Merry Christmas From Paradise

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family!

We are counting our blessings today as we celebrate our Lord’s birthday, though we have lost count of all the blessings we have received….

Yes, we are in Paradise, literally….While life is a balance of boat maintenance and home school, we have been quite happy with afternoons on the beach, by the pool, diving with sea lions, horseback riding and simply enjoying time with family like we never have before.

This morning, we opened gifts that were placed under our 1 foot Christmas tree,  enjoyed the lights hung by the mast, and reflected on our recent experiences in a foreign culture and how they celebrate Christmas.

Christmas in Mexico is rather understated. There is very little gift giving (getting) and instead the time is dedicated to family and food. The time of gifts comes on January 6^th, Kings Day, in remembrance of the three wise men's gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

We plan to spend the 6^th with Families de la Esperanza - a missionary team that has helped families rise up from shanties in the dump in Puerto Vallarta.  We visited them earlier this week and it was a touching experience, one that made us appreciate the blessings we have and thankful for those that give their lives to sharing the Lord’s message and helping others.

Merry Christmas All!

Horse Back Riding

Getting there

My mom and I have always been good riding buddies, so we decided while we were in La Paz we were going to ride. So we woke up at 5:00 AM and got on a 6:30 shuttle to Todos Santos for a morning beach ride.  We traveled through the desert for about an hour. When we reached the station, we had a light breakfast at a lovely place just down the road.

Off to a good start

  Betsy, a lady from the ranch, arrived to pick us up about an hour later. We had a lovely ride over with our noses filled with the essence of horses and manure. When we arrived, our teacher, Kaia, had the horses tacked up and ready to go, which was a special treat because usually we handle that. Some of the horses we rode where Azteca horses. Azteca it a breed of horse that is part Quarter horse, part Andalusian and part Criollo horse.

The beach

    The beach is a wide very, very long surface, it starts out flat at first, but starts to slope near the waters edge. It was full of wildlife as well. We saw a turtle’s nest, a whale and two sea lions!

A gallop

    We walked, trotted and cantered, though not for long. As soon as we picked up a canter, our horses immediately wanted to gallop, so we let them. Now I imagined it being pretty fast, a lot faster that a canter, but it's not all that bad - actually it's amazing. Kaia did say though, that since we where on sand, it would seem similar to a canter. So there we were, flying across the beach; I'm surprised I didn't get bugs in my mouth!  We galloped 3 more times after that, and they were all incomparable!  

 

Heading back

    After the excitement, we headed back to the stables, where we helped clean up.  We washed all the horses and fed them lunch; you'd be surprised how sweaty all the horses were! After that we took the hour shuttle ride back and definitely took showers ourselves!

Safely in Nuevo Vallerta

Quick Update…We arrived yesterday in Nuevo Vallerta. We stopped for fuel in La Cruz and quickly headed over to Paradise Village. Banderas Bay is Beautiful! Why it’s not on the short list for the America’s Cup, I do not know….

Nice Socks Gopher!

Paradise Village is surreal. In our first 12 hours here, “Isaac” served us drinks overlooking the beach, “Doc” made sure we were all OK following our 3 day passage and activities director “Julie McCoy” made sure we attended the welcome party on the veranda…..in case my references aren’t quite obvious, this place affectionately reminds me of watching the Love Boat in my youth. OR.....maybe it’s because Kelly keeps calling me Captain Stubing J

Up next? I don’t know, but I am on the look out for Mr. Roarke and his entertaining sidekick Tattoo….

Don't Hold Your Breath!

What can I say? I am brimming with pride and excitement. Over the past two weeks, Sophie and I completed our SCUBA certification course. For years, I have wanted to get certified but never took the time, or wasn’t motivated enough to do so……but, boy am I happy I waited!

Everything Is OK

It’s funny, we never planned to come to La Paz, our battery problems brought us here and as a result, we decided to make the most of it while we tried to trouble shoot the problems (finally checked off). As a result of years of procrastination, I now had the opportunity to venture into scuba with my daughter. Sophie and I inquired at the local dive shop, Buceo Carey. Gabriel and his team were awesome and I can’t recommend them enough, more on that in a bit.

After Sophie shared her air with me,
in the event I should run out.
Hi 5's for saving me :)

I had reservations about enrolling my 11-year-old daughter in the program. The age limit is 10, but many frown upon kids below the age of 14 – depending on whom you talk to, of course. For those of you who are not familiar with the program, it requires six hours of classroom, a pool dive, four open water dives (tests) and a written exam (multi guess).  It was in our second classroom session that I became a bit concerned as we began to cover Boyles Law, Archimedes’ Principle and Brain Embolisms; easy stuff right? So much for home school being a cake walk….

We had a few hurdles to overcome, the emergency assent, the buddy breathing simulation and of course, opening your eyes in salt water.  However, what really impressed me was Sophie’s ability to understand and retain all the material. The last step, the written exam was last night and Sophie scored 90%. (I received 92%, dangerously close to a lifetime of razzing). Horay! We celebrated with Pizza and a milkshake.

Always Be Breathing!

Initially, we learned all the critical skills in the pool, with Gabriel, the owner of the dive shop. Kelly and Gabriel’s wife provided moral support, and we capped both nights off with dinners at amazing local restaurants. Talk about being part of the family!

Diving a sunken navy ship.

Our first open water dive with Gabriel started out with a pod of dolphins dancing around the boat. The water was warm and clear. It was a great first experience. The next day, we headed out with Belin, our classroom instructor and dive master. Our first dive was off the island of Espiritu Santo and we dove a wreck, a former navy boat that was intentionally sunk. The water was murky and upon entering the water, I was unsure how Sophie would respond…..no problem. We descended to 35 feet and poked our nose in and out of portholes (we did not enter), saw a baby moray eel and tons of fish.

Our second dive was at a reef, near a sea lion colony. This time, visibility was much better, but the currents were stronger and the surface was a bit rough. Belin had us drop below the surface as soon as we hit the water and all was good. We saw trumpet fish, rock fish, stone fish, parrot fish, some other fish and….sea lions. Wow! They were so playful. 

Sea lions tugging on the anchor line.

They are like a litter of underwater puppies. 
One seemed to take a special interest in Sophie, circling around her several times, only to head over to the anchor line and tug on it like Monty with a new toy from Petsmart. – (Note: if or when, we drag anchor, I am going to blame it on the sea lions for sure).

In the end, Sophie was phenomenal. I was surprised how fearless she was in situations that would make a grown man cry (I had something in my eye!). All of this was made easier of course by Belin, our dive master. She was awesome with Sophie and I cannot recommend her or Buceo Carey enough. One of the best things I learned was how to be a dive buddy with a junior scuba diver. This was not part of the course as Gabriel and his team went above and beyond to put me at ease and give me greater confidence in the water with my not-so baby girl. We learned and experienced many things throughout the course, but the most enjoyable was bonding with my new dive buddy.

We are headed to Mazatlan Thursday morning – weather permitting – and headed south to Nueva Vallarta shortly thereafter. We plan to sharpen our skills there.