Greetings fellow humans,
There is something called the La Paz Waltz. It’s a cheeky way of describing how different boats swing at anchor here in La Paz, Mexico. The music starts when strong wind and current oppose each other. While dancing is fine, kissing is a bit more risque. My neighbors this past Sunday were at it. They may have been smooching. It was a little difficult to tell from my angle, but they were close enough to be suspect. Not that I’m a puritan, but Sampaguita doesn’t want her delicate parts fondled in the anchorage.
No, I didn’t acquire a drone. I’m too old school for that, plus their invasive nature (and now common use in warfare) creeps me out. This is from atop of Sampaguita’s mast. I went up on a calmish, low current day to inspect before heading into the sunset. Everything looks as it should. I use a Top Climber to ascend and descend, allowing me to go it alone. It gets easier and less daunting the more you do it. Relaxing at the top in fairly calm water affords a moment for video. And Sampaguita’s top is only 31 feet up.
What’s the best nation in the world?
A Donation.
I received my French Polynesia paper nautical charts yesterday. But don’t worry, you can still contribute, they were bought on credit. I’ve attached a couple pictures so you know they’re real. Plus, it’s hard to top the romance and dreaming for an armchair sailor of studying nautical charts of distant lands. Sampaguita does not have an electronic chart plotter. I do have Navionics on my phone, but many (most?) of us have broken a phone or dropped one overboard, so that’s a risky dependency. I have charts on Open CPN, a free crowd sourced program, for a back up too. But computers also die and the salt water environment can easily make all electronics stop working forever. I know this from experience. I have GPS devices, but I also have a sextant and the tools to celestially navigate. Plus, focusing on electronic devices while trying to have a natural sailing experience removed from the burdens of a modern, high tech, and complicated world is too painful for the spirit. So, I bought some French charts, because they will be the most up to date. And whether you’re analog or digital, it all costs.
If that is all over your head, I will also be purchasing some travel health insurance soon, as I understand it is a requirement for entry into French Polynesia for the time I need to be there. I’m certain that can resonate with everyone. It will be of the minimal variety, enough to suit them. I am presently uninsured and I am well aware that a single-handed sailor suffering a medical situation at sea doesn’t stand much of a chance. No insurance will help at that time. Someone asked me once if I was afraid of pirates. I explained that the chance of choking to death was much more real.
Sampaguita is paid up on her registration through June 2025. I had to have those documents Expressed to me which cost nearly as much as the registration. My kayak warranty parts were sent snail mail, not priority as I was told they would be. They landed in Mexico City on January 12 and haven’t been heard from since. They offered to resend them, but I would have to pay for the Express shipping. So that was done yesterday.
Google Fi shut off my data, but my phone still works and my SMS texts began coming through, so that’s good for now. I joined Club Cruceros de La Paz for $10 which was a bargain to be able to use their wifi. So that’s how I’m posting this right now. That’s where I have been doing my marathon researching. I may move to the Tossible Digits service before I depart for Marquesas. Paying for Google Fi without data access isn’t a very good deal. Plus, I’ll be at sea where it won’t work anyway. Tossible Digits will allow me to keep my number and I will receive messages and SMS texts (no pictures or emojis or I won’t receive them) via email and their website. It will cost considerably less. Then I can get a local SIM card (I read that Vini will be the best in FP) which will give me data through any towers and calls can be made via Whatsapp. That is if I understand everything correctly.
There is no shortage of ways to make your contributions count towards the heart of the expedition. If you like to help those who help themselves, I have been writing and submitting stories to publications too. ‘Lectronic Latitude presently continues to publish some of my Resourceful Sailor pieces, which I am thankful for, but payment amounts to about $600 a year, if I’m lucky. (About $5 per hour.) I have asked for an increase multiple times, but to no avail. I have submitted some pieces to other, better paying publications but they can take up to 60 days to even say, “Thank you for your submission, but we are declining to publish.” And they all demand you do not submit to other publications simultaneously. It’s a bit of a power play. So that progress is slow and therefore, not very profitable. In talking to cruising veterans, they have explained how writing is considerably less valued than it was in previous times. I get it, the world is ever changing. It’s tough for us dinosaurs. Such is the way of a struggling artist, or in nautical terms, a sinking artist.
Think of sending a few dollars as similar to tipping your wait staff. You are feeding on the content and subsidizing the publication in return. I realize it’s easy to avoid as an anonymous and distant reader, but I appeal anyway. If you’re keen to support a writer, an explorer, and a sailor who is not doing it in the modern cookie-cutter style, this is an opportunity to be part of something fantastic and out of the ordinary. Thank you so much.
And as always, a huge thank you to those who are already participating.
PayPal or Zelle: wheelersf@hotmail.com
And now a missive:
Carnaval in La Paz
I did a walkabout of Carnaval in La Paz on Sunday night. I had been through on Saturday afternoon on my way to grocery shopping, but it turns out to really be a night time thing. Out at anchor you can hear and see it going on until one or two in the morning every evening.
In La Paz, Carnaval takes place along the Malecón. The Malecón is the waterfront. There is the beach that stretches for a couple miles (excuse me, a few kilometers), and then there is a wide sidewalk/park along that. There’s usually a queue of people waiting to get their picture taken next to the big block LA PAZ letters that are characteristic of Baja towns. I have a few of pictures from other towns in recent blogs and then I got bored with it. Then there is the street and on the other side of this are the restaurants, hotels, and shops where you can get souveniers saying “My mom went to La Paz and all she got me was this stupid t-shirt.“ But in Spanish. Just kidding, I don’t know if that’s a thing, but you now know what I mean. In San Francisco you have Fisherman’s Wharf. In New York you have Times Square. In Seattle you have Pikes Place. In La Paz you have the Malecón.
For Carnaval, they shut down the street and line it with games, concessions, and carnival rides. Very similar to the midway of the Otsego County Fair in central New York that I used to show chickens and sheep at. Except way bigger. Two kilometers bigger. The games are very similar. Shoot the bottles, roll the ball, win big soft toys and tapestries of your favorite pop artist as prizes. The concessions are similar to, but with more Mexican flavor. Pun intended. Meat on a stick. Corn on a stick, Cotton Candy, Papas Fritas. And a bunch of other things I’m not sure what they were. The concessions were mostly run by regular people, while the games and rides were more operated by what we used to call “carnies.” You can tell by the hard living look they have. It’s not an easy job. Pays crappy, you work all night. Showers are few and your bathroom is always a blue house. But you don’t need a resume, a degree, and your boss asks few questions. It’s kind of the Group W bench. They gotta live too.
Tecaté tents every two hundred meters offer canned beer for 35 pesos (presently a touch over two dollars US), but no worries, if you don’t want to overpay for beer, it turns out you can buy a twelve pack at the regular store and just take it in. There is no entrance gate. No admission. You come and go as you like. There are police around, but they seem to just make sure nobodies getting violent, or too outwardly brash, or trying to drive on the street, not to enforce a bunch of rules and behaviors. At least that I noticed.
And there were thousands of people. It is a family affair, but not puritan. There were lots of teenagers and twenty somethings involved in the classic mating rituals of these kind of public events.
The interesting parts to me and that really set it apart from the carnivals of my youth (because I totally steer clear of that stuff as an adult) is the volume and the music. It was loud. Every game truck had their own sound system and Mexicans tend to turn it up loud. I remember this at the baseball game in Bahia Tortuga too. And they seem to focus on the mid and high frequencies. (which are the most damaging) But that might also be because they don’t have the best equipment. There were about eight live music stages along the Malecón. These had your more “professional” acts which ranged between Mexican takes on the American/Brit pop music machine, or Ranchero, or some other genre I can’t name. More polished, costume wearing, popular groups. I didn’t see anything while I was there that was very interesting, but I’m over that schtick anyway.
What did spark my interest were the street bands interspersed between the stages. As soon as the volume tapered off from one group, you moved into the sound space of another. A few had costumes, but most were just wearing unpretentious street clothes. I don’t know the name of this genre, but it is the classic Mexican music you so often hear that is not based on the American/Brit music wave. But I hesitate to call it traditional, because I don’t really know what that is in Mexico either. They are also not all created equal, which is true anywhere. I love that they are made up of mostly instruments considered “uncool” in America, but obviously super cool in Mexico. My favorite group was a quintet. They were killing it. The bigger groups could be impressive too, but they also tended to get a bit sloppy, and were outstretching their talent pool, so they didn’t seem to be captivating people as much.
The quintet consisted of the following instrumentation, which seems typical of the genre. A Sousaphone player (which is the same thing as a tuba, except for standing), a clarinetist, a trombonist, a bass drum/cymbal player and a percussionist with a snare drum, set of timbales, a variety of cowbells and a cymbal. (The bigger bands would have trumpets.) The rhythm section was feeling it and it made all the difference. They were surrounded by people dancing and even the passing crowds were bopping as they went by. Who knows what they were called. They weren’t putting on any “stage show”, no costumes, no worries, no rush. Just making people dance. They would be checking their phones in between songs. (Yes, that plague is worldwide. Go by any shop and see the bored employees on their phones.) No taking themselves too seriously at all, which is so refreshing. But, I repeat, killing it. (Musicians where I’m from take themselves way too seriously and seem to expect others to as well.) They were the highlight of my abbreviated Carnaval experience. Out at anchor, I am a couple kilometers away, but you can hear the Sousaphones honking late into the night. So cool. Those guys (yes, guys) have some serious chops and mighty lungs.
The solar charging system is working like a charm with spares to boot. Thank you so much to those who helped to contribute.
I’ve ordered 16 SHOM (Service hydrographique et océanographique de la marine) paper charts of French Polynesia, printed on 02/06/2024 at $42US each on the credit card. They should arrive in a couple days. I mention this so you know how any near future donations will help Sampaguita and the expedition. (And to assure you you’re not buying cheap Mexican beer and prostitutes.)
PayPal or Zelle: wheelersf@hotmail.com
I’ve been working on a new Resourceful Sailor piece about Sampaguita‘s Self-Steering Wind Vane. I filmed this video today to accompany it. I thought I would share it. This one’s more for the sailors in the bunch.
The morning view from Sampaguita‘s veranda.
I’d like to start by thanking the four people who have made donations through this website for a total of $280. Two of them are friends, one a relative, and one a fan. It is very appreciated and your funding contributed to keeping Sampaguita’s navigation lights on. She appreciates it. This voyage is her biggest, and possibly, “last hurrah.” Thank you.
I will be losing the data plan from my phone in a few days. I knew this day would come. Internet connectivity will become more challenging, time consuming, and costly hence forth. Since this website takes both time and internet to maintain, I will be reducing my involvement with it. I have internet at Club Cruceros, but that requires me to come to their clubhouse, so no internet on the boat soon. I’ve got my head down and focused on the journey ahead. While I appreciate the few people’s interest, it is unsustainable for now.
The days of the honor system are long gone. I remember in rural Central New York when people sold their extra garden produce on a table at the end of the road and passers-by would stop and put payment in the coffee can. And people wouldn’t steal the money. It’s not that world anymore. I looked into Patreon at one point, which would gate access to only paying subscribers. It was in part created by someone who was getting millions of YouTube views but only making a few hundred dollars. In contrast, I average about 13,500 views per year. Patreon takes a pretty big cut, it would require an upgraded WordPress plan, plus the resources to provide content for the subscribers. Gauged on interest, I deemed it unsustainable. I recognized a long time ago that I lack the social charisma to be successful in those forums.
This is not going to change who I am, how I think, how I do things, or how I interpret the world. It will likely only strengthen my resolve in those matters. I just won’t be able to allocate the resources to express it via this website. Lucky world! When I played music and did a show with four paying people in the audience, I knew I wasn’t going to play that place with that band again. It was unsustainable(for the third time) for everyone involved.
The Sailing With Josh website isn’t going anywhere for a while. The domain name is paid up through 2025 and the WordPress subscription, through 2027, so it will clutter the internet for at least a couple more years. If I can sell articles to publishers, I will still likely promote them when I can. I’ll likely post the rejects too when resources allow. For now, the Garmin inReach will still be updated through the “Where In the World Is Sampaguita” post. I will still write. I like to do it and it helps me think. Much of it gets deleted as absolute crap.
My departure date for Marquesas is not set in stone. Likely in March sometime. I expect the voyage to take about six weeks. But there are no guarantees. Other than the inReach, I will be disconnected from the outside world. I look forward to it. Once in the trade winds, there will be no turning back and at a 3 knot average, no running from anything. It will be what it will be. The thrill of old school sailing. I recently re-watched a YouTube movie about Robin Knox-Johnston and the original Golden Globe Race. Back when men were men. Now, with all the electronic handholding, anyone can go cruising. It’s no wonder French Polynesia and Mexico are swamped with yachties. And they’re taking it to the bank.
I am submitting my online French Polynesia Entry/Exit form and sussing the required health insurance options. My Irish citizenship long stay angle still seems viable. I have changed my voyage plans slightly due to a conversation with a couple of veteran cruisers. I am intending to go over and around the Tuamotus and looping back to Gambier rather than the challenge and risk of trying to go east of them. This will also give me something to do while awaiting the season to head to Chile. Tahiti is still of no interest to me, but I may be forced to Papeete for provisioning. I’ll have to wait and see. The Society Islands themselves have lost all allure to me, but some folks still seem to be caught up in yesteryear’s mystique. The Austral’s might still offer something. I’m hoping so.
Your contributions are still welcome. La Paz is more expensive than a Mexican town should be and French Polynesia will be even worse. If not for me, then do it for Sampaguita.
PayPal or Zelle: wheelersf@hotmail.com
To those four people who have contributed, you have my personal contact information and you are welcome to drop me a line anytime. It may take a while to respond, but your consideration will not be forgotten.
This is a bit of a feedback loop, but upon discovering their generous words, I raised their colors. Sampaguita sits at anchor in a windy and choppy La Paz anchorage. Her Mexican flag is showing the tatters of time, prone to flogging on the stays, part of being a small boat. The lowest flag is a Flicka flag displaying the filigree which helps define the breed.
I appreciate PTSA’s consideration and support. The article they reference is about my learning experience racing Port Townsend’s one-design fleet of Thunderbirds. It is a reflection on what a cruiser can learn from racing boats.
There is often a disconnect between cruisers and racers. Racers can be annoyed by cruisers’ laid-back approach to sailing. Cruisers can be annoyed by racers’ overzealous approaches. As a cruiser myself who was still invited to race, I recognized that some lessons can be typical, while some more abstract.
A special thanks to Steve, Corvo’s owner, Jeff, a gentle, yet aggressive racing skipper, and Roland, a steadfast champion of mine, who is both a fellow cruiser and racer.
Check out the Port Townsend Sailing Association:
Front Page II
Thanks again to Monica and ‘Lectronic Latitude for another edition of The Resourceful Sailor. And a special thanks to Dave White, a Port Townsend legend in his own right.
And Monica’s husband Jay for the added affirmation.
Click the link:
The Resourceful Sailor Asks, “Is It Varnish or Vanish?”
I put most all the money I had in the stock market before I started this voyage on Sampaguita. There is definitely some risk in that, but duh, I also signed up to sail a 20-foot boat across the ocean alone. You might say I’ve said, “frack it.” I diversified as much as I could. I’m not old enough to retire, but sailing and writing is the only thing that really interests me now. I was hoping I could get some income writing, but that has not been a reality. So, I have to make what I have, work the best it can for me. I’m not sure if they are still given, but tests called SATs and ACTs were required for college applications back in the 80’s. They were essentially aptitude exams. I only scored slightly above average. I was a big fish in a small pond. Which means I was a small fish. I recall, the logic equation was common on those tests. If P, then Q. P is true, therefore Q is true. That sort of thing. For example: If there is conflict, there is money to be made. There is conflict. Therefore, there is money to be made. Here’s another: The defense industry thrives during conflict. Some people invest in the defense industry. Therefore, some people thrive during conflict. Pretty messed up, right? I’d rather make money writing. (But not marine store clerking.) But I didn’t make the world, I’m not very good at it, so I just have to survive however I can. I live in a big pond now. Pelagic fish are huge. They swallow small fish all day long. This small fish is never going to be a big fish, and he has no interest in being feed for them. This should explain a lot of my writing and actions.
I figure at this point, I am unemployable. Another reason why I need the stock market to thrive, by whatever means. My earning potential is so low, any job and it’s pay that someone would give me, isn’t worth the breaths at this point in life. And I haven’t proven a good businessman. If someone else can wrap their head around it, more power to them. I envy them for it. For being able to do what makes me miserable. A lesson I had drilled home with me when growing up was this. I would say something like “Bill gets to play football.” Or, “Terry has Ocean Pacific T-shirts.” The answer often enough was “Well, you’re not Terry (Bill, or whoever), are you?” (Terry was half Hawaiian and the star quarterback, and Bill got his collar bone broken a week into practices and never played again.) Not-so-ironically, I was voted the most individualistic male in my class my senior year. Now I sail the smallest boat in the anchorage. The youth are very impressionable.
Another lesson I learned was how to save a dime, and how to work a system, all in one. I think the how to save a dime was intentional, the how to work a system, probably not so much. Let me explain. In rural New Berlin, New York I grew up about five miles from the one-stop-light town where I attended New Berlin Central public school. This was the 1980’s and there was something called a pay phone in the school. I think it was a Bell telephone for those of you who might understand the dark humor in that. (It is still easy to envision on the wall in the hall.) Now, what I am about to explain started with my older brother and sister, so this wasn’t just a lesson offered to me. If we had an after-school function, and mind you, time was more flexible back then, and we would need someone to pick us up (we were at the far reaches of the district, so catching a ride from someone else was not practical) we were instructed to use the pay phone. This is how. We were not given dimes, but there was a loophole in the system. We could make the call, it would ring, we could hear our parents answer the phone, but without putting in a dime, they could not hear us. But they were expecting us to call and would say, “If this is Josh, hang up.” We would then hang up and they would know to come pick us up. About 10-15 minutes later they would show up. I’m certain parenting is ridiculously hard which is why I didn’t touch it with a 10-foot spinnaker pole. My parents are pretty honest and wholesome people and I think the full lesson they were teaching went over their head. They were just trying to save a dime.
To lighten the mood, here’s a gem. I included a segment on poultry husbandry a few weeks ago. If you missed it, here is the link:
The picture included at the top of this essay is one of those lucky roosters that got to be the uncontested king of the roost. Here, he is in costume at the Otsego County Fair Grounds about to participate in The Best Dressed Animal Contest. There was a short-lived super hero program in the 80’s called The Greatest American Hero. So, what you have here is The Greatest American Chicken. My mother made the costume. He either won or came in second. I really can’t quite remember. When the contest started, I was holding him. Because chickens will run away and you may never catch them. The Judge suggested I put him down. Uh Oh. Well, I did. The costume constricted him enough that he couldn’t walk very easily, and definitely couldn’t run. Phew. But he tried and did this little dance…..And the crowd went wild. Since half of the contest was about audience applause, he was a huge hit. So that’s the story of The Greatest American Chicken.
The poor kid with the poop on his leg is Jeff, a classmate from New Berlin Central. He was mortified that the chicken pooped on his leg. And even more mortified when my mother took a picture. I’m the other super skinny kid with the bad hair and the glasses. Some things never change.
Thanks to DW for the considerate cruising kitty donation. We had some back and forth about a new jib for his Flicka and the best sail clew. I appreciate and respect him for it. Anytime.
So, if you find any value to what you encounter on this site, whether informational, inspirational, or entertainment, please consider a donation.
PayPal or Zelle: wheelersf@hotmail.com
If you are averse to participating with those particular financial institutions, maybe there is another creative way to donate? A special thanks to SS for finding a way that worked for him.
And now, on with the show.
Gloves have a cycle of life with The Resourceful Sailor. Initially purchased for a specific purpose, they wear out and are eventually retired to anchor duty, a chore no self-respecting new pair of gloves would ever be caught doing. These old gloves have a bag where they await their final service. Once they move from there, the end is near. Setting and weighing anchor by hand is a muddy and chafe-laden business.
Sampaguita, a Pacific Seacraft Flicka 20 sailboat, rounded Vancouver Island in June 2023, visiting 29 anchorages. A particular pair of gloves surfaced from the anchor duty bag. They were purchased in the early 2000s when I had my first boat, Different Drummer, a 60s-era Grumman aluminum canoe with a homemade, downwind, square sail. Sitting in the middle of the canoe, more like a kayak, and using an also homemade double paddle, the days and miles logged with these gloves wrapped around that wooden stock were many.
Crusty on the outside and well-ventilated at the thumbs, I was taken aback by how amazing these gloves felt when I put them on. A perfect fit, soft lining, and cozy warmth triggered the flooding of unexpected memories. My hands gripping the round dowel of the paddle. The alternating and rhythmic dip-pull-lift motion. The flexing wood as the boat is driven head-on into wind and waves. The euphoria of paddler’s high. The burn of lactic acid. The satisfaction of the expedition and achievement. Of throwing down the gauntlet, figuratively and literally. All these involuntary and instant emotions were evoked by the recent donning of these gloves.
The canoe and the gloves date back to 2006(ish) for The Resourceful Sailor. By 2013, Sampaguita became the focus, with the occasional visit to Different Drummer. In 2019, the mostly ignored canoe was gifted to a friend, and the gloves shifted to the anchor duty bag, their brand, source, and existence long forgotten. In the quest to use consumables to the bitter end, The Resourceful Sailor earned an unexpected, yet welcome, paddle down memory lane. Remember, keep your solutions safe, prudent, and have a blast.
I’m just a fool on a twenty-foot boat. Help keep this fool at sea….or at least get a new pair of gloves. Otherwise, he might end up living in your community’s ravine, or under the bridge, or in an RV on a side street. Do you really want that?
sailingwithjosh
Sailing With Josh 