Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Crazy-ass Zodiac driver. Huge humpback whales. Edited thoughts about the beautiful woman also on this Excursion.
So – this is my first experiencing with getting off the boat in a foreign country. Grafitti and trah doesn’t make for a flattering first-impression, but old flaked paint and sun-baked textures and sun-baked old men asking for money in exchange for half-understood services make an impression. We go whale chasing in a tiny rubber boat smaller than my mom’s van. We track them zig-zagging ten miles off the coast where they surface almost under a yacht, making the sunbathers on the deck scream in dismay. We play Elvis at them until they calm down, and they thrash on the surface with their tales, making sure we keep our distance. I took a LOT of photographs, but never quite get them both in the air at the same time.
With an hour left on the clock of our tour, the zodiac driver says it’s time to go see Land’s End and pushes the twin throttles all the way to the stop with about 2 seconds of warning. I’m still standing in the back of the boat as we kick away at 25 knots, which somehow seems really, really fast.
Skipping from wavetop to wavetop, there’s a huge woman sitting next to me, and with every impact she is thrown a little further on to me. My grip and space become precarious things and I worry about my immediate future.
Land’s End is a beautiful collection of cliffs and rocks and sea lions and pelicans and many, m any boats edging in for the sights and the sounds and the unfortunate smells of the aforementioned sea lions.
Exhausted and with bloodied hands from hanging on to the Zodiac, we return to the Mercury in time for dinner.
Good sunset, and a frustrated Uncle, so firm in his Love of America. Mexico suffers by his comparison. Someone else points out that the place is just really, really different – and you can’t compare it to where you’re from. I’ve never felt so thoroughly American as coming up to this town, so blatantly brightly-coloured and only existing for tourists and game fishers. It’s dark by now, and I get to be alone on my aft deck again.
I keep feeling weird about having all these people picking up after me – like all we REALLY want to escape from back home is dirty dishes and doing our laundry. My mom says that that is sort of her favourite part of these cruises. It just makes me feel guilty.
Stranger still – the man who takes my plate away while I’m writing this is grinning like he’s getting away with something. He reminds me of an evil horse. Like the type who chews your bike chain off your bike while you’re not looking.
A lot of time spent idle here. I don’t really know what to do, and feel sort of guilty sitting so still, like I’m wasting opportunities – but once we put to see, it’s all movies and gambling and music from a very different era.
I feel so awkward among all those people – I have no doubt that they’ve all worked very hard and that in some sense there is a lot of reward for being a dishwasher or waiter or housekeeper on this boat. It’s just very surreal compared to my own travels – seemingly so focused on making sure everything from home is transported with us… perhaps I’m being unfair, I just haven’t found the right attitude yet. Think… land owner…. think… slave rapist… hrm. It’s just a big ass boat of escapists.
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The boat is tossing more and I’m getting the occassional freaked out shivers from being near the water. My head sees shapes of sinuous serpentine beasts – things that can’t exist and won’t in daylight with company – but a momentary lapse of my focus and I can see them moving out there in the constantly shifting blackness.
