Seminars

January 2014

One of the nice things about being in the Banderas Bay area while preparing for the Pacific Puddle Jump is that they put on regular seminars on all kinds of topics at both the La Cruz Marina and Paradise Village.  It always seemed like when there was one at Paradise Village, I wanted to go to I was in La Cruz and vice versa, but no worries, the bus is an easy solution.  However, on our way to our first seminar from La Cruz to Paradise Village we had to take a taxi.  It all started by agreeing to go together by bus with Lady Carolina and True Blue V.  I had never taken the bus from La Cruz to Paradise Village at this point and since it involved changing buses, I felt better going with someone who knew what we were doing.  Since the bus can be a pretty slow transportation method, we set a departure time to leave the marina and walk down to the bus stop fairly early.  So, I’m a pretty punctual person.  OK, I’m compulsively punctual.  I don’t know, I just think if you set a time for something, there’s no reason not to meet it (barring things out of your own control, of course).  Everyone showed up at the dock just a little late, no big deal, but then they tell me they need to take showers, but they’ll be quick.  Carolina and Joel intentionally walked ahead, because they thought they would be slow, but the boys and I sat down and waited.  We waited and waited long enough that I decided to just go ahead and take a taxi, because I figured if we were going to go that far to a seminar then it didn’t make any sense to show up late.  Alex, Brenden, Jonathon (Fluenta), and I pressed up the hill, passed Carolina and Joel and let them know what we were doing, and then went to the taxi stand to negotiate a price.  Are you kidding?  I don’t have enough money?  I played a little negotiating hard ball, and they didn’t bite and they let me walk away.  I guess it didn’t help that when I said I didn’t have enough money Jonathan pulled out a bill and helpfully said, “I have this…”  After we walked away, I considered catching a bus, but then we would definitely be late and who knows how late since I didn’t know the details of the bus transfer.  So, we went back to the taxi, and I borrowed money from 8-year-old Jonathan to pay for it.  Would you believe it that when we showed up, everyone else was already there?  They ended up catching a taxi too, and I guess their driver was a bit more aggressive than mine.  The seminar itself was pretty good.  It was on the Marquesas and was given by a couple (sv Kavenga) who had cruised there in the late 90s.  However, I hadn’t done much research on The Marquesas at that point, so I had trouble with context and very little of the content regarding specific anchorages actually stuck.  I went to several other seminars including Radar, Communications, Rigging, Weather, and Health.  There were also many others that I missed.  Most of them were more valueable for the networking with other cruisers that were planning to do the puddle jump as opposed to the seminar itself.  And a few of them, specifically the radar and comms ones would have been far more valuable had I gone to them a year ago rather than now.  I’ve figured out a lot of stuff on my own, the hard way, or by talking to other cruisers.  But I guess it’s good to get validation of stuff you already think you know when preparing for an ocean crossing.