Vegas was a bust, but Mazatlán happened

It's been awhile since I've updated my what's ups and happenings, the blame is a cracked tablet screen and my general inability to continue with ongoing projects. I have recently (finally) bought a camera so future posts will have images included. I'm posting on Instagram  and Tumblr now. They're going to help feed image updates to keep the blog current. Much easier to post images and write a little bit about it, I'm extremely lazy when it comes to writing.

The last time I posted about my crazy life I mentioned I was going to Las Vegas with the promise of serious party tales. It did not happened and Vegas was a bust, however something awesome did happen… Mazatlán, Mexico happened. 

After I got paid for the month of March I was set to go to Vegas but I got seriously ill, my niece came home one day with a diagnosis of the Whooping Cough. Everyone in the house got sick and had to take antibiotics, myself included. I was very surprised that I got sick,  because I'm a "sewer rat" that's impervious to everything.

During my illness, I didn't want to write or post anything… I was too ashamed of not following through on my promises. I was however checking out Craigslist everyday, as I usually like to do, when I came across an ad for someone looking for crew help on his sailboat in Mexico. 

I answered his ad with interest, the ad had a trip timeframe  in which I was sure I wouldn't still be sick. I've never crewed a sailboat before so I was curious if I could even be accepted.

After answering the ad, we were in contact with one another that same day. "Captain Joe" was the owner and he described what the trip was about. 

His boat was in a marina in Los Cabos, Mexico with a busted mast, and he needed to get the boat to La Paz to repair it. The total trip was planned for 5 days, 2 of which would be sailing to La Paz. 

This sounded pretty badass so I asked if we could meet in person, Captain Joe didn't even ask if I had experience so I wanted to make sure I could lock the trip down. Also I wanted to see what this dude was like, after all we did meet on Craigslist. Captain Joe agreed to meet and that he would stay in touch. 

He never contacted me and I noticed that his ad kept running, I assumed he was skipping me over which didn't bother me because I still was planning on going to Las Vegas. After about a week and a half he told me he was leaving in two days and that I was welcome to go with him. I was feeling much better by then and was soon on my way to Las Vegas. 

The short notice and the fact we never met yet bothered me, I didn't say that but Captain Joe could detect it in my voice. He explained that he was lining up two of his friends to go with him but they bailed on him last minute. The trip still was interesting to me so we agreed to meet later that day. 

Captain Joe was in his late 30s but looked older, older than me in fact. After talking with him about the trip and seeing how harmless he was I was ready to go, right there on the spot I bought tickets online for the same flight as the captain. 

Two days later we met at Portland International Airport to fly to Los Cabos together. I was really excited to be traveling again, and international travel at that. Since I've been out of prison and off probation it's been over 12 years that I've left the country. I did my research and wasn't worried about being hassled at the border because of my felonious past, Mexico isn't too concerned with that. 

The flight wasn't long, just a few hours from Portland. When we arrived in Los Cabos, checking through customs was fast and it wasn't long before we were outside the airport. The security was pretty tight, several dozen Federales armed with American made automatic weapons were everywhere. 

The Captain and I took a local bus to the marina where his boat was, the boat had been at this marina for almost a year already because of it's inoperable status. In reality the boat was functional by motor since that's how we were taking it to La Paz, but as a fun sailingboat it was dead and stinking since losing the mast. 

When we arrived to the boat, I was really pleased with it. It had room enough for 5 people to sleep and a nice size deck to chill on. Since we wanted to check out the tourisity stuff later that evening we got right to work with buying and loading provisions for the trip to La Paz the next morning. 

Los Cabos has potential for being a party party place, in fact we were there for Easter weekend which is huge for Mexicans. They were arriving in droves to camp for the weekend on all the beaches up and down the coast. The Captain and I walked along the beach to check out the scene, after buying my ticket for the flight I didn't have any drinking money. I was hoping the Captain would get into a drinking mood and buy a few ice buckets full of beers but I  would learn later he is a hardcore Christian. It was still fun to revel at the fun others were having. 

That evening I did buy myself two pints of Barcardi and some cokes to drink as we walked around, the evening was festive and I still had fun drinking from the sidelines of all the packed bars. If I had enough money at the time I would've partied pretty good since the evening was so special. 

The next day I was slightly hungover, I didn't drink an enormous amount of alcohol like I'm acustommed to doing. Thank God for that because I had my concerns about getting sick on the trip to La Paz. I was on a boat from Oahu to Maui once and it was the scariest trip I've ever taken, the constant swell and motion of the high waves had me so nauseous.

This trip turned out to be so peaceful and calm that at times it was actually scary, the water was so smooth and motionless that the only sound out there was from the motor of the boat. It just gave me such an eerie feeling, like it was an extreme calm foreboding something to come. 

Many times pods of dolphins came to the bow of the boat and swam along with us, I wish I was able to get some pics of that. In the distance I saw a variety of huge game fish jumping from the water, I was in a totally new world from what I was used to. 

When it started to get dark Captain Joe put the boat into a small bay for the night. In the distance along the beach of the bay were dozens of campfires burning with parties all around. It was cool to hear all the laughter and music in the distance as I nodded off to sleep, I was so tired. 

The next morning I went up on deck to look at the beach, now that it was light I could count the tents and cars there were. The bay was super small and seemed like a prime piece of property judging by the beautifully luxurious houses built along it. Barely anyone was to be seen as it was early, I had a feeling everyone was just then getting to sleep. 

Not long after the Captain and I woke up we were on our way to complete the trip to La Paz. The second part of the trip was much much shorter and we made it to La Paz with several hours of daylight to spare. It was also during this part of the journey where I broke my tablet and was unable to continue with the blog for so long. 

Now that I have this working tablet and new camera I will be able to keep at this blog better, at least with images and captions.