While we were still in Manzanillo, I received a Facebook message from a girl named Marleen. She was several weeks late in replying to my Facebook advertisement looking for crew to cross the Pacific. She decided to send me a message anyway, since she was already in Mexico, on the off chance that we hadn’t crossed. Well, she was in luck and we scheduled a time to talk with her virtually later that day and offered her the V-birth if she could make it down to the boat in Club Santiago within the next few days.
On the day of her arrival, Eitan met her onshore with the dinghy and brought her back to the boat. Marleen is 33 and from the Netherlands. She has been adventuring as a full-time backpacker since she was 25, traveling to almost 90 countries. Nearly the same age as me, I was quite envious hearing her stories of traveling the world for the past 8 years while I was busy making a name for myself in my profession. Marleen manages to afford her lifestyle by working occasionally then traveling until her funds run out. Being estranged from her family, she had not been back to the Netherlands in several years. With no home base and all of her belongings in a backpack, it was easy to see how someone could just keep traveling year after year. Marleen shared a story of how she was in a serious car accident in Australia and in the hospital for months with 19 broken bones and no one there to come help or comfort her while she was recovering. Although I was jealous of her lack of commitments tying her to any one place, it also made me immensely grateful to have family and a home that I could always return to if needed.
With Marleen onboard, we continued north to Barra de Navidad. Like before, we pulled into the calm lagoon anchorage and headed into town to get some provisions and access WIFI. We ran into SV Soul Rebel at one of the restaurants and they invited us onto their friend’s sailboat, SV Volare, for a potluck later that day. Once back on our boat, we scrambled to pull a dish together for the gathering and settled on pina colada bites consisting of rum-soaked pineapple in sweet coconut milk. The evening, hosted by Jason and Colette onboard SV Volare, a 50-foot ketch monohull, was filled with delicious food and new friends.
The next morning, we woke up for the local cruiser radio net and eagerly awaited the French Bakery boat that we had heard so much about. Every morning, the local bakery loads up a panga boat with fresh-baked croissants, quiches, baguettes, and more to sell to the cruisers in the lagoon for slightly inflated prices. Marleen flagged him down and bought us three chocolate croissants which were gone as soon as they were brought onboard. Even though they were overpriced, you couldn’t beat the convenience.
We also took advantage of the local cruising community to offload some items on the boat that we didn’t need and put out a couple of advertisements on the morning net. First was the TV in the main cabin, which had been sitting unused since Eitan purchased the boat. Next was Abbey and Connor’s wetsuits that they left onboard when they decided to head south to warmer waters. Luckily, they were good fits for Marleen and Colette. Finally, I had a brand new short wetsuit that I had picked up cheap, but it turned out not to fit me that well. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find anyone else it would fit, either. So, Marleen, with her worldly sense of barter, was able to negotiate a trade with the local surf shop, swapping the wetsuit for a 6-pack of beer. Well done Marleen!
Although we were planning to stay a few more days in Barra de Navidad, we had heard about a nearby vernal equinox festival called Burning Wood from our new friends on SV Volare. Having gone to the Burning Man Festival in Nevada a few times, this piqued Marleen’s interest and we decided to head to La Manzanilla for a couple of nights for the festivities. It was a short motor over to the neighboring bay, filled with many playful dolphins, and we met up on SV Volare later that night for drinks before heading to the festival bonfire. As we rode the dinghies to shore, the bioluminescence was incredible, as the flying fish shot away from the sound of the motors, lighting up trails in the water. The glow was so intense, it looked as if someone had splattered fluorescent green paint everywhere.
Unfortunately, the bonfire was a little less impressive than expected and there were only a small handful of people who stuck around for the evening blaze. We stayed at the gathering for a while, as Colette performed her fire spinning skills and then headed back to the boat for an uncomfortable rolling night in the unprotected anchorage. The next day we went to explore La Manzanilla, which is home to the largest crocodile sanctuary in Mexico. With a $1 entrance fee, we couldn’t resist seeing the massive crocs crowding the shoreline. We also couldn’t help but wonder what sustains their appetite and if the sanctuary feeds them or simply allows them a quiet place to sunbathe without noisy boats nearby.
