essays by shé

bookshelf

Tag: Mexico

  • Surf ‘n’ Shop

    You can’t carry groceries on a surfboard, I used to say. Surfing is just for fun.  Well, turns out that I can carry groceries on a surfboard — in a backpack as I paddle prone on Torq, the funboard. Webbed gloves bought for swimming years ago are now quite handy. Drenched on the way in, though, when…

  • Maps

    “Yes, you can do it alone, now that you have the map,” a friend reassures mountain climber Louise Heinemann (from “Out and About in Baltistan,” in the 1992 Seal Press anthology, Leading Out). I have at least three maps, or charts, of this marine area: Habibi’s navigation system; a boating app on the phone; and Captain…

  • The Jib is Up

    … or out, as the case may be. (Habibi’s headsail, or jib, is on a vertical furler at the bow, with lines to control it running back to the helm. The sail unfurls horizontally; well, triangularly.)  Exactly thirty-nine weeks after I moved onboard, almost a year after my first sailing course, I sail solo. No…

  • No Trouble

    Trouble’s gone. After a week anchored nearby, the blue-striped sailboat was gone when I got up this morning. Huzzah! (Boat names are sometimes quite direct. Best to pay attention.) I contacted another instructor when Anxiety refused to let me sail solo. “Knowing you can sail is different from hoping you can,” she pointed out in the wee…

  • Leap of Faith

    Three nights on the hook. Anchored. A lost security bracelet (gate key) prompts check out from the marina. Sign from god: no more access to hot showers and wifi. Oh no! Am I ready? But maybe I don’t have to feel ready. Maybe I just have to listen.  This has happened before. On Kaua’i, the 4Runner key…

  • Boat Life

    It seemed simple enough. Scrub the rust off the old propane tank and paint it. Then I’ll have two tanks, including the new one I just bought, filled, and installed. Phase one goes well. I lay a blue tarp on the dirt next to Casa Maria restaurant (now closed), spray vinegar on the rust-encrusted metal,…

  • Good Friday

    Red flags all week, the Harbor Master’s way of saying, don’t go out, don’t come in. But this morning I finally spy a yellow flag — yes! — proceed with caution. (No one I know has ever seen any other colors on the pole. Flags are either red or yellow.) I quickly ready Habibi for adventure: covers off the…

  • Solo

    Four foot waves at the narrow mouth of the channel into the marina. The depth sounder seems to be measuring them — oops, five feet — instead of the distance to the ocean floor. Habibi’s draft is six feet and we haven’t run aground, so I’m guessing. I’ve joked that, since she is fiberglass, I’ve…

  • Making It

    “You bought a boat, then advertised for sailing lessons?” Not quite, Mister Skeptic. You may go now. But, yes, I am taking lessons again, after putting up a notice in the marina office. Docking was on the agenda for the first one, very different from catching a mooring ball. Concrete to ram into, for one thing. Which I…

  • Women

    Happy International Women’s Day! Yesterday after a swim near La Playa Las Brujas (Witches Beach), I ambled around an older part of Mazatlán. Women sold me eggs and pomegranates, cut a length of yolk yellow fabric, and served me tacos carne asada. Women directed me to the ocean, a bakery, and bed sheets. I chatted…