Living the Dream

There are some days and some places that make us feel like we are living in a dream. Not because we don't have to go through the mundane day to day of normal life, staring at 4 walls of a cubicle, but because we are actually living the dream we set out to live. This place is exactly one of those places and these last few days have been just those days.

We are currently anchored in Bahia Santa Maria on Mexico's Baja Peninsula. It's a beautiful bay with towering mountains on it's western shore which protect us from the wind and swell off of the mighty Pacific ocean. Once you round the point and make your way into the bay, the motion of the ocean almost stops. It's comparatively calm and peaceful, especially since we just sailed through Hell on the high seas to get here.

At the head of the bay, there is an estuary lined by mangrove trees that is perfect for exploring by dinghy. It has the feel of a National Geographic magazine article, straight from the Amazon jungle. The mangroves are a luscious green which stand out against the back drop of a dirty and dusty desert. Tons and tons of birds wade in it's waters, pecking through the muck looking for tasty snacks, coyotes and Mexican wolves roam the shores looking for an unsuspecting bird to prey upon, and the smell at low tide is something that only someone with absolutely no sense of smell would appreciate. It's rank, but it's incredibly beautiful.

Along the shores of the estuary, there are 3 little fishing villages perched in between the thick blanket of mangrove trees. When I say little villages, that's exactly what I mean. There are 10 to 15 tiny shacks in each tiny village. There is no power or running water, their floors are dirt, and their walls are made from whatever scraps they could piece together. It's rugged and remote but at the same time, a tight knit community that squeaks out a living fishing for lobster.

When we were in Southern California, as we were working our way down the coast, we met a few different boats of cruisers that we have really hit it off with. One boat in particular is from Australia and has been sailing the world for the last 9 years. They are pretty great peeps and have an interesting story. I'm not going to get into their entire story right now, but what I do want to talk about is the work they are doing as they have been traveling the world.

When they come to remote villages like the ones here, they give out free eye exams and eye glasses. It's nothing fancy or glamorous and they ask for nothing in return. Since a place like this has no doctors and no optometrists, it's a small service to a fellow human being that makes a world of difference in a random strangers life.

They carry roughly 10,000 pairs of glasses on board their boat, all supplied by the Lyons club in Australia, all labeled with their corresponding prescription, and after a quick exam, they hand over a shiny new set of spectacles to a person in need. It's as easy as pie. Since I can hardly see without my glasses, I can attest to the need for the service they are providing.

Our friends had told us about the work they were doing and asked us if we would be interested in helping out. Of course we would. So, we loaded up our dinghies and a backpack full of glasses with random prescriptions and made our way up the estuary to the tiny villages.

With broken Spanish, we told the first person we saw about what we were trying to do. He was skeptical and wasn't interested. The next person we saw took the bait. We obviously don't have a whole exam room with us, so it's a basic test with us speaking what probably sounds like gibberish to a native Spanish speaker. “More or less clear?” we ask. After about 10 minutes with some trial and error and trying on different glasses, he walked away with a beaming smile, able to see clearly for the first time in years.

After the other people in the village saw what just happened, they line up and we now have a waiting room full of people needing glasses. Even the skeptical guy we met first jumps in line.

We worked our way through the lineup in the first village and make our way farther up the estuary to the next. The first person we meet is a grandmother who has lived in the same shack, in the same 10 shack village for her entire life. After another quick exam and a whole lot more butchered Spanish by us, she is able to see her grandson clearly for the first time ever (she was practically blind). She was ecstatic and in shock that we didn't want anything from her. She yelled to the rest of the village and another waiting room was formed on the porch of her tiny shack.

We spent a few hours giving exams and handing out glasses, and after we finished, our Australian friends tell us something we already figured out. “Every time we do this, we get more out of it than the people with new glasses” they say. “Yeah, I can see that” I reply.

It not only makes you feel pretty great to help someone out, especially when you can see their face light up because they can actually see clearly for the first time in possibly ever, but it also has some side benefits. Like the fact that we instantly become part of the community, we are invited into peoples homes, we meet their families, we struggle through a language barrier, and we become friends. It's amazing really.

Before we left the estuary, the skeptical fisherman we met at the very beginning, while wearing his new glasses, loads us up with a pile of 14 lobsters (yes you read that correctly...14 lobsters. We have had our fill of lobster for a while). What do you do when you have a multitude a lobster? Well, of course you have a bonfire on the beach and roast up some fresh lobster with some good friends from neighboring boats.

If all that wasn't enough, there are some of the best surfing waves I've seen anywhere, right here at the head of the bay. On a rising tide, the ocean swell pushes over a sandbar at the entrance to the estuary, producing some of the longest and cleanest rides I've had in years. We are anchored close enough to the action that I can throw my board off of the boat, jump in the warm water, and paddle right in. And the best part of all, is that our good friends on a couple of the other boats that are anchored here are surfers too. That means one of the best things on earth, sunset surf sessions, happens with good friends catching waves right next to me as the sun is dropping over the horizon. Yeah, this place is not too shabby. Living the dream is all that it's cracked up to be.