You can find my January, February and March Journals here...

As business once again became an important part of our life , I can now see clearly that I stopped writing from my heart and started writing for other reasons. Let's see what happens this next few months in Paradise. I always seem to find more time to work on my site when the season slows down. We still have a few months filled with visitors... or more?

Translator
My Mother in Law on occasion needs me to assist with translating when someone comes to her for Herbs or Plants or for assistance with a medical problem. Yesterday while swimming in front of her casa, she sent me some hand signals asking for assistance. I got out of the water. At the casa was a friend of mine. To start, she had some basic questions for him, what the level of pain was and for how many days... Then it got wacky!!! She asked about his Bijena that was swollen... ??? Did she just ask about his swollen whale? I sat it between shock and confusion.... As he asks what she said... I carefully ask for some clarity, yes she says again, put this medicine not in, but on the swollen bijena... I looked at her as I definitely needed the translator... she says to me ... the bijena, with her hands in a vee'd position... a bejina? AND THEN IT FINALLY HIT HOME... the b sounds like v thang... vijina.... vijina, she says a few times...ohh... vagina!!! I then tried to figure out what it had to do with my obviously male friend... Ill tell you it actually got worse from there but we all got through it... sometimes I only get the main subject and the little details are hard to catch...this was a great example.... sort of a who's on first , in another language.

History
I've just started a new project this last week and its off to a great start! Along with Carolyn McCall, Cliff Barney and Tomas David del Solar , we are taking another pass at researching the local history of our communidad. More than ten years ago, Carolyn and Cliff collected a notebook filled with notes and maps from the Bancroft Library in Berkeley. Who isn't interested in the history of where you live.... Yelapa and its surrounding areas are full to the brim with stories, culture and adventures , crying out to be told, again...

Another Project
Do you see an ongoing theme here? Today, I had the good fortune to meet with a group of Locals who are interested in building a relationship between Yelapa and the University of New Mexico. Levi, a Professor who specializes in Creative Writing and Architecture, joined us in creating a number of ways that we can work together. Our first step is to identify the needs of the community. Got any ideas? I can't imagine they will be hard to find!

Quilly, actually Loba....
The other night we had a big quincenera and it included many visitors from the ranches above. Arriving from Chacala was Adon and with him was a friend. As soon as they entered the casa, his friend says , Incredible! that's my dog! Huh? I explain that it might look like his dog but surely can't be his dog, even though she just showed up to our property about three months ago,very near death... no, he explained, this is my dog for sure! he bent down and pointed to each little scar on her body and proceeded to tell us the story of her life. About how she was the one of his best dogs that worked with his family on their ranch in Tecuani. She has tons of expediter working with cows and various animals. Her brother died from a snake bite and Loba , her real name was depressed. At one point she had stopped eating and then one day, more than 7 hours by horse away, walked away. He searched the ranches and jungle for her, not even thinking she would somehow appear to us here in Yelapa. I sat in amazement as I always wondered of her past life. Loba is now pregnant and we have one friend that would love one of her pups!

I got behind, again...
I'm not far off, but I havent found much time to update things here. I'm getting about twenty five email a day and its work keeping up, especially for same day reponse... I say I will respond, the same day I recieve it , I should rephrase that to, the same day I read it...

Dave and Dee Dee
The big day for a Yelapa Wedding is just around the corner. Take a look at their website, It's full of good, unbiased info... except Dave saying you only need to link to my friend, David's site... palapainyelapa.com is very usefull also.. and that's my biased opinion!

Luis and Wendy... making a difference!
Yelapa's House of Imagination opened its doors this month. It's Director and Staff are headed up by this dynamic couple, who are also expecting a baby in a few months. The idea of a center for Yelapa youth has been long talked about, just as in many cities across the world. We are lucky to have them both here in Yelapa and all their positive energy to feed off... Yelapa is changing ... and its for the good... I think...

Speaking about Changes...
We are getting closer to a new location for our tortilliaria. Also add more gas powered vehicles to town. That makes six! If you count Antonio's riding rototiller... Lots of contruction going on! Trucks from Tuito arrive every morning at 7:30 am, full of material to be unloaded and hand carried to the jobsite. There is so much work going on that there are two different crews here daily from Vallarta and Ixtlahuey. Rain is coming and we all know it... The pier by the hotel is being repaired and a path right off the water is being put in and work has begun already. The project began, a few months ago, on the beach and was recently relocated by the federal government. Tino's has a new tenant renting, on the beach. They offer trance and jungle music at night and beds during the day, right on the beach. What a nice combination... what other town offers you double beds to relax on, during your beach visit? Casa Palmas/ Ruby's/ Xipi Totec/ The clinic, The giant palapa across the river from the beach... which ever you knew it by... has been rented and is getting ready for a new life... and just in time! Plans for rooms/food/bar and much more are slated for the upcoming future. A new roof is being started this week... congrats... Greg and Pierre... It's one of Yelapa's Jewels!

Flailed
Once again finding the time to write, didn't happen. So you all, will just have to be happy with what I got accomplished... As April ends, Yelapa is slowing down and getting hotter. The ocean has been smooth. Life in paradise is way busy but amazing....

Angelfish
Here is Angel, a local woodworker with the catch of the day...

Raicilla
We are out of Raicilla and Im off on a road trip via Motorcycle up to Moscotita to find some fresh Raicilla. Here is a pic of Manuel, the owner of my favorite taverna. Ill let you know about my visit soon.

My wife, the President
My wife isn't only the boss but she's the president. This Sunday, Vero was elected the President of the Casa de Imagination, our local center for the arts and culture. I am very proud of her and have a ton of confidence in the organization. We are on the last leg of getting our non profit status and registration with the State. The casa is filled with kid's every day the doors are opened. Once Again...Viva Yelapa!

Call me Maestro
This week myself and Alicia, Aldo's wife have started offering English classes to kids. Our first class was a success! I have always had an idea to teach a class to teens here in Yelapa on how to be a guide. I have a feeling the class is just around the corner.

My Dad visits...
From Palm Springs area, my Dad made a five day visit to our paradise. It was a great visit and now refecting, the most time I have spent with him in the last 20 years. Most of the days, he followed me on my rounds through town. Our casa loved the projects he accomplished too! It was great to see him playing with my kids. Thanks Dad...come back soon.

Pongas
While doing some late night searching, I found this in a blog...

Pangas
If there is any thing ubiquitous in Mexico it is the Pangas. They are everywhere, the universal Mexican work boat. Picture them: A twenty foot long, low, narrow, hard chined open fiberglass boat, universally painted white. They are flat sided and flat-bottomed, with a high, flared, pointed bow and a square transom. They are universally driven by a big a outboard motor manually started and steered by a tiller. These boats seem so well suited to their use that it is hard to imagine any other craft which could serve so well.

Pangas usually have a Spanish name crudely painted on the bow, like Chivato, or Irena, and usually blue painted inside. Pangas have no cabin or interior, just a long, lean, open boat with two or three seat thwarts across them and a distinct lack of decoration or frills. The gunnel is just fiberglass curled down over the side, and the bow always rides high and proud, above the waves.

With their flat bottoms, these boats can only achieve a reasonable ride in rough water by their length and by the fact that the driver and passengers ride at the far rear. While the bow may bounce up with the waves, the rear remains implacable, the pivot point for the bow's motion, and the back of the boat is the platform for people.

We've seen these pangas everywhere.
We've ridden in them as ferry boats.
We've bought fish from their drivers at the side of WINGS, and we saw them run up the beach out of the breakers at Yelapa, motors tilted and propellers racing in the air.
We saw the Mexican Navy patrolling in them and saw them hanging from the sides of the most modern Mexican Navy ships as tenders.

They are in every little town and fish camp, just pulled up on the beach or hanging off of a anchor right off the shore. We saw a pair of them heading south down the middle of the Sea of Cortez, late in a sunny afternoon, 100 miles from the nearest town, driving into a steep chop with the bows rising and falling, throwing spray thirty yards with a pounding you could hear half a mile away, but never wavering from their courses, seemingly on an eternal journey.

In every Panga there is the Mexican driver, standing at the back just ahead of the motor, his left hand on the motor handle, facing forward, towards the sea ahead, immobile, going onward.

Often there is just one person, but just as often there are two or three people, frequently they are all standing, like statues, in the back of the pangas. I wonder where they are going. Who are these men? They remind me of the afterguard on a racing sailboat, they just stand there in command, riding the vessel as it goes on it's way, patiently waiting for Godot or something.

They have big plastic jugs, which look like milk bottles or something, for gasoline, with a simple hose out the top to feed the fuel to the motors, and often the owner has stretched a T-shirt over the motor to protect it from the sun. For anchors they have a big rusty hook welded out of re-bar and the only lines I've seen them use are yellow polyethylene.

I have the highest regard for the Mexican Panga drivers. They live in these boats and they are out in all conditions, facing all that the sea can deliver, with an almost fatalistic acceptance of it all, no, it is more like a studied disregard; the conditions just have to be dealt with, not to be made a big deal out of.

The panga drivers are masters of maneuvering too. I heard that they would pile into our side and scratch our paint, and I worried about that, but never, never, have they even come close to bumping into us, even when the driver is trying to stay along side trying to sell us fish or lobsters in a running sea, or making change after I bought some, and he is still keeping a running chatter in mixed Spanish and English and managing to keep his 85hp merc's speed
exactly adjusted to WINGS' speed.

They are master boatmen plus they have been universally friendly. They always wave as they pass, and they are polite when you talk to them, and they are absolutely honest, in our experience.

For each of them there is a family back ashore. In Aqua Verde we watched as the Pangas returned. The kids on the beach watched each panga as it pulled in, and looked at each fisherman's catch, but when their father or brother came around the point they cavorted joyously and then were absolutely focused as that boat drew nearer and finally came in. They caught lines, waded into the water to steady the sides and took ashore the catch, and did what ever they could to be part of the scene, obviously adoring the returning fisherman.

It was really the Mexico we came to see, and we love them all.

So when you come to Mexico and you see a sunburned Mexican zoom up alongside in his Panga to offer you taxi service, treat him with respect and remember, these are the seamen of Mexico; they truly represent the best of the Mexican people and the tradition of the sea.

Fred & Judy, SV WINGS, Mexico

Update (what the hells going on here?) 6/12/05
Well.... I'm redesigning palapainyelapa.com... It involves learning some new technologies and as an old dog, it takes a while to do so.... I'm very excited about life presently! There is so much happening! Thanks for your patience, as always.