October 1997
Hi! I’m Alec. I am 15 and I have lived on the Shadowfox, for all but three months of my life. I like to read, play computer games, listen to music, and play assorted sports games. Most of all, though, I live for the moment. This trip comes at a bad time in my life. I am now in High School and this time is a high point in my social life. I am “kinda” excited about going and traveling to exotic places. I hope the trip will be fun.
December 1997
Well, now we’re in Mexico and we’ve stayed in Cabo San Lucas for about two weeks. It was a bit of fun when my friends were her but now it’s getting kinda dull. Anyway, I kinda like Mexico. You can buy anything you want, cheap, and the people are cool, too. I have made friends with some of the locals working in the office and at the fuel dock. I got a laser pointer for Christmas and I’ve been showing it to them and scaring people with it. Well, I still miss my friends and that’s kinda hittin’ me a little harder now that I’m here with no friends, really.
February 1998
We have now been to the islands north of La Paz. The sea life in these islands is incredible! They have every type of tropical fish in the Sea of Cortez. The beautiful life of the ocean is in a complete array of colors and shapes. They have fish that look like eels, and rays, and just like fish. The sea lions here are great, so playful and happy, yet aggressive if you come too close. The sea lions would jump out of the water and do flips under you. The fish don’t even seem to notice you until you are inches away when they swim away and go back to floating around. You can almost catch the fish with your hands! The reefs where the sea life live are not coral but rock with barnacles and other crustaceans covering the surfaces. Even the rock and shellfish add to the color array.
Unfortunately, the life on the land is not as nice. There are crabs, roaches, and scorpions. These make up a dangerous and disgusting array of small creatures that do no appeal to the eye. You have to watch where you walk or hike because if you get stung by a scorpion you will probably die before you can get treatment. Still it doesn’t retract from the beauty of the place, that is of course if you like desert beaches, salt marshes, mangroves, or rock cliffs. The flora of the place is mainly dry trees or cactus but you will find the mangroves, and a kind of rubber like tree. If you ever go hiking here, make sure you where hiking shoes, or at least tennis shoes. DO NOT wear sandals. I did and I stepped of three cacti that blended in with the ground. So watch where you step!
The city of La Paz is very large and I only got to see the first part of it. The part I did see was the downtown area. They have all the shops that we have but more of them. There is a shoe store on every block, for instance. They have a movie theatre and fast food places and music shops. It’s pretty cool if you ask me. I like this town much better than Cabo San Lucas. It has much more flavor.
Mexico is getting to be much more fun. By the way I just saw whales out my window at about 10:45. They were breaching!!!
July 1998
Well it’s me Alec again, with the latest and greatest in web page update. We are now in Mazatlan. I suppose all in all that I’ve had a pretty good time here in Mazatlan. There are tons of things to do with your friends here. You can go to movies, swim, surf, shop, eat, and just walk around town. Then again if you don’t have friends here it can get pretty boring. I mean why go to a movie all alone. It’s kinda pointless. I guess you could swim, surf, and shop by yourself but it gets dull. When I first got here there were like seven other kids besides us here so we always had things to do, but now there is no one here and I’m bored.
Still if I were ever to come back to Mexico I would definitely come back to Mazatlan because I know it better than anywhere else and I kinda like it too. It would be a great place to spend spring break in college with your friends, partying and go to the beach all the time. As long as you came with your friends, of course. The pools at El Cid Mega resort are incredible. There are waterfalls and a slide, it’s so cool. I have gone to the Marina El Cid hotel everyday for the past couple of days and I love how the pools have caves and waterfalls that you can dive from. I make friends there all the time and the employees are all really polite and cheerful.
If you’re coming on a kinda cultural expedition I can suggest a place too. There is the Angela Peralta opera house which is named after a famous Mexican diva who was supposed to perform at the opera house but died of yellow fever before being able to sing.
November 1998
It’s been a while so I’ll just fill you in on the last couple of months. In early September, we started an R.V. trip from LA to southern Canada, down the east coast to North Carolina and then west back to Los Angeles. We arrived yesterday in Calabasas, CA, where one of my Aunts lives. We’ll stay here until the 24th of November and then head back to Mazatlan, Mexico.
We decided to go on this trip because we didn’t want to stay in Mazatlan for the entire year and the heat/humidity had a large effect on that decision as well. When we came back to the U.S., we headed for northern CA and our grandma’s house. My sisters saw their friends again for the last time(I think) but I got sick on the way up and stayed that way well into our actual trip. Our first major stop on the road was a lumber mill. We saw how they de-bark the tree and cut it into the planks and boards used for wood furnishings and houses. Then we continued north through Oregon and stopped at Mt. St. Helens. This volcano blew its top in the early 80’s and lost half the mountain in the process. The blast destroyed thousands of acres of forest and killed many people. There was a man who was filming the eruption from a nearby peak and was the first to see the mountain blow. He was killed when the landslide of rock, trees and ash hit his station and now there is a museum where he once stood.
Next we went to Seattle where we saw some old cruising buddies who are going to come down again this year. They are expecting a new baby very soon, good luck guys. Then we were off into Canada visiting more cruising friends who are also heading down this year and we stayed with them for a couple of days. It was pretty cool and we liked it more since we hadn’t gotten used to the tiny confines of the R.V.. It was even smaller than our boat. After our visit we started west across Canada and stopped in many beautiful places. Best of all was Banff, my mom and dad’s favorite vacation stop. We spent almost a week hiking around lakes and enjoying the scenery. We were visited by friends here too. They drove down from Edmonton to see us and go to the hot springs. That was pretty cool. The hot springs were great. If you ever have the chance to go to one, don’t pass it up. It doesn’t really smell at all, only the faintest trace of sulfur.
Soon after leaving Banff, we came to a glacier. That’s a huge mountain of ice and snow that melts very, very slowly or grows the same. The receding glaciers caused many of the Canadian peaks to form and other mountain ranges around the world. Our next real stop was Niagara Falls. It was very beautiful and awe-inspiring. At night the Falls are lit up by enormous spotlights of different colors that shift around the water in a wonderful display of color. We went under the Falls too, or rather behind them. It was okay but really all you could see was a wall of white. I think it would have been really tight if we went back there at night and saw the falls lit up from behind. One thing though, I would never take my honeymoon there, way to many tourists. Anyway, we spent a couple of days there and then headed north up to Montreal. Montreal is a nice city. It’s a lot like any big city in some ways but in others it’s more like a large town. The buildings are all of medium height unlike New York, which is all skyscrapers, but they aren’t small enough for a suburb. I didn’t really like the city much because it was really ritzy and pretty boring- looking too. Although it did have an underground city, which I think is really cool, it was only a mall instead of a real part of the city.
Montreal was our last real stop in Canada and over the next few days we made our way down to Boston, MA, and saw all the historical sights along the Freedom road. We also saw the USS Constitution, which is one of the oldest ships still floating. We went onboard the ship and heard a talk about how it was manned and the life aboard, then went to the museum and saw old artifacts from its days of service. Our next stop along the east coast was Mystic, Connecticut. There we had Mystic Pizza, which was delicious, and watched the movie “Mystic Pizza.” It was kinda fun to see where the movie was filmed. We next went to Plymouth Rock, where the settlers on the Mayflower landed and saw the rock. It was sad, it’s just this little rock that’s the size of an office desk with the numbers “1620” on it for when the Pilgrims first landed. That was real disappointing. I was expecting to see a rock at least the size of a car, but noooo. Here’s some more Plymouth Rock trivia – the rock originally stood in the center of the road and when they tried to move it broke into two pieces.
Anyway, we then headed west to New Jersey and the next day took the train and subway into New York. This was an interesting couple of days. On the first day, we went to the World Trade Center, got on a bus and drove around the city. We also went to the top of the Empire State Building and looked out over all of Manhattan Island. We saw the traffic jams full of cabs and trucks, we saw the high rises and we saw the sun begin to set. It was a good day. The next day we were supposed to go shopping in all the designer stores but we ended up taking this long bus ride through Harlem and uptown to an art museum, getting there an hour before it closed for the night and freaking out about it. The museum was kinda cool at times since half of it was like Medieval armor and swords. Those things were huge and were made of pure iron so I bet they weighed a ton. I wouldn’t have wanted to try and use one, uh uh. Well, the next day was our last in New York state. We spent it at an outlet shopping mall. This is where all the cool stores have all their stuff for cheaper prices. I got some $65 pants and a $30 dollar shirt for like 50 bucks. If I lived there that’s the only place I would go shopping. The next day we started south to Jamestown and Williamsburg. Both were kinda cool in that old fashioned sort of way. We saw glassblowers and the original sight of the Jamestown fort. We saw the original Church, restored of course, it was tiny. It could maybe fit fifty people with half of them standing.
After that, we started the long trip back across the country to California. We stopped in Kentucky to see the Corvette Museum and Factory. It was kinda cool to see the old models and new concept designs that they have on display there and the factory was kinda interesting too. My favorite Corvette is the 1999 coupe, white with a tan interior. Our only other real stops for the rest of the way were in Arizona. We saw the Meteor-Crater there and went for a hike around the rim. The astronauts who are going to the moon and Mars come there to train for mountainous terrain. We saw some of their equipment down in the middle. The crater itself is almost a mile wide and has a circumference of about three miles. From the top, it seems more like twenty miles and it also looks really deep. After our trip to the crater we drove a couple of hours and went to our friends house that live in Chandler. We spent three days there and I had a pretty good time. It was cool seeing people I hadn’t seen in like six months. We left there for LA and here we are sittin’ pretty in LA just messin’ around.
Peace out
March 1999
Hi everyone, I know it’s been a while but here I go.
I am in Puerto Vallarta now after sailing down from Mazatlan. (We have also traveled further south to Barra de Navidad.) When we got back to Mazatlan, we had two hectic weeks of getting ready for our first real sailing trip in over ten months. It was a rush to get things put away and to provision but we finished in time and headed for the San Blas and Chakala anchorages. We sailed slowly down the two hundred mile stretch from Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta (PV), seeing dolphins, whales, and tuna by the school. It was a lazy week. Then we arrived in PV and started to rush around, learning the city and getting familiar with people here. We spent our days in school and my older sisters and I spent our nights at the local night club, dancing and playing pool. Then we had Christmas vacation for two weeks!
After about a month, we headed south again, meeting up with a friend from last year and cruising down to Barra de Navidad. We stayed south for a couple of weeks, enjoying the sun and the great pools at the hotel there. We spend our mornings in school, afternoons swimming and “hangin” with the workers at the hotel and playing volleyball, and our nights “messin with friends” in the little town there, seeing the local people and hanging around, basically being your average tourist. It’s great! Barra de Navidad ruled.
On our way back to PV, we took our time staying in each anchorage (Tenacatita and Chamela) a couple nights and swimming a lot. In Tenacatita, we found a river that is navigable by dingy. I think Tenacatita was my favorite place we visited in the past month because of this jungle river ride. It was really great to go down speeding in my dingy through the mangrove jungles and chasing white birds through the canyons of green and blue. We took the three mile ride a couple of times. Then I felt confident about heading through the narrows where there are bare inches on either side of the dingy and trying to slide the corners at full speed without hitting any sharp branches. “Popping my ride?” That would have really been bad since the river’s got alligators and snakes and nastiness like that. Still the ride was pretty cool. We raved through, sometimes brushing the mangrove walls on both sides or sliding through with just inches to spare. It was very exhilarating.
Well then…our little cruise south was fun but pretty much uneventful and I’m glad to be back in civilization. Now, being back in PV I am continuing school and hanging about the hotels meeting girls and going to night clubs. I love Mexico.
May 1999
Well then, we are back in Mazatlan, after two attempts to leave for the South Pacific and eventually Australia. I am glad that we didn’t go because I think it’s crazy to be at sea for 25 days without seeing land and then getting to an island and having to stop and go on more long sea voyages.[Not my idea of fun]. I understand why my parents are sad though. They have been saving to go west for years and how that dream is over. We must go on with life and maybe back to the rat-race of the United States.
In the future I hope we come back to Mexico after spending the summer visiting in California. I enjoyed this year’s cruising much better than last year’s and I am looking forward to a repeat. I am also looking forward to seeing my family for the summer and then returning for and season in Mexico. My only worry is school, ….. What will I do for college?! I don’t know yet and it’s kind of daunting not to know what to do when an episode of your life is over. Most people don’t face this kind of problem and I guess I am a little worried about what will happen in two years.
October 1999
Well, okay…it’s been forever since I last did this so this one will be kinda long.
After we finally left Puerto Vallarta to start West for the South Pacific, a few bad things happened. First, my dad didn’t feel comfortable in continuing across the ocean and so we turned back to leave another day. The second time we headed west we turned around after about three days because my mom was very seasick. This situation was very dangerous because she was becoming more and more dehydrated as she lost all fluids to vomit. This second return to Puerto Vallarta caused us to rethink our plans.
We decide to go north into the Sea of Cortez rather than keep trying to do something so many of us were “iffy” about. And so we began to head back up the coast toward Mazatlan where we had spent nearly the entire year before. When we finally arrived after around a week’s solid sailing we took a quick breather and relaxed and sat about the area for another week. Then our friends, on a boat called “Baloo,” arrived and we began to prepare for the two days crossing back to La Paz.
When we arrived in La Paz, determined to spend no more than a week in town. We wound up spending closer to two weeks, preparing to sail all the way to San Carlos with almost nowhere to re-provision on the way. We left La Paz, and quickly breezed by the islands we had visited the previous year, trying to head for new areas and better scenery.
At a nice little cove called “Puerto Ballandra,” we met a guy around 14 with whom we quickly made friends. He turned out to be from California, as well, and we were over at his boat almost every night for around two weeks. He also had a wakeboard and kneeboard. Meghan and I quickly got into both and we spent days just messing around on the water with his dad. I pretty much ruled the kneeboard while Meghan and Kevin used the wakeboard. When Kevin had to go back south to La Paz and we were alone again, we spent our days sailing and doing school and using our homemade rope swing until our hands blistered. Finally when we arrived in a tiny town called Santa Rosalia we met a 17 year old girl and “hung out” with her for a few days. In town, they have an odd site, a church made completely of metal. It was a tribute to the town’s heritage of mining. When we reluctantly left both Solana and the town, we made our way quickly to San Carlos.
There is only one good thing for me to say about that town, it doesn’t smell. I hated it with a passion, there was nothing to do and no one to meet with the exception of two cousins from Colorado that we “hung out with” for a few days and passed the time trying to keep cool. When my dad finally went north to buy us a car and come back to pick us up, we knew it might be the last time we stayed in Mexico for any length of time and I felt a little reluctant to leave.
That feeling passed quickly as we again entered the U.S. and headed almost straight north toward Canada with stops only in Chandler, Arizona, to visit our friends the Bergets, and Lake Powel. As we made our way up the middle of the U.S., we visited many small places and saw beautiful scenery. Again, we went to Banff and Lake Louise. This time we actually hiked most of the Lake Louise’s trail and saw much more of the area around the town of Banff.
Next, we went almost straight west to Victoria with only a stop in Seattle to visit our friends and their baby. In Victoria, we spent a week or more with our friends we met on the boat, “Cuckoo’s Nest.” My sisters and I spent most of the time with our friend, Shaun, and his friends. It was probably the best week of the past couple of months.
After our prolonged stay there we went to Port Angeles, Washington and looked at houses and schools and the area around the town to see whether it would be a good place to live. We spent much longer there than I think we should have but I guess that’s how long it took. Then we started south again and finally wound up back in California with our family and old friends again. We spent almost two months there, living in my Grandma’s house and now we are house-sitting for a friend in Santé Fe, New Mexico. I really hate this place, there is nothing to do and no one to meet. The only redeeming factor is the recreation center down the street where we go to play racquetball and swim almost every day. I’m looking forward to returning to the West coast.
Well, that is it for this update, hope you enjoyed.