe for pumping out into the sea. But that is only sometimes. We have enjoyed the cosiness of the harbour and, because there are so few boats and enterprises here, we can get to know some people easier.