Hi all,
I realise that it has been a while since I have written and there is good reason for that; the fact that I am currently sat in a London apartment says it all. But, before I get into all that, let me tell you of the good times.
Last time you heard from me was prior to New Year's Eve and the crew of the Black Wind were giddy with excitement in anticipation of the celebrations. Our New Year's Eve began as any other; by being boarded by Mexican Federales. In retrospect, I am surprised that we had lasted that long without being boarded; our vessel looked like we had just broken it out of a impound yard and it didn't even have a name on the back; just a skull and cross bones. So, I had to sit there whilst two men with M16's clambered aboard and started rooting around. I experienced that strange sensation when you know that you have nothing to hide but you suddenly have the irrational fear that you have something that you shouldn't. I found myself wondering whether they would suspect my Vitamin C tablets for some form of Ecstasy or something. Luckily, one of them spoke broken English as unfortunately AS level Spanish does not prepare you for such a situation. Once they had ascertained that everything was in order and there was no way that they were going to be able to get us to bribe them, they left. I kind of missed them after that because no sooner had they left the boat than it was back to work for us. We sat there working our socks off to try and make the boat look less of a shambles. I was given the thrilling job of stripping the plastic coating off the guard rails. I sat there in a foul mood, goaded by the beautiful people as they encircled us on Jet Skis. I hated everyone. The only thing that managed to turn my frown upside down was the promise of the evening that lay ahead. Rumour had it that there was going to be a fireworks display on the beach to rival the Fourth of July. Not only this, but I could see that all of the bars lining the shore were setting up for a big night. As the sun went down, meaning that it was too dark to work, we made ourselves look presentable and got merry on the boat. Unfortunately, true to form, we got a little too merry. So drunk in fact, that once we had managed to row our favourite dingy ashore, we swiftly lost each other. All I remember is stumbling around the beach waiting for the incredible display to commence. I looked at my watch and it read 11.55. 'Awesome' I thought to myself as I turned to the girl next to me and told her to get ready for an incredible show. She gave me a confused look before telling me that the fireworks had gone off an hour before as it was now 12.55. It turns out that the time had gone forward an hour between Ensenada and Cabo and none of us had realised. Thus, in short, I actually missed New Years. Despite this, we all had incredible nights. I ended up at the most incredible hotel I have ever seen with an American girl and all her douchebag friends. Chris fell asleep next to the dingy at about 11.00 and would have missed the whole night had James not tripped over him. He then met these two Mexican girls who drove him round town for a while before dropping him off miles away from the boat. Heaven knows what happened to Blair; he just had a crazy night. So, all in all, a good evening.
Unfortunately, James had had the brilliant idea of leaving port on New Year's Day as early as possible. I had woken at about seven o'clock, gone for breakfast in the scenic restaurant of the hotel and then taken a taxi back to the boat. I found a dishevelled crew nursing their hangovers wearing expressions that said 'please don't make us sail today.' But, of course, sail we did. Due to various reasons that I won't go into, Jack and Sam had decided to leave the boat in Cabo. This meant that we were two crew down for the three hundred mile voyage that lay ahead of us. Sailing the Black Wind is a challenge at the best of times; it is a heavy boat and everything from raising the sails to steering is labour intensive. Nothing more so, however, than raising the anchor by hand. There I was at eleven o'clock on New Years Day hauling a flipping great anchor off the seabed whilst my tired brain pulsed against my skull and my stomach churned. Happy New Year Kris. Things only got worse from there. In order to reach our next destination of Puerto Vallarta, we had to cross the mouth of the Sea of Cortez, where it meets the Pacific Ocean. When two seas meet like that, they kick up a nice swell and current. So there we were, five men feeling sorry for ourselves as we returned to the relentless motion, but this time with the added pleasure of a torturous hangover. To make matters worse, because we were two men short, the shift rota was amended. We now had to do two hours on, three hours off. It was horrific. No sooner had you fallen asleep than some bastard was waking you up telling you it was your turn to go on watch. It was a nice little taster of sleep deprivation. How we did not kill each other I will never know.
Three days of harrowing sailing later and we had reached Puerto Vallarta, a town lying in a sheltered bay just south of the Tropic of Cancer. Surrounded by jungle-laden mountains as far as the eye could see and home to hundreds of palm trees, it was a real tropical paradise. It was the biggest of the towns we had seen, with the marina sitting a fifteen minute bus journey from the town centre. As soon as we had tied the boat up, we ran away, desperate to get away from the boat before we got roped into cleaning the deck or some other pointless task. The marina was much the same as the others that we had seen, polished and swanky. It was surrounded by plush hotels and expensive restaurants. Hungry and poor, we enquired as to how to get to the main part of town where food would be cheaper. We were told to stand at a random point on the pavement, there was no bus stop, and wait for the bus there. Sceptical, we stood and waited next to a parked Jeep as instructed. But, sure enough, twenty minutes later something resembling a bus stopped right in front of us. The buses in Mexico are hilarious. It had no glass in the windows or doors; it was just a mistreated metal shell, with no suspension, full of plastic bucket seats. It's destinations were written on the windscreen in marker pen. I did not stop laughing for the whole fifteen minutes. I was sat next to the 'window' which had once been fitted with glass but had obviously been smashed through. The remaining glass wobbled worryingly as the driver careered down the cobbled streets with no regard for other road users. Every time he decided to stop to pick people up, a decision which seemed to be based on whether he liked the look of them or not, the breaks reverberated through your very core and made a sound akin to the decibel of a fog horn. Absolutely brilliant. Not bad for 35p. Once in town we realised that it was once again quite Americanised but more tastefully so than Cabo. Starbucks and McDonald's were now interspersed amongst the beautiful architecture and the ornate Mexican boutiques. The beach front was lined with extravagant open-fronted clubs that appeared to have all bought the same 'Now 77' CD. We had some good nights out, although you would find yourself dancing to the same four 'tunes' no matter which club you went to. Our favourite club was called 'The Little Cow.' It was evidently the local choice seeing as we were the only westerners in there. I saw this as my chance to try my hand at chatting to the fair chicas in Spanish. I failed miserably; trying to be funny in Spanish whilst the Black Eyed Peas persistently told me to 'party 'n' party, 'n' p 'n' p 'n' party' was quite a challenge. It must have been funny for the guys to watch me struggle though.
Of course our time in Puerto Vallarta was not all spent having fun; there was work to be done. We obviously looked bored or something so James was kind enough to fill our days by asking us to remove all of the paint from the deck. 'That's easy' you might think, 'just throw some paint stripper on there and Bob's your uncle,' you might say. Well, unfortunately, the paint was so old that it had bonded to the concrete super structure. Thus, I spent three days with a heat gun in one hand and a tiny scraper in the other, making painfully slow progress across the back of the boat. Fun. To put things into perspective, one Saturday whilst we were slaving away, all of the Mexican lads that worked on the beautiful boats around us looked upon us with pitying eyes as they had a little party on the dockside. That is when you know things are bad; when you are working harder than Mexicans, one of the most notoriously industrious peoples, and you are being paid less than them. It was a humbling experience. After a while, they began to feel so sorry for us that they invited us over to join them. It was one of their birthday's and so they had put on a bit of a spread. I had watched as one man skilfully prepared a gourmet shrimp and muscle salsa whilst sat astride a cool box. Quite a sight I can assure you. The food was incredible; so fresh and flavoursome. Supping my Corona, I felt like one of the guys. That was until they told me to put a suspicious home-made red sauce on my next tostado. I should have known better but I did not want to seem rude. All conversations stopped as the group of ten men watched me with baited breath as I applied the devil juice. At first I didn't think it was too bad but what a fool I was. Within twenty seconds my eyes were streaming, I was sweating and I couldn't touch my lips. It was as if someone had taken a blow-torch to the lower portion of my face. As I coughed and spluttered, trying my best to restrain my natural reaction to the fire that I had just ingested, the ten-strong group of men were bent over double in laughter. They could not get enough of it. Tears were streaming down their faces as they conversed quickly in Spanish before erupting into fresh bouts of laughter. Bastards. All in all, I think that I did us Brits proud....
Even though we worked quite hard during the week that we spent in Puerto Vallarta, we did have a good time and it was good fun getting to know the guys that worked in the marina. We even started to get worker's prices in the local taverna. It must have been such a strange concept to those guys as every other westerner in that place was rich and there we were, scraping paint of a fucking deck for $50. Good times.
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