The Circle Game

We've fallen in love and as everyone knows...

love affairs are a game-changer.

The Sea of Cortez cast a spell on us.

We're hooked. We can't leave.

We're not done with the creamsicle sunrises or the empty anchorages, the quiet and the Ospreys,

the clean blue water and great fishing.

We love the Sea and the sleepy, dream-people that live here,

the one's who wave from their Pangas or stop us on the street to touch Hunter's hair and smile at Kai.

So...we're turning around.

We're heading back up into the Sea-for a few more months.

As it turns out, when we (me) were laid up (in the head) with the Funk last week, 

battling the Questions and the Doubts and the Fears...

A Sea Change was taking place.

The weather and the currents and invisible Forces, were construing to remake our plans and somewhere in there, Manta emailed us with an offer we couldn't refuse.

A few weeks ago, up in Rosalia, we had come across a used compressor for sale.

The boat selling this essential (and expensive) piece of dive gear, passed through Escondido and Terry had checked it out for us.

It was a good deal-only it was electric and needed a gas engine.

As Fate would have it ( and Fate usually gets her way), Terry happened to have the exact engine for it. 

It was languishing on a shelf in a consignment shop.

He could sell us the engine and show us how to rejig it.

Jon was busy running around, up North, gathering supplies and waiting for parts that had been shipped to his mom's house when he got an email from Manta.

" If you guys come back up here, I could help you put my engine on that compressor and...

You could continue to dive with us, train up (and by the way the yellowtail are back and it's sashimi season)..."

Kia and Hunter were already giving me enthusiastic head-nods as I read them the same email back aboard Pura Vida.

"...and if you want to, come January, you can follow Manta out to San Benedicto island..."

This was an extraordinary offer. 

The Revillagigado Islands are on many a Bucket List but few people will actually ever get to go there.

The " Mexican Galapgos,"  lie 300 miles South West of Cabo San Lucas and they are famous for their abundant sea life.

Turtles , Dolphins, Whales, Whale sharks and Hammerheads , big pelagic fish and most awe inspiringly, the giant Manta Rays,

call this small cluster of volcanic islands home.

Jon called me right away.

'Did you see Manta's email?" he asked.

He was on his way back to us with the new auto pilot arm.

We had planned  to put it in and sail across the sea to the Mainland.

That was the plan.

"I did". I said.

We both knew that Ugga Bugga and the nice Brazilian couple who owned her (and the compressor Terry was talking about) were anchored not far from us in La Paz.

We also knew that they wanted 2500 hundred bucks for it-a fortune to us but a steal for a good compressor.

Jon did not have an agenda. He was genuinely asking me, what I wanted to do.

I have been talking about going surfing for months.

"I read your last post." he said.

"about not running away so fast..."

but there was excitement and a note of adventure in his voice that he couldn't hide from me.

I did want to go surfing. That was true.

I was looking forward to seeing the "other side" and the culture of the mainland.

But there were other things, that I wanted.

Things I had not been thinking before.

I had been reading about the Revillagigedo islands and Socorro and Benedicto...

Kai and I were dreaming about diving long before we met Terry and Dawn.

I had also been feeling there was still so, so much we hadn't done in the Sea.

Surely, Hurricane  Paul had unearthed new fossils.

We had not had a chance to explore the many cave paintings made by ancient peoples.

I had only identified three or four of the fifty Blennies one could spot hiding in their underwater holes.

We had never seen a frog fish.

Or a whale shark...

We have only just begun to learn how to go slow and we aren't even any good at it yet.

We want to get really, really good at unhurried and unworried.

We want to be the Bodhisattas of Chill-

who have unlearned the habits of constant and continuous desire, who find bliss on an empty beach, who's fortunes are kept in a clam shell, who walk the Middle Path-

between the Cardon cactus and the tequila bar.

Maybe then, and only then, will we have scratched the surface of what the Sea of Corez has offered to teach us.

" Well?" asked Jon.  

"...what do you think?"

Terry and Dawn had promised to take us to some of their secret dive spots.

They had offered to lend us their equipment, as we don't have our own tanks yet.

"But the compressor is so expensive..." I whispered, still clinging to habitual Fear.

I could hear the smile in Jon's voice-before he spoke.

"I'm holding a residual check in my hand..." 

( he was laughing now)

because it was for the exact amount.

The message from the Universe was clear.

You don't argue with the big 'U".

Kai's vote was in. Hunter's vote was in.

More diving. 

More Tigger and Dawn.

More chuckles with Terry.

And maybe, hopefully, there would be a giant Manta Ray in our future.

Besides, as Terry pointed out, surfing the Mainland is an easy broad reach from the islands.

If that's still a plan.

So, we bought the compressor and put it on the deck and made ready to untie our dock lines...

and then, the phone rang.

It was the agents from LA,

wondering if Jon was available to fly up to test for a pilot that shoots in Boston...

starting Thursday.

Here we go...again.

Our new toy