The Rotary Chacala and Las Varas Projects

The Berkeley Rotary Club has been working for several years with the Mexican Rotary clubs within a 15 mile radius of the the beach resort town of Chacala, Nayarit, Mexico.  The projects include building schools, community centers, libraries, funding scholarships, business incubators, and more.   This year the projects included building classrooms, a commercial kitchen in which to teach culinary arts, and a computer lab room at a high school in Las Varas.  A second project was building a apartment at an elementary school for use by teachers in training.  I volunteered for one week at the end of April.

Chacala

I landed in Puerto Vallarta with about six other Rotarians on April 21st and we were transported by van to Chacala, a beautiful little beach  town about a two hour drive north of Puerto Vallarta and eight miles from Las Varas.

 There were about 20 Rotarians in our group this week, mostly from the five clubs in the San Francisco East Bay area.

Early morning moon 

I stayed in an apartment on the second story of a house,  which was built several years ago with funds from the Rotary incubator loan program.  I had a nice view of the town and beach from my apartment.  One early morning I got up and saw a full moon over the ocean.

Many of the Rotarians stayed in a hotel on the beach and we joined them there 5 p.m. for margaritas and dinner. The next morning at 7:30 we boarded vans which took us to the schools.

Everyone completed a questionnaire before  the trip stating their construction experience and what they are willing to do.  Having had experience in most aspects of construction, I asked to be assigned to plumbing and electrical.

"Make it wider"

 The first day two other Rotarians and I ran wires for power, dug a trench from the apartment to the septic tank, and installed the drain pipe for the bathroom and kitchen.  We worked until 1 p.m. and then ate lunch under the mango trees at the high school.  Lunch was prepared by mothers of some of the students.

Surfs up

In the afternoons we went the beach.  I went boogie boarding, body surfing,  swimming, and socialized with the other Rotarians.  We met at 5 p.m. every day for cocktails and Rotary fellowship. One evening three of our group played music and I sang a song, then gave a salsa dance lesson.

Nice ride

On Saturday four other Rotarians and I went on a tour to San Blas and a boat ride through the mangroves and jungle of La Tovara.  We saw lots of birds up close.

Sunday we hiked to the top of a small dormant volcano and then down to a secluded beach.  We were picked up by a boat that carefully ran up the beach through the high surf.

Jungle walk to volcano and beach

The last two work days I cut tile for the back wall of the commercial kitchen and supervised the grouting.

 We finished the grouting just before lunch and I was very glad we accomplished the task.

Constructing computer desk

 There is still a lot of work to be done and only one more week of Rotary volunteers.  I should have signed up for two weeks, but I can’t stay another week because I have some work to do at Casa Martillo next week, and I am diving with friends on Cozumel.   There are a group of local volunteers who work every Sunday at the schools and will complete the project, just not on the schedule that the project manager, Grier Graff had planned.

Tiling kitchen wall

We met many local Rotarians and I ate lunch with the high school students.

Lunch with the students

There are many Rotarians who have been performing service projects in this area for the past 20 years.  The need is huge, partly because the government does not provide support for the maintenance of schools, and the level of education in the past has been limited to 8th grade for the rural fishing villages.  Rotary is making a positive impact and changing the lives of the many people. Rotary has an incubator loan program by which Mexicans have built ten homes with a second story to rent to tourist and Rotarians.

Cutting tile

Finished wall

One day a  Rotary  volunteer was working with a local Rotarian on the construction of a house and apartment and asked:  “Are we building a house?”  The local Rotarian responded:  “No, we are empowering a family.”

Hammer Time - Change in Latitude, 32 N. to 38 N.

One thing on my bucket list is do some long -term cruising. I have charted boats it BVI, Belize, and Croatia and crewed on boats in Australia and Tonga. I want to live the dream I have been reading about in Latitude 38 for the past 37 years. So a few weeks ago I bought a Catalina 42 that was berthed in San Diego.

Catalina 42 - new name "Hammer Time"

I reserved a slip at Marina Bay in Richmond at the same docks that Tradewinds Sailing School and Club has their boats. I am a member of the club and really like the location and the people who own and manage Tradewinds.

I posted on the Crew List with Latitude 38 and on the Tradewinds website and found two nice guys (both named Mike) to join me for the trip from San Diego to San Francisco. I rented a car and we drove to San Diego on March 7^th, and started north on the morning of the 8^th.

It was about 70 degrees off the Southern California coast and the wind was almost on the bow. We were able to sail for a short time, then furled in the jib and cranked on the iron genoa and left the main up.

Leaving San Diego

The first night I took the mid watch from 12 to 4 and enjoyed the beauty and serenity of cruising at night with almost a full moon. We pulled in to Santa Barbara the next day about 3 p.m., refueled, and headed out again. The forecast at Point Conception was for 3 foot swells and wind waves of less than 2 feet. We had a 15 to 18 knot wind out of the north west when we left Santa 

Santa Barbara

Barbara and we sailed south west for about an hour to get away from the coast so we could clear Point Conception.   It was a beautiful afternoon, followed by a gorgeous sunset.  

The seas starting growing as we approached the point. I took the 8 to 12 watch and by midnight we were about 8 miles south of the Point and it was blowing 20 knots on the nose, with 8 to 10 foot swells and wind waves breaking over the dodger. I stayed up and hunkered down under the dodger, while my crew took the helm. About 2 a.m. there was loud bang and the dinghy davit on the port side broke. At almost the same time, I heard another bang on the bow. The anchor chain jumped out of the windlass and the anchor fell about a foot, leaving it free to bang against the hull. It was too rough for me to go on the bow to retrieve it and I did not want to try to turn downwind, so we motored on with the banging until we got out of the Point Conception confluence and the seas settled so I could go on the bow and pull in the anchor. The bow looks like hell, but the damage is not as bad as it looks. Both the broken davit and the damaged bow are my own fault. When we arrived in San Diego, I went through the usual pre-sail checklist, but did not inspect the anchor. I just had the boat surveyed and knew the windlass worked. I have sailed for many years and know not to leave a harbor without a stopper on the anchor chain. Also, when we went aboard in San Diego the dinghy was already hoisted in the davits with the outboard attached. I know better than to go to sea with the outboard on the dinghy, but I was too lazy and in too much of a hurry to lower the dink and put the outboard on the rail.

We pulled into Moro Bay to refuel, lower the dinghy, secure the outboard to the stern rail and put the dink on the foredeck. We left Moro Bay at 3:30 p.m. and had almost ideal conditions the rest of the way to San Francisco, with southerly winds and small following seas.  

  We saw several whales, otters, dolphin, and schools of porpoise. The water that night was luminescent for hundreds of yards behind the boat. It was what cruising is all about.

I was feeling a little emotional as we sailed under the Golden Gate at 3:30 p.m. at max flood the following day. I am sure many sailors have experienced this feeling of elation.

"Hammer Time"  arriving at her new home

Now it is my turn. I have renamed the boat “Hammer Time.” The name has two meanings: My last name is Hammer, and it is time for this phase of my life.

I may sail in the Baja ha-ha to Cabo this year, but my plans for the next few months are to sail the Bay and local waters until I can sail the boat with my eyes closed, then go out the Gate and turn south for about a thousand miles, enjoy Mexico for a few months, then sail west to the South Pacific.

*All photos by Michael Mayernick, crew.

Good Karma in Alaska

Denali

We took the "Gold Star Dome" class train from Anchorage to Denali National Park.  The first half of the six hour ride is not very interesting, but the second half is through mountain valleys surrounded by snow covered peaks and is quite beautiful. 


Denali, also known as Mount McKinley, has been visible on the average of one out of every ten days this summer.  You might think I was very lucky to take the 66 mile bus tour into the park on one of those days.  But I think it is just good karma.  The weather during the ten days we were in Alaska was some of the warmest and clearest of the year. 

Denali

About thirty miles into the park, we got our first view of Denial.  The sky was clear and the entire mountain was visible.  It was still 60 miles away, but the view was stunning.  At 20,327 feet above sea level, it is the highest mountain in North America and it is 18,000 feet from the base to summit.  In comparison, Mt. Shasta is 14,179 feet above sea level and is about 10,000 from the base to the peak.  Denali has several sub peaks that are all over 14,000 feet above sea level.  Back in the 70's, I flew from Travis Air Force base, near San Francisco, to Japan and had a three hour layover at an Air Force base south of Denali.  It was a clear night with a full moon.  I remember being mesmerized by the mountain and watched it for the entire three hours as the sun rose and bathed the mountain in golden light.  I did not know at the time how lucky I was to be there on a clear day.  Now, more than 40 years later, when it happened again, I realize it is  not luck, but good karma.  

 

A misty cloud swept over the mountain in the afternoon, making it surreal.  On the ride out of the park, the coulds shrouded the peaks and swept down valleys.

 

In addition to the mountain, which few tourists actually see, the main attraction in the park is the wild life.  Our guide said if we were lucky we may see two or three grizzly bears.  We saw fifteen to twenty grizzly bears, the most the guide had seen all year…karma.  We also saw big horn sheep, moose, caribou, elk and a red fox.

It was fall in Denali and the foliage of the trees and shrubs was vibrant yellow, red, and orange.  The grandeur of Denali National Park is amazing.

We took the Denali-Anchorage Connection bus back to Anchorage where rented a car for the drive to Seward.  Our first day in Seward we took a guided tour to Exit Glacier, the only glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park accessible by road (or a short walk from the parking lot).  It is managed by the National Park Service which has an exhibit and research center.  Although the glacier is not particularly impressive compared to the others we saw, the information center gave us a much better understanding of the formation of Harding Ice Field and the glaciers it feeds.  Climate change is causing the glaciers to shrink more rapidly each year.  It is part of the earth’s cycle of ice ages and warm climate, known as the Milankovitch cycles, caused by the change in the tilt of the earth’s axis.  There are five known ice ages, with the most recent ending about 10,000 years ago.  Now we are in the middle of the cycle.  But the new factor of man-made carbon is dramatically increasing the warming trend.  Will it prevent the next ice age that would naturally occur about 14,000 years from now?  Or will another asteroid, like the one that created the Chicxulub crater and the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, hit the earth first?  





 

The next day we took a six hour whale watching and glacier cruise.   It was a clear, warm, and calm day. 

The cruise guide said it was the best day they had all year … karma.  We saw orcas, gray whales, porpoises, sea lions, puffins, and Holgate Glacier. 

It was a fantastic day on the water and made us thankful to be able to experience the beauty of nature.

We drove to Homer, the halibut capital of the world, where we had planned to kayak at Kachemak Park, across the bay from the Homer Spit.  But it was too windy and rough for the water taxi to take us across the bay.  At the time, I thought that I had used all my good karma for this trip.  But a few days later I learned that while we were prevented from kayaking because of wind and roughs seas, Denali Park was having the first blizzard of the season and the park was essentially closed.  It was incredible that we were in Denali the last days before winter arrived. 

 

So my good karma was holding and we saw some  Bald Eagles

 and took a hike through a preserve north of Homer.

We did not see much wildlife on the hikes, but we saw thousands of mushrooms. 

 On our drive back to Anchorage we stopped at Kenai Lake and kayaked for a few hours.  We saw loon and several salmon jumping, and a pair of swans on another lake.

It was another beautiful clear day.  On our last day in Alaska took a guided historical tour of Anchorage in a trolley car.  The tour guide was excellent and we learned about the history of Anchorage and the effect of the 1964 earth quake.  It started to rain while we we were waiting for  our flight ... karma.Alaska is described as the last frontier.  We saw only a small section of the state, but it was enough for me to appreciate its vastness, splendor and wilderness. Next on my bucket list are the Galapagos, New Zealand, and Tahiti/Bora Bora.

Spanish Immersion Course, Merida, Week Three

My guide the third week is Ana, a charming 26 year-old young lady of Maya descent. She is majoring in tourism at the University Autonmoa de Yucatan. On Monday we went to Caffe Latte, my favorite espresso café, and worked on my homework.

 

Mi guía de la tercera semana es Ana, una encantadora mujer de 26 años de ascendencia Maya. Ella se una estudiante en turismo de la Universidad Autonmoa de Yucatán. El lunes fuimos a Caffe Latte, mi café espresso favorito, y trabajamos en mi tarea.



On Wednesday we visited the Grand Museum of the Maya World. It is huge new modern museum dedicated to the history, culture and people of the Maya world. The museum is an interesting juxtaposition of the modern and ancient. Over the past 13 years, I have visited about fifteen Maya historical sites and have read about the Maya history. At the peak of the Maya civilization, there were an estimated 22 million Mayans. I have often read that millions of the Mayans mysteriously disappeared and abandoned their great city states. Fairly recent studies indicate that some of the early city states were abandoned over a period of a couple of hundred years and there was a slow migration to other areas. Then the Spanish arrived and enslaved and killed many of the remaining Maya population. The wars between the Maya and the Spanish lasted for about 500 years. Today, there are about four million people of Maya descent. 

El miércoles visitamos el Gran Museo del Mundo Maya. Es enorme nuevo museo moderno dedicado a la historia, la cultura y la gente del mundo Maya. El museo es una interesante yuxtaposición de lo moderno y lo antiguo. Durante los pasada 13 años, he visitado quince sitios históricos mayas y he leído sobre la historia maya. En el pico de la civilización maya, se estimaba que había 22 millones de mayas. He leído muchas veces que millones de los mayas desaparecieron misteriosamente y abandonaron sus grandes ciudades-estado. Estudios bastante recientes indican que algunos de los estados tempranos de la ciudad fueron abandonados en un período de un par de cientos de años y había una lenta migración a otras áreas. Luego llegaron los españoles y esclavizó y mató a muchos de la población Maya restante. Las guerras entre los mayas y los españoles duró unos 500 años. Hoy en día, hay aproximadamente de cuatro millones de personas de ascendencia maya.

 

 

Bus to Progreso

Progreso Beach

On Thursday Ana and I took a bus to Progreso and spent the afternoon at the beach.

El jueves Ana y yo tomamos un bus a Progreso y pasaron la tarde en la playa.

 

Friday night, after my last day of classes, I took my host family and Ana to dinner and then to a karaoke bar. The school administrator, Eva, joined us and we had a blast singing and dancing until about 11:30. I gave Ana a ride home on my motorcycle. She lives about 20 miles south of Merida. I turned the wrong direction on my return trip to Merida, so I did not get back to my host home until 2 a.m. Then got up at 6:30 to drive my motorcycle on the four hour ride to catch the ferry back to Cozumel. 

Viernes por la noche, depues mi último día de clases, me llevé a mi familia anfitrión y Ana a cenar y luego a un bar de karaoke. El administrador de la escuela, Eva, se unieron a nosotros y tuvimos mucha diversión de canto y baile hasta las 11:30. Di Ana a su casa en mi motocicleta. Ella vive mas o menos 30 kilómetros al sur de Mérida. Me di la dirección equivocada en mi viaje de regreso a Mérida, así que no volveré a mi casa de acogida hasta las 2 a.m. Luego se levantó a las 6:30 para conducir mi motocicleta en el paseo de cuatro horas para coger el ferry de regreso a Cozumel.

The three-week course was good and I have improved my vocabulary and pronunciation, but I still cannot understand most of what is said when I hear spanish spoken at a normal rate. It is going to take more practice and time. But the immersion course and home stay was a very rewarding and fun experience. My frustration in not being fluent in spanish at this time is outweighed by my feeling of accomplishment and joy in making new friends and experiencing life in Merida. 

El curso de tres semanas era buena y la he mejorado mi vocabulario y pronunciación, pero todavía no puede entender la mayoría de lo que se dice cuando oigo español hablado a una velocidad normal. Se va a tomar más práctica y tiempo. Pero el curso de inmersión y la estancia de la casa fue una experiencia muy gratificante y divertido. Mi frustración en no ser fluido en español en este momento se ve compensado por mi sentimiento de logro y alegría en hacer nuevos amigos y experimentar la vida en Mérida.