Dinghy Fever

(Get it? Like Dengue Fever? Maybe you haven't been hanging out in the tropics so it's not top of mind for you? Well then, I hope you've been shredding lots of powder and celebrating the lack of disease carrying, biting insects in your life.)
Let's go ahead and get one thing out of the way. Bioluminescence can almost make me believe in God, or a divine creator or at least a great artist in charge of the whole shebang- the stuff is just gorgeous. Spectacular. Miraculous even. I'll just step on up and call it miraculous. So it was not without guilt and a sense of irony that at 3AM on day two of our small slice of the Aldebaran adventure that I found myself vomiting into said wonder. Phosperescence to contemplate the wonder of life, and seasickness to make me ponder the suffering therein. But Andy had kindly warned me earlier to just let it out, and out it came. Amen. Enough of that story.

A few years back, I heard the plan and said....Hell yes. I love every bit of it. I'm in. And now that it's real, it's a magical mixture of will and determination, youthful folly, kids too smart for their own good, with a heaping of creativity and athleticism and oh, I don't know, how about we throw in some culinary wizardry? And so after the sweat and the tears and the backbreaking work and study, Josh and I were the first lucky passengers to climb onto the wonder that is Aldebaran. We live in Baja Sur about an hour from Cabo san Lucas and met the (slightly bedraggled but eminently cheerful, truth be told) crew at the Cabo Marina. They did stand out from lack of fake boobs and calf implants, but that's neither here nor there. They had just finished a harrowing 6 day passage from Ensenada in Northern Baja- no safe harbor the whole 1000 mile penninsula. Andy Craig, Negasauraus as he is affectionately called on board, had found his own internet cafe. Separate from the internet cafe the rest of the crew were frequenting. Hmmm- sign of trouble, we thought? Nope. The crew are amazing at accessing their needs and finding space where they can. Aldebaran has three bedrooms and one head(A), a salon(1) and a galley(2) that Lisa STRAPS INTO when the the weather is too rough to stand in front of the gimbled(3) stove under her own power. So while the whole word, at least the world with contiguous water and a bit of wind is at their beck and call, personal space is at a bit of a premium.

The plan was to unwind for a few days in Cabo, but the weather pushed us onward after 24 hours in port. So we waved goodbye to the wet t- shirt contests, wound our way through the wave runners, pangas, cruise ships, sea lions, water taxis, pirates ships, party catamarans and humpback whales and headed for Banderas Bay across the Sea of Cortez on the Mexican mainland. Three days of vomiting ensued, with lots of laughter and some rough seas and beautiful meals and overnight helm shifts and watch shifts and dramamine and full moons (*) and sunsets and marlins and turtles and jumping off the bow and catching the ladder at midship to climb back in (note to the ladies- best performed in a one piece suit) And then, ta- dah! We made it to Punta De Mita, and set anchor before midnight, cozied right up behind a surf break. Andy paddled out at first light, and Josh followed suit not too long after. Picture long white sand beaches, taco stands, and Raleigh playing fetch in the blue-green water in a canine lifejacket. I believe this is what is referred to as "living the life."

Then onto Paradise. Paradise Village. Josh and I are thinking of retiring there. This is a joke. But for clean, safe, and affordable, place can't be beat. And I haven't even mentioned the alligator water slide or the the real Siberian tigers and I don't think I will. But I will tell of the beauty that was Aldebaran moored, laundry aflutter, life akimbo, in the shadow of the 30 million dollar, gleaming and true, mega-yacht Vango. ( Guilty pleasure alert- I later googled Vango.) Don quickly powered up the spray can to make us stencilled t- shirts so we could fit into the matching-crew-shirt-culture of Paradise Village.

A week in Paradise was long enough for the crew to attend a wedding, Carl to fall in love/lust/like, Raleigh to shred the window screens, Leslie to hand sew new screens, to eat at Planta Vegetariana in Puerta Vallarta, the refrigeration to be fixed, Carl to find shoes in the garbage, Carl to use the Alligator slide on his own at night, (parents were afraid), the Aldeb crew to win the hearts of all the lifers living in the marina, go hottubbing at the Yacht Club, everyone to have a go doing the dishes on the dock next to Vango, Raleigh to poop on real grass three times a day, attend a movie, restock, have a meeting of the coffee madmen at Cafe Oro Verde, Lisa to make a new best friend on the bus, spring clean, and for all of us to decide we did not like the loud, chubby, entitled kids on the boat one slip over.

And then on to steep and lovely Yelapa- only accessible by boat-where weed is on the menu. (No, we didn't) but we hiked up to waterfall and jumped into the icy water with a view of Aldebaran though the jungle, ate chocolate pie on the sidewalk on the way down to the beach and then fish tacos (served by a tripping waiter) on the sand while the sun set and the fisherman hurled their boats up on shore. We watched a burro train take a load of lumber from a panga up into the jungle and on the walk home Leslie informed me that her budget was indeed the dysentry diet budget.(4) We rocked to sleep that night in our roll-ey mooring. It was a perfect day.

The next day was to be our last with the crew- up early-ish, to the delicious Cafe Bahia for breakfast and homemade scones, served by the whip-thin, chain-smoking, ex- big city chef owner. I had an allergic reaction to the tourist boat about to puke vacationers onto our little slice of quiet heaven, and being unwilling to have the perfect memory of our private Yelapa tarnished, I forced Josh onto a water taxi and off we went.

And to quote the distinguished Mr. Sandberg and his contemporaries, " This is real as it gets- I'm on a boat, m*therf#@%*r don't you ever forget!"

Que la vaya bien, amigos!



Glossary
a. bathroom, you punk. There are actually two, but the other has been converted into storage.
1. living room/dining room/ guest room/ storage/dog bed/theater/dance floor
2.kitchen
3. It swings! So the top is always level. I need a dramamine just thinking about it.
*. A monthly celestial occurance and what happens when you jump off a moving boat in a bikini
4. 60 pesos.