Life With Stella: December 2012

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
' Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, no breath no motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

Any surfer, sailor, or person who enjoys activities on the water has or will experience the phenomena known as the doldrums. For us, that time is now. The last week or so has yeilded absolutely no swell, I mean NADA! Neptune must have gone on a sabbatical or something. And with no swell on the forecast for at least 8 more days, this phenomena is starting to play tricks with our minds.

We wake up every morning, before dawn with the promise of a new day and waves. And we are crushed every time when we visit our favourite surf spots only to find them looking like Cameron Lake!

One of our crew, Billy, has reached his breaking point and has fled the coastal paradise for the promise of mystical adventures filled with peyote, dog fights, low riders, and whatever else Guadalajara can throw at him.

The rest of us are preparing a blood sacrifice, hopefully to appease the god of the ocean and get his lazy ass back to work!

In other news, my family flew in the other day and we've had an awesome first couple days together. Yesterday we caught about 150lbs of fish on a very exciting deep sea fish trip.

Louis has also joined our crew and is currently renting the penthouse suite of Stella Regencies.

This post is coming to you from the luxurious penthouse suite of Stella (aka the top bunk). I recently (5 minutes ago) discovered that I can gain access to the intraweb using my Iphone as an uplink to the nearest mexican satellite station, somewhere over Juarez. Pretty cool stuff...

So yesterday, after having the best surf of the trip so far at La Lancha, we decided to meet up with the notorious Vakasa and crew. "We're moored in the marina of the Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta", read the mysterious message we received about their whereabouts. I knew Nuevo Vallarta was only 20k or so away. And with Bryn's voice in my head "this place will be easy to find!" We set off to find the Paradise Village.

Now as a side note, I mentioned in the very first blog post, I sometimes tend to suffer from "Hangry". So far, however, the trip has been Hangry free for me and I was almost starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, I was miraculously cured somehow... OK, back to the story.

The almost euphoric buzz from the surf session was still with us as we entered Nuevo Vallarta. And I was confident we would find Vakasa and we would all sit down to a delicious lunch of fish tacos (or some other mexican cuisine) within the next 15 minutes.

All of a sudden, everything changed. The roads became strange and the signs were very confusing, like nothing I've ever seen before. We became lost almost immediately, the euphoric buzz was gone and replaced by a familiar voice in my belly. It came as a whisper at first, but I knew without a doubt, Hangry had awoken from it's siesta.

I think to help the lucky, non-hangry sufferers better understand what hangry is like; imagine an avalanche, and how it gains momentum with horrifying speed.

So, after asking directions from a few locals and taking about 50 returnos, we managed to find the entrance to the Paradise Village. Only took us about 45 minutes. At this point, I was fighting a losing battle and hangry was taking over.

The security at the main gate decided that we should park in the under ground parking garage, I almost instantly asked, "are you sure we can fit?" With a non-chalant glance at stella he replied, "oh sure". I wasn't convinced and Hangry was laughing its malevolent laugh. As we pulled up to the 2m clearance garage located under the tennis courts, I began to have flash backs from our last trip and the mishap of that under ground garage.

The surfboards had to come off. Hangry was a raging avalanche. Somehow, with less than two inches of clearance we made it in. And I was hit with the next realization, theres no sun underground! The fridge had to be emptied or we would lose all our food. And wouldnt you know it, we didnt have a bag anywhere in sight. Bryn somehow Mcguyver'd up a bag using a towel, some hair clips, and a extension cord, as I paced the garage like a wildcat muttering incoherent words under my breath.

"Just head to the beach" read the next clue to the whereabouts of Vakasa.

First of all, the Paradise "Village" is a very misleading name. It should be called something like Paradise City, or Paradise Metropolis, or Paradise Universe cause its fucking huge! Just finding the beach through the myriad of pools and waterslides and restuarants and tourists was a task in itself.

Finally, after about 90 minutes we saw the masts of the marina and located Vakasa. Lunch was promptly administered and Hangry was vanquished by a roast chicken and tomato sandwhich.

We had a great night on Vakasa and learned the true name of the Paradise Village. The Velvet Prison.

All in all this first 10 days have been awesome! We've made some friends (human and canine), bumped into old friends, and surfed a ton.