Life Is Good

WEDNESDAY 4/11/07 So the morning after.First, what we learned. Back to the old boy scout motto of "be prepared"". Second, the late great Douglass Adams said it best on the inside cover of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- DON'T PANIC.Really everything was good. We just adopted a new mantra. WWFD (what would fifty do- fifty knots that is!). We'll sleep better at night if we prepare the boat every night for a squall like that one. We were still tired when we awoke at 8:30 the following morning for the cruiser's net (that's the daily vhf radio chat among the cruisers regarding news, weather, finds on the island etc.), but there was work to be done. An older couple across the anchorage on a vessel called "Destiny" were busy trying to find the anchor they had to cut lose in the previous night's squall. This was proving impossible since the 20ft. deep water was murky from all of the wind. Jeremy and I went by their boat after breakfast and offered to help find it with the use of our scuba equipment. They were very grateful, and we set out to find a needle in a haystack. Now, Jeremy has been doing salvage work and the like for the past year or so, so diving for work was nothing new to him. I on the other hand had not been diving in a while, so after an hour or so of searching the muddy bottom and working to keep up with his pace, i headed back up to the dinghy to watch for traffic and wait for his signal. After another hour he came up with the rhode in his hand! It took about another 45 minutes to actually dig it out from the bottom since it had dug in so deep in the gale, but Jeremy would not leave without it. The couple could not believe we found it and offered to adopt us and put us through college! Hey, this salvage thing may pay off after all! We insisted that we were just glad to help. It felt good, especially knowing that they would never have retrieved it without help. I suppose it never hurts to build karma either. Who knows, maybe next time we will be the ones in need of a friendly hand. Now that our good deed for the day had been done, we headed to town to sign up for some spanish lessons. We are determined to at least be able to hold a decent conversation by the end of this trip. We found this great restaurant called Dragonfly when we first scoped out the island. The food is great (mmm. mole!) and the owner Claudia is the best.We have been spending lots of time here! Travis and Joanne went inland to check out some Mayan ruins this afternoon, so Scott will be boatsitting for them... I have been having way too much fun hanging out with the resident iguanas! I don't know what kind they are, but we see them around every corner on our daily 20 minute walk to downtown. THURSDAY 4/12/07 We had our first spanish lesson this morning. Our instructor is Bettie, a German woman who has been in mexico for twenty years. This is an ideal learning situation because not only is she a talented teacher, but after class we immediatly hit the streets to practice what we've learned with the locals... There is supposed to be a Norther (stronger winds from the north which usually blow for a day or so) coming on the day that we are scheduled to leave for Belize (Sunday), so we may be extending our visas and staying a couple days longer than planned. If so we will be happy to have this extra time to study with Bettie. It's a win win. FRIDAY 4/13/07 Today we took a verrry long walk to explore the southern end of the island. There is a little zoo and some Mayan ruins on the cliffs at the southernmost end. Unfortunately the zoo was closed by the time we got there, but we sat outside the gates and drank fresh coconut water from the little coco stand and ate the meat with some chile and lime. Yum! The ruins weren't much to look at, but the view of the turquoise ocean from on top of the rugged cliffs was well worth the walk. Jeremy, Scott and I then hopped in a little cab to downtown at the other end of the island (the whole island is only about 2mi. wide by 5 mi. long) for some pina coladas and whole fried fish. Life is good!