Vol 1 Iss 7: Grudge or Grace?

April 10, 2022 | Agua Verde, Baja California Sur, Mexico | 25º31’24” N 111º04’26” W | Winds: N 15 kts | Weather: 80ºF Sunny - haven’t seen a drop of rain in over 2 months

Agua Verde, Baja California Sur, Mexico

“A dinghy or kayak trip through the mangroves to the main lagoon is the highlight at Amortajada on Isla San José and should not be missed.”   

Coming across a sentence like this in our Cruising Guide automatically guarantees the activity a place on our Bucket List.  

We read the description of the 7-mile loop and laugh at the memories of our first kayak trip through the Everglades National Park.  We left 3 hours late so we battled the current the entire trip.  We misread the nautical charts and paddled for hours toward the horizon before we realized we were crossing the Gulf of Mexico and headed for the Texas Coast.  The armies of mosquitos weren’t threatened in the least by our armory of DEET products.  The raccoons spent all night trying to steal our food supply from the the cooler.  We went to sleep gazing up at the stars through the open ceiling of our tent….and woke up at 3 am to a thunderstorm flooding our tent.  What a trip!

Thank goodness we’ve gotten better since then!  

Yet the reviews posted on Active Captain (the Yelp of marine anchorages) do give us pause.  

“The mangroves are good but there are no-see-um bugs everywhere.  It don’t matter if you’re covered in DEET, diesel, or kerosene, they’re gonna eat you alive. I spent the next 3 days covered in cortisone cream!”  And just like when we ignored the Everglades Park Ranger’s advice about currents, navigating the mangroves, the mosquitos and wild animals, we know now we should have heeded the warnings.  

Sure enough, Mr. Redneck Cruiser was right.  We swat away swarms of blood thirsty no-see-ums as we set up our inflatable 3-chamber, 12 ft kayak with the skeg.  (Click here to see the kayak in action.) If Ana María is our home, our kayak is our car.  We pack it with seats, paddles, water, lunch, and Andrés Jacobo’s iPhone with the maps of the mangroves.  

Stepping off Ana María, we hop into our tandem kayak or ‘divorce kayak’ as our sailing instructor calls it.  If you’ve never experienced the ‘fun’ of tandem kayaking, maybe you remember that time on vacation you rented a tandem bicycle with the person you hate love most in the world or the time you thought you could tile a bathtub together.  

We eventually find our paddling rhythm, cruising along at 3 kts.   A couple of weeks ago we spent an hour improving my paddle stroke while exploring the sea caves on Espiritu Santo and the 50% improvement in our speed is a great return on our investment.  

Andres Jacobo whips out his iPhone to check our position against the entrance to the mangroves shown on the charts (a nautical map).    “We’re coming up on shallow water,” he sees in the chart.    And just like that, OOF! we run aground.    I hadn’t paid enough attention to the shoaling in front of us. 

Tempers flare IMMEDIATELY.  If we run aground and pop our kayak, there goes our car, our means of transportation.  We’ll have to swim back to the boat and stay on the boat full time until we can buy a replacement dinghy.  

We both hop out to carry the kayak across the 60 ft sandbar, bickering and sniping at each other the whole way.  We’re still both peeved when we hop back in and paddle towards deeper water. 

Another sandbar, another carry across, another discussion punctuated with frustration.  On this crossing, we have a decision:  We can either fight and ruin the day.  Or we can “reset” and try to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience.    We learned the art of the reset during the hard days of the boat renovation.  A couple more bouts of bickering and we realize we’re going to need a “hard reset” - the special kind of reset we had to master when fiberglassing the hull, trying to finish in time to put the boat back in the water on schedule.  

We pass a Mexican charter catamaran with a guide on a paddle board prepping his kayaking customers on how to enter the passage against the current.  

We see the entrance and know it’s not holds barred if we want to get through the ebbing current.    We paddle paddle paddle against the strong current to enter the mangroves.  In my head I sing the march cadence Dad taught me as a little girl, “I LEFT my wife on the verge of starvation with 22 children and only one hamburger LEFT, LEFT, LEFT….” 

We paddle as hard as we can and I glance furtively to the side to see if we’re still moving forward.  We’re making progress but it’s painfully slow.  My never-before-heard-from oblique muscles are crying to go back into hibernation.  

Paddle!  Paddle!  Paddle!  Paddle!  

Finally we pass a “Y” in the mangroves where 2 currents are converging and we sigh with relief that we’re through the hardest part of the day.  

We look back and see the other explorers with the guide are trailing farther and farther behind us.  So far so good!

We’ve entered the sanctuary of the inner mangroves.   I hear Andrés Jacobo rustling through things behind me so I know he’s looking for his phone to take a picture.  The tempo of the rustling changes to a more panicky pitch so he must be having trouble locating it.  

I’m not worried - he is not known for his search skills.  He checks the bag in back of my seat.  He checks the bag in back of his seat.  He checks the bag on the back of the kayak.  He rummages through our waterproof backpack.  

Still I’m not worried.  I offer to look and check the bag in back of my seat, the bag in the back of his seat, the bag on the back of the kayak, the waterproof backpack.  

Nothing.

Now the tempo of my rustling reaches a fever pitch as I dig into crevices in the kayak and seats, checking all the bags once again.

Nothing.

We have lost his phone.  

We have lost the phone we use to get forecasts.  We have lost the only phone with the tide charts.  We have lost the phone we use to set an anchor alarm to notify us if we drag towards rocks in the night.  We have lost the phone we use to take all of our pictures.  We have lost the phone we use to check in with our families.  

The Lingo

A “cruising guide” is cruiser’s Bible out here in the remote areas.   We read it.  We study it.  We apply its truth to our lives.  

We’re on our 3rd guide, having used our San Juan Islands Cruising Guide last summer and Cruising the Pacific Coast for our passage down the West Coast. Each guide differs slightly but all of them tell you where you can safely anchor, where you can find wind and swell protection, where to avoid reefs and submerged rocks, where you can find hikes and snorkel sites, where you can find restaurants and places to re-provision.   

Here’s what we read in our cruising guide that drew us to spend a week in Bahía Agua Verde:

“The beautiful protected waters of Bahía Agua Verde, together with the dramatic backdrop of the Sierra de la Giganta range have long been a popular destination for boaters.  The bay has good snorkeling and diving as well as excellent hiking along the various goat trails and dirt roads leading to the highway.  This small fishing village is connected to Mexico Highway 1 by a 25-mile dirt road.  The village supports two small tiendas, a school, a couple of restaurants and a goat dairy.  When approaching Agua Verde from the south, use caution near Punta San Marte and Punta San Marcial as dangerous reefs are found off the points.  San Marcial Reef lies 1 mile northeast from Punta San Marcial and is marked with a framework light tower.  The reef extends northwest to southeast with a large portion of it submerged…For northerly wind protection, anchorage can be taken in the northwestmost portion of the bay, tucked up near the low sand spit which connects Punta San Paquel to mainland Baja.  Depths range from 18 to 48 feet over mostly sand.

(You can take a peek at our current cruising guide by clicking here.)

The Mainsail

We’ve lingered in Bahía Agua Verde over a week because it truly lives up to the expectation set by the Cruising Guide.  We’ve hiked to see cave paintings.  We’ve chatted with the locals.  We’ve snorkeled.  And best of all, friends we met first in Cabo, then Los Frailles, Los Muertos, and La Paz, caught up with us here.  It’s nice to spend a couple days with friends, venting about failed boat projects, exploring the village, and watching baby dolphins learn to fish.  

The Entertainment

“I’ve run out of reading material so I’ve been reading the Apple User Agreement,” Andrés Jacobo mentioned to our buddy boat friends, Sam and Jesica.  They must have recognized the desperation in his voice and graciously showed up to Ana María the next day bearing a John Kretschmer book.  John Krestchmer is a crazy yacht-delivery captain whom people pay to take them sailing in hurricanes, gales, and ocean crossings.  We read aloud his stories in Sailing a Serious Ocean  and trembled at his accounts of sinking boats, grounded boats, and holding onto boats for dear life.  Once finished, we moved onto the short stories of Kipling’s The Jungle Book.  Similar riveting adventures but thankfully a little less close to home for us.  

A knot starts to form in my stomach.  How are we going to find it?  Unfortunately the “Find My Phone” doesn’t work without signal so we have no idea where it might be.  Surely it’s at one of the places we got out of the kayak to walk it across a shallow sandbar…

The iPhone is rated to IP67 which means we had 30 minutes to find it when it dropped in the water.  It’s been at least 15 minutes since we entered the mangroves so we’ve gotta act fast.  

We go back to the last place we got out, the sandbank guarded by the blue heron.   We comb the bottom with our eyes and feet as the Mexican tour group observes us curiously.  

We kayak back to the entrance to the mangroves and are pushed out with the tide to the next sandbar.  

We walk right and left, eyes sweeping the sand as we move forward.  Another 5 minutes of searching and still no dice.

There’s only one sandbar left:  the sandbar where we initially ran aground.  We paddle over and jump out discouragingly.

I look for the phone knowing it’s a fruitless search.  “I promise to help you look for the phone you dropped on the bottom of the ocean” wasn’t explicitly stated in our marriage vows, but I’m pretty sure it was implied.  

I know it’s futile to even pray we find it, but Andrés Jacobo has a bit more faith.

I’m half-heartedly continuing the search when I hear him yell.

“I FOUND IT!!!”  

I turn around and see him holding his iPhone high up into the air.  

“I looked down and there was something shiny, halfway covered in sand and HERE IT IS! It was still on when I picked it up.  What are the chances!?!?”

It’s pretty amazing when you think about it:  We had no idea exactly where we stopped.  We were in the middle of the open sea with shifting sands.  Imagine how many iPhones could fit along the path we’ve kayaked.  It’s a miracle he found it.    

I rush over so we can quickly rinse it with fresh water from our Nalgene and try to beat the 30-minute clock.  We jump back into the kayak and paddle like hell the mile back to Ana María.  

I. Am. Pissed.  I can’t believe after all this effort, after all the bickering of the morning, after our battle with the currents, he dropped his phone in the ocean.    I take my anger out through my paddles, crashing them forcefully into the water with each stroke.  I’ve never paddled more furiously or faster in my life.  

With my demon paddling, we’re back at Ana María in no time.  Andrés Jacobo jumps onto the boat and throws the iPhone into a bag of desiccants and rice.  

The physical exertion has released some of my anger.  As he triages the phone, my melting heart begins to weigh the decision:  Grudge or grace? 

Am I going to hold this against him, lord it over him?  Or am I going to let it go, thankful that we found it, remembering that time I dropped my keys into the marina water and we spent an hour fishing them out?  

My heart melts completely and grace wins over grudge.  

So, forgiveness, yes, but do we try again?  Even if there is forgiveness, there are still consequences.  

This is the second time today we have to make the decision.  

Should we go?  Should we give up?  The current that was bad before is going to be worse now as the water gushes from the lagoons through the tiny entrance.  

He feels guilty.  “Whatever you want to do, I’ll do it….and I’ll have a good attitude.”

I go back and forth, then back and forth again before finally leaning into the adventure once again.  

“We’re here.  Let’s give it one more try.”

The Wildlife

We’ve entered manta ray country.  Watching the rays spring from the surface and do a triple backflip before quickly disappearing below reminds me of watching the Olympic gymnasts compete on the vault, their movements at once powerful yet seemingly effortless.  Unlike whales or dolphins they don’t tend to surface more than once in the same place so it’s always a treat to catch a glimpse of their marine gymnastics.  

The Galley

“¿Tiene queso de cabra?”  I mustered the courage to ask the smiling lady at the tienda(shop) counter.  We had spent the morning hiking the goat trails in Agua Verde. If the fresh scat on the trails was any indication, we might be able to score some fresh goat cheese for today’s afternoon snack.

“Si! Si! Claro!”  She turned to a cooler, pulled out a hunk of white semi-soft cheese, cut us a slab, and handed it to us, double-bagged and unlabeled.  

We learned of the ‘excellent’ goat cheese from our cruising guide, but every time we asked fellow cruisers, the reviews were not as favorable.  “Ummm well, I’d say the cheese is… well, it’s an acquired taste.”  “Eating that unpasteurized cheese gave me the worst bout of food poisoning I’ve ever had.”  

Naturally we were both hesitant and excited to try the cheese when back on Ana María.  We spread fruit jam on a cornmeal cracker and topped it with a piece of the fresh goat cheese.  We tasted it, wondering just how many bites it would take before ‘we acquired the taste.’  Turns out, one bite was enough!  It tastes like a sharper queso fresco.  ¡Delicioso!  

We were back inside the boat, monitoring our tummies for early signs of food poisoning (thankfully none ever came!) and cooking dinner when we heard a lady on a neighboring boat call to her husband and dog on the beach nearby.  “Ted!  Ted!  There’s a herd of goats coming your way.  Watch the dog!”

We scrambled out of the companionway and looked for the herd.  Sure enough!  We heard the tinkling bells around their necks before we saw 30 of them come out of a tunnel in the hill, climb along the cliffs in a single-file line, navigating the big boulders and patches of scree with ease.  We watched them forage in the desert bushes as they climbed the hill for their nightly meanderings in the mountains.  

As we kayak back to the entrance to the mangroves we strategize on how to avoid the current that has definitely gotten worse.  

The Mexican guided tour is leaving as we pull up.  Leaving may not be the right word.  …  The guided tour is being ejected from the mangroves like a toboggan gets spit out of Splash Mountain.  Yes, that’s more like it.   

They turn around and watch us try to paddle back into the mangroves.  You can see the thought bubbles over their heads, “What in the the heck are these crazy gringos doing??” Andrés Jacobo catches their stares and exclaims, “¡Sí se puede!”  Yes we can!  They laugh as we hop out to walk the kayak on the beach to avoid the worst of the current.  

Our strategy works and for the second time that day we kayak easily through the main channel of the mangrove.  Without Andrés Jacobo’s iPhone, we’re kayaking blind, relying on our memory of the chart.   We find the main lagoon we remember seeing on the chart and slow our paddling so we can eat a sandwich lunch alongside the pelicans fishing for their own lunch.  

We quickly find ourselves at the exit of the mangroves and decide to explore a little further.  We’re suddenly in a labyrinth of rarely visited mangroves, thankful for the extremely shallow draft on our kayak.  The protection offered by the hard-to-get-to coves gives the diversity of the mangroves an opportunity to thrive.  There are blue herons sitting on top of the mangroves.  Long skinny cornetfish squirm beneath us.  Neon orange crab scamper to and fro.  We catch glimpses of brown speckled fish on the bottom, so camouflaged we wouldn’t have believed they were fish if we hadn’t seen them move with our own eyes.  The bright green rubbery leaves of the surrounding mangroves are stretching towards the sun, helped by their roots and trunks acting as stilts lifting them out of the water and towards the sky.  

“Ooooo do you see that bird?” we whisper back and forth, our voices slipping into hushed tones so we don’t disturb the sacred silence.  It’s so quiet we can hear the air disturbance created with each flap of the birds’ wings as they fly from one perch to the next.    We watch and listen as a bird takes flight, calling like a toddler with the croup.  We paddle slowly forward and listen as another bird, hiding somewhere just out of sight, calls like a traffic cop who’s just been given a shiny new whistle.  

The next passage looks particularly dicey.  Should we keep going or is it time to turn back?  

We decide to take one more offshoot, round a corner, and gasp.   The tight narrow mangrove opens into a shallow lagoon with a hundred snowy white egrets peacefully fishing.  They turn in unison to see us arrive on our blue kayak, clearly as surprised to see us as we are to see them.  The path to get here was so shallow, we can’t imagine many dinghies ever make it here.   

We’re overwhelmed by the peace of the place.  If so far on the kayak, we’ve been mystified by the sights as if seeing a gold brick in front of us, we’ve now entered Fort Knox with unimaginable beauty and splendor surrounding us in every direction.  

We sit in the magic, sharing the moment of surprise delight.  

The moment made sweeter by the trials and adventures it took to get here.  

We soak it in for awhile before realizing, without a phone, we have no idea what time it is.  The tide could be turning and we could find ourselves fighting current in the entrance to the mangroves for the third time today.  We finish the 9-mile kayak trip, making good time getting back to the boat.  The no-see-em bugs are going to finish us off tonight if we don’t get out of here so we deflate the kayak and store her.  

We raise the mainsail, pull up our anchor, and sail away from Isla San José, trailed by dolphins dancing in our wake, our skin covered in bug bites and our souls basking in the grace of the day.

The Challenge

We use a satellite phone to check in once daily with our parents via 80-character text messages. Unfortunately these are the texts we received this past month from my parents:  

“Dad in hospital. Emergency surgery.  Blood clot in leg.”

“No surgery for Dad.  Blood clot not moving.  Dr not sure why.”

“Blood clot stuck due to inflamed lymph nodes.  Will do lymph node biopsy."

“LYMPHOMA.  PET scan and bone marrow biopsy to see how far it’s spread.”

“Lymphoma stage 2 maybe 4.  Chemo starts Wednesday.”

These are terrible texts to receive when you’re 1,338 miles away from your family.  

While it is spectacular here, it is hard to be here when they are there.

But my husband is here.  Our dream is here.  The fruit of our long, arduous labor is here.

But…but…but…my parents are there.  Their fear is there.  Their suffering is there.

I spent the month torn, “Should I be here?  Should I be there?”  

I spent the month with half of my heart in the Sea of Cortez, half of my heart in Springfield.  

The Horizon

In the end, I decided to split some time between here and there.  I’m flying back to Springfield to be with my parents for my dad’s second round of chemo.  When I get back, we’ll continue to sail north to spend the summer in the remote northern tip of the Sea of Cortez.  

Wishing you fair winds, following seas, and a renewed sense of Hope this Easter season,

Katherine

P.S. We turned on the iPhone the morning after it went for a swim and it works better than ever.  Can you believe it?!?