On our way again...

Back to writing blogs on the iPad and hoping -with fingers crossed that the incredibly weak signal we are picking up -we can blast this out there into the blogosphere.

I turned 45 today. 
It's funny. 
Some birthdays just carry such a perplexing reality to them, that your brain simply short circuits.
The number will strike you as hilarious. 
"45! It's impossible! My mother is 45...Oh? Wait. She isn't anymore?"
Everyone's mother is 45 in my brain. 
And all grandparents are 60- forever.
And I am 22...only in a much smarter package.

Tropical storm Norman was the main event last week.
There were models predicting this and that and even though most of the badness of this fellow was to blow itself out before reaching our neck of the woods, things were still shifting and moving and re- developing enough ,that all us cruisers were on alert. Most of the energy of the storm hit the mainland but he did bounce over to our side and several sneaky tendrils of low pressure slunk towards us. We had some winds- nothing above 25 that I ever clocked but holy moly did we get rain...
Down, up, sideways, in your face, up your nose, in one ear and out the other...RAIN!!!

We hunkered down into the" waiting room" of Puerto Escondido. Now I know why it's called that. It's a small,  well protected anchorage outside the actual safe harbor of Escondido. Unlike the mooring field, it is not controlled by Marina Singlar- so it's free. Cruisers hang here and WAIT to see if things are gonna get REALLY nasty and if they do, they will just make a run into the main protected area and prepare for a big one.
We were near Manta and they've been here forever and through all kinds of weather so we just kept making our own predictions but knew we were under the tutelage of some wise folks if things got hairy.
It was just a few days of boat-school- get it done so you can play when the sun comes out!
And the solar oven obviously did not see any action.
Jon tinkered and brought Pura Vida back up to full speed. Even the secondary fuel filters got changed and old Perkie was humming away- fingers crossed and by the grace of Neptune- and sounding happy again.
Four days rain and the weather gods finally moved on to party elsewhere. The wind was blowing unseasonably from the North -solid for the next week- so we could not sail North as was intended. Jon hit a slump and was pretty blue. He had worked so hard to get us back on track and wanted to swim with those whale sharks in the WORST way...
Lucky us, Manta is always up for having fun... At the first sign of a break in the weather they called us up on the VHF.
"Hey you kids, we're heading out  for some divin'...come check it out if you're interested..."
Magic words for captain Juan and the crew...
Si, mas scuba, por favor!

Three days we've been with them, in three different anchorages.
Dawn has been wonderful and let me use her tank and kept Hunter busy diving for scallops and feeding sea urchins to schools of fish as jon and Kai and I follow Terry around the bottom of the Sea of Cortez.
I've never scuba dived in my life before these ventures with Manta- but I do ski. 
In all the years of that sport, I've never been able to afford a guided, back country- glacier heli-ski trip with a pro- but I have always wanted to. 
The freedom of being totally out of bounds just out there having that rush. You and nature.
Just awesome and natural.
This is what we have done for the last week, only underwater.
Back country, extremely awesome,  amazing dives. 
Maybe to a pro these are intermediate dives but jumping out of your Dink on the edge of a wall and dropping straight down a sheer cliff in a free fall to fifty feet and then sliding down the steep slope before the sea floor flattened out again- at 100 feet. 
Let's just say, it sure put the smile back on Jon's face.
For my part, I've never been the "jump out of planes" kinda girl- I like a slope. 
That first drop took some pluck for me. It was also pretty murky the first twenty, so once I lost Terry and Jon in bubbles and noticed that the rock face was sheer and this whole thing was gonna happen all at once, I was a little nervous.
I'm also not used to trusting in gear- other than ski bindings and boats -so I was thinking panicky thoughts and not being totally present.
"what about my mask? Will it pop off? Will my regulator fall out and I won't find it? Jesus...where's my ten-year old???"
At that moment, Kai, who had been ahead of me in our downward procession into the gloom -I could see nothing of him but bubbles-stopped and turned and swam back up to where I was ...pausing at thirty feet having a little minor mom freak-out.
He gave me a huge, beatific smile and reached out his hand.
" it's okay, mom" he mouthed at me, through his mask.
"come down with me."
I took his hand.
A minute later, we were at the bottom of the face in gin-clear water.
Kai pointed up, and smiled.
I looked back up at the geological sky-scraper above our heads. 
Huge schools of fish swirled around it like commuters on their way to work. 
Busy, busy, fish...giant Amarillo snapper, schools of Grunts and Chubbs, bold, enormous and colorful Bump-head parrot fish, Damsel fish, and hundreds of others.
I suddenly forgot to be nervous.
I got too absorbed in looking around.
We swam the slope poking around the rocks and peering in holes with Terry's flashlight, looking for Slipper lobster.
Terry had told me my mission, should I chose to accept it, would be to grab one of these suckers, once he had cleared the hole and determined it wasn't also inhabited by a giant moray.
Are you kidding me? I won't even put my hand down the garage disposal if it's jammed.
"Oh, dear god." i thought. " Just go with it, sister..."
Lucky me, there were  no slippers but we did see a GIANT Moray.
I swear, his head and jaws were as big as some kind of Tolkien dragon.
Kai was so happy with the whole scene down there, he landed on top of a huge boulder and busted some serious air-guitar.
Jon and I almost popped our masks we were laughing so much.
Our kid, happy and Natural- and surprisingly coordinated, in this baby giraffe-state of his life.
Kai swam over to Terry and looked at his dive computer. 
Terry smiled and gave him a "thumbs up".
I glanced at it.
93 feet...
"Holy $&@@!!" I turned to say to Jon but he and Kai were already high tailing it deeper.
Through a cloud of bubbles I watched Kai and his dad high-fiving each other as they got their first triple digits.
Terry had a shit-eating grin on his face.
What did I expect ? He was gonna Take us on a shallow water club med tour?
He's a Navy Seal, for goodness sake...
No way, man. This was REAL fun.
He knew we could handle it.

The next day, Terry and Dawn taught us how to search for lobster ...and scallops...after all it was my birthday- something had to go with those steaks we had thawing.
Kai found a  purple nudibranch and gift of all gifts, while I drifted above the guys, watching them stalk a lobster cave, I turned and was face to face , with a sleeping sea turtle, nested in a crack  right next to me, fiftyfeet below the surface.
Happy birthday, me.
He woke up and I scared him with my bubbles. Underwater, turtles take a while to get going because they shut their heart rate down to hold their breath, while they nap...so we had a good long look at each other befor he got his ticker pumping again and took off.

That was this morning.
Right now, I am lying in my bunk, sipping a margarita and listening to John Coltrane and my family is baking me a pink birthday cake in the solar oven.
I am 45.
Ain't that somethin'...:)