A day in the life

Village of BLA, BC, Mexico

Not much happening here - just trying (and not always winning) to keep cool. Temperatures are pretty consistent, in the mid 30s during the day, falling to around 29 or 30 at night. The humidity is the real killer though, varying between about 40 and 90 percent. Basically just hot, hot, hot!

The nights are usually very calm, no wind at all, so we sleep with a fan blowing on us continuously (both night and day actually). Our day typically begins at 6:30AM, when we tune into the Sunrisa HAM net. A lot of the boats check in each morning (we do once in a while) to give a brief summary of their weather and what they are up to. The boats are spread throughout the Sea of Cortez, with the majority being in the BLA area, so there is a lot of repetition. At around 6:50AM, an amateur weatherman (currently a guy in Arizona) gives a weather prediction for next couple of days - this is most helpful as we have no reliable internet here in BLA. Then the process is repeated on the Amigo SSB net, starting at 7:10AM, with weather from Don Anderson up in Oxnard, California at 7:30AM. In this way we are kept informed as to the likelihood of a hurricane coming our way - so far so good on that score.

Breakfast for us usually consists simply of cereal, as it is too hot to think about cooking anything. One of the greatest inventions of the 20th and 21st centuries has got to be long-life milk - this stuff keeps forever without refrigeration and tastes just the same as any other milk. Lunch usually consists of sandwiches (no heating required again). Note: Bimbo bread (think of Wonder bread) is available everywhere and also seems to last forever - we are not sure what is in it, and I am sure it is really bad for us, but it is so nice to always have a fresh supply of bread on board. Supper is the only meal that gets the stove going - basic one-pot-wonder kind of meals most of the time, but Sue does manage to make up some pretty amazing feasts as well. We still have a fair supply of various meats in our freezer and the village here has a reasonably well-stocked store where we can get fresh fruit and veggies once in a while. Since a lot of the more ambitious cruisers fill their time with fishing, they always seem to catch more than they can use, so there is a ready supply of fresh fish available, especially Dorado (Mahi Mahi), which seem to be very abundant in the BLA area (fresh Dorado on the barbecue is hard to beat). Being by the village, we also have the option of taking the dinghy to shore and having an occasional meal at one of the many restaurants nearby.

The rest of our day is mostly spent reading, playing various games, and just watching the wildlife. The snorkeling is not so good here by the village, but the daily visits by the Whale-sharks kind of makes up for it. We quite often go for a swim, sometimes in company with other nearby crews, around 4PM. Even though the water temperature is close to 30 degrees, it is still very refreshing.

As the days are getting shorter now, it starts to get dark around 7PM. We quite often have a rousing game of Scrabble or Train Dominoes before hitting the sack around 9 or 10. There is another SSB net (the Southbound net) that starts at 5 minutes to 6, with weather at 6PM, so we have another chance to catch the latest predictions for the next day, and catch up any exciting news from the other cruisers (lots of fish stories and such).

Tomorrow we will be making our way back up to the anchorage at La Gringa, where there is to be a big "full moon" party and potluck on the beach on Monday. On Sunday, one of the cruising couples is also putting on a little talk and Q&A session on sailing through Central America, so we though we would catch that as well.

So there in a nutshell is our day to day life. Boring it may be, but it still beats working!

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