the sea of cortez - III

We have left the oldest river to come to the youngest sea.

This morning, early, the harsh coast peachy with dawn, we set out in the little rubber dingy for the mangrove forest of Isla San Jose. 

A strange green environment: shallow clear water running through the greenery, the flash of flying fish, an occasional sea turtle spotted, one huge sea lion stretching in the distance. 

The barren mainland, ridged across the horizon, made the morning look as though we were floating in a lagoon beside the moon.

Later, Rick went off for the deep-water snorkel to swim in the currents with sea lions. I stayed behind. While I love, love being in the water, I find the less encumbrance, the better. Still wish we could swim off our New River beach unbound by suits.

the 'elephant rock'

Yesterday morning was ‘at sea’ where Rick attended a gripping lecture on “plate tectonics” and participated in a lively discussion afterwards about acoustic wave propagation in layered media, while I read A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING*. Then we both attended a lecture (“Baja Blue”) by “The Crocodile Dundee” of Baja. He showed great photos and videos of his folks swimming with the whales, several species (& I’m beginning to think those videos might be the only whales we see), sharks and mantas. He spoke of the movement to protect this incredible natural preserve. His group trains former fishermen to be guides, trade in the hook for the camera.

In the afternoon we dingy-ed onto the rocky, steep beach of Isla Santa Catalina where I swam and Rick snorkeled by the ‘elephant rock.’  

Back to today (Thursday), we had a mid afternoon dingy drop off to a stunning white sand rimmed cove. We swam and swam in the clear turquoise water, figuring it to be our last swim.  

After a fine dinner, we are scurrying about to pack for our overnight (bus to train and 6 hour train ride) to the Copper Canyon.

It is amazing that we are about the mid-age range for the ship (is that possible?) but accommodations and support make it possible for the elderly and really not spry adventurers to snorkel and hike and completely experience this adventure. The old, deep pocketed and well traveled. Another planet away from Giles County.

*Tuesday I finished (Mary North’s recommendation) EXIT WEST, so good. Rick read it in a couple sittings and, after that and YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING MR. FEYNMAN; he is onto a 2nd collection of Annie Proux stories.

Rick’s fun facts about the geology of the Sea of Cortez

Geology is fun!  The Sea of Cortez sits atop the San Andreas Fault, the same fault that extends north into California.  The North American tectonic plate and the Pacific plate border each other here.  In the Sea of Cortez, the motion of these two plates perpendicular to each other results in the Baja Peninsula moving away from the mainland of Mexico, and that motion is precipitated by volcanic activity in the sea and the creation of some new oceanic islands, mainly composed of dense basalt.  Farther north in California, the plates move tangential to each other, so they scrape each other and this scraping causes earthquakes.  Other islands here in the Sea of Cortez are lower mass density granite continental islands, and instead of being formed by volcanic activity were formed by splitting off from parts of the lighter weight continental masses.  We have seen both basalt-based volcanically formed islands and granite-based continental islands so far on this trip.

the sea of cortez - II

It was still dark when we climbed into our dingy to motor over to Isla Partida del Norte, the first light rising as we beached. Most of the group went uphill to hike; a small group (Rick among them) waited for enough light on the water to justify snorkeling. Amazing that on this totally deserted island there were small piles of litter. As we waited for the sun to rise, Rick and I pushed up our ReNew The New sleeves and collected the bean cans, plastic plates and coke bottles. While the snorkelers did their fin waddle into the glassy pink water, I waited for a bit more sun. Two red-billed oyster catchers pecked along the shoreline (& I hope Rick got of photo of them). 
 

I thought of Darrell who bathes in the river before every time I drive him for groceries and the popsicle headaches he says his January baths give him. But he never gets into my car without a river plunge. So I gathered up my Darrell courage and dove into the sea. I found the water wonderful. Icy, yes but electric exciting and silky the way I’ve never know seawater to be. I didn’t want to get out. And shouldn’t have. The very early morning breeze chilled to the bone. Rick & I huddled together for the dingy ride back and dashed to take turns in the hot shower.

Today was all about The Search for the Chuckwalla, a lizard known only to the Sea of Cortez. The ship took off for Isla San Esteban in the early afternoon and we hopped off our dingy round about 5:30 and made our way round gorgeous nesting gulls. Lots of cactus and, yes, the Chuckwalla. 

Another day without whales, but flying fish, dolphins, a gorgeous sunset booking our brave sunrise.

ReNew The New on Espiritu Santo beach

the sea of cortez - I

Why are we leaving? The question we asked ourselves the Saturday before the Friday we left for our trip to The Sea of Cortez. It was eighty degrees, as the easy sun sauntered the flawlessly blue sky it urged out the first redbud blossoms; the June berry and cherry trees were already in full bloom, the suddenly green grass begged for the sharp blade, and the wild flower walk beside lagoon peaked. 

Then Sunday came and the sky ripped open, flooding us with more than an inch of rain whipped by the suddenly cold wind. Monday night it snowed. Wednesday was a re-run of Saturday and Rick came home early to mow. Thursday was drizzly and chilly; Appalachia’s usual taunting striptease in reverse.

On the way—after Friday Park N’ Fly in Charlotte—a typical heart stopping American Airline’s event of - UH OH! Technical problems. We were stranded on a runway in Dallas for almost an hour. Rick made frantic calls begging Silversea not to leave without us. We felt truly foolish when we grouped in the Mazatlan airport with about twenty people from the same plane—all passengers bound for The Silver Explorer. 

We drove through a lot of poverty painted bright colors and boarded ship around two.

In our orientation lecture we learned this was the ship’s first trip to The Sea of Cortez (The “Galapagos of the Americas”) and was over two years in the planning; it would all be an experiment and adventure. 

Tides and winds are unpredictable; there would be the possibility of seeing 31 species of whales, more than 300 different types of birds (including the blue-footed and the brown-footed booby), snorkeling, hiking (watch out for rattlesnakes and scorpions), swimming off beaches only reached by boat. 

The Mexican government  (they have already arrived in a small boat with red lights flashing to ensure that Silversea Explorer is not violating any restrictions in this now heavily protected area) has reluctantly given this boat, with 120 passengers, entry. 

There is no ensuring there will ever be such an expedition here again. So, though I would be sorry for loved ones who couldn’t share this experience, I guess I am glad that the Mexicans are fiercely protecting their precious natural resources while Trump destroys ours. Especially considering all the damage wrought by the tourist trade in the real Galapagos. 

On this second day at sea, we have already attended two fascinating lectures on fish* and fowl—seen and to be seen—we have snorkeled, seeing eels and blowfish, ETC. and leave soon to ride the dingy (8 to a boat) round an island white with guano.

*Huge rays where the male courts the ladies by flinging himself high into the air and landing in a spectacular belly flop. The loudest slam wins the lady ray of his choice. We learned of the love triangle of the moray eel, which loves to eat lobsters, but loves more eating octopus; the octopus—as we all know—completely adores lobster. SO the eels allow lobsters to hide from the octopus by co-habituating (uneaten) in their eel caves. Guess what happens when the feckless octopus sees a cave full of lobsters?  The whale shark is the largest fish of the sea; it can be the size of our yellow school buses. The Sally Lightfoot Crab—in addition to being bright red, yellow and blue—spits at its aggressors. She gets an entire paragraph in John Steinbeck’s A Log of The Sea of Cortez (if only we’d known such a book existed). The fascinating lecture of the fish of Cortez was half informational and half Ripley’s Believe it Or Not. Lots of yucks at the expense of the amazing fish.

No sighted whales, but a playful young sea lion has been leaping around the boat and pods of dolphins cavorting nearby on both days.

From the Dingy

Dolphins leaping
sea lions barking
the late day sky
a smudge of sea birds
circling cactus
diving into
mother-of-pearl;
small stonewalled
dams holding
reservoirs of bird poop.

the week of the young child

There are few sights more tender and peaceful than that of a sleeping baby: all the innocence, all the promise wrapped inside that small bundle. We tend to tip toe around an infant asleep. And well we should. A very young child’s brain is producing seven hundred neuron connections a second, there is a lot going in that sweet, small head. By the time that miniature human being is five years old, eighty percent of the child’s brain development will have occurred. Eighty percent! No matter how much longer that baby boy or baby girl lives, those first five years of life remain, by far, the most important for the development of their minds. That is why it is essential to make our babies safe: hold them close and keep them warm when it is cold, cool when it is hot. It is so very important that those rapidly developing brains be stimulated with colors, numbers, nature, songs and stories. Those babies need to be looked in the eye and spoken to; their small and dependent growing bodies need proper and reliable nutrition. 

The Week of the Young Child is celebrated this year on April 16 to 21. That is the one time of the year with a direct and national focus upon our very youngest citizens. That is also the week we set aside to honor and appreciate the professionals working in early learning centers. Our preschool teachers are nurturing enormous journeys forward, taken in small baby steps. Whether you have preschoolers of your own or are just someone in line at the grocery store watching the toddler in the grocery cart ahead of you, help celebrate the Week of the Young Child by supporting our very young children and their caretakers. Please always bear in your own mind the miraculous transformations occurring in the developing minds of our little ones. This coming week and always we--as a community and a country--need to look out for our youngest citizens. Our civilization’s future depends upon it. 

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The Week of the Young Child™ is an annual celebration hosted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) celebrating early learning, young children, their teachers, and families. For more ways to celebrate visit NAECY.ORG

Easter cocktail

Every other Easter, for the past decade, Genie and Glenn Sotile have hosted our family (in different configurations) for a massive Easter feast in Baton Rouge. One year we were 24 at table. There is always an Easter egg hunt, the kids play baseball, we have a little live music (Glenn, as well as son Paul, are great drummers, Iris on guitar), Rick envies Glenn's already-producing garden; the huge dining room table groans with a bounty of food and Easter decorations abound.

Mimosas and Bloody Marys have always been served, pre-feast; Easter of 2013 G&G introduced us to The Sicilian Mule. Now we all just wait for the blood oranges to arrive and comfort ourselves with the chilled copper cup on the off years we don't go South for Easter.

The recipe (only available at times--like now--when you can get blood oranges):
Fill mule cup w/ crushed ice.
pour 1 full oz of Solerna Blood Orange Liqueur
juice of 1/2 fresh blood orange
top with ginger beer
garnish with a blood orange slice

(if you don't have the Liqueur...use a the juice of a full blood orange and your favorite vodka)

daffodils

We've had a hard forty or so hours of relentless wind which seems, this calmer blue sky morning, to have swept everything clean. Last night a few clouds raced over the full moon like frantic commuters late for a train. A couple weeks of very warm February weather confused the earth: bright yellow daffodils were nodding their goofy heads, oblivious to Black History Month. Now it appears the daffodils held tight during the mighty sweep of wind; the gray brown winter land is dotted with the yellow yolks of flowers.

frozen river

Though people who've lived here long lifetimes can only recall a handful of times where the New River froze, it was just a few years ago that the "Polar Vortex"  passed through and locked the river down. I wrote about it in these poems published in the anthology NEW RIVER REFLECTIONS:
 

The River At January

 Polar Vortex

Powerless
The dog and the cat
have found puddles
of sun to curl within.
They are making do
in a house so cold
that ink won’t flow.

Hunkered In
Brittle blue sky
bereft of birds.
Not a boat       
     afloat on the river,
nor a deer        
             nuzzling the paralyzed
orchard grass   
for the last       
autumn apple. 
                         Rabbits, raccoons possum, fox
 are nowhere     
 to be seen.       

It is like            
  Earth             
   after             
    life.             

Glacial

Ice floes glide
the river. 

Arctic islands
heading for

West Virginia.

Holding

In the wake of the arctic wind
forest,  field and brush are left
immobile, like crafty children
playing a game of Freeze Tag.

                                                       1-7-14

Mozart Limbs

Winter’s first snow today
              turned all the trees to sycamores.
              Powdered courtiers, elegant arms
         offered in lines along the river:
 ghosts frozen in a minuet.

                                                        1-21-14

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The River on The Coldest Day

The End

Late sun molting
at the bend, with
a clatter like        
tumbling rocks,  
           the river is cracking up.

                                       1-24-14

The Beginning

We can’t believe our eyes:
 Winter stopped the river   
 bound it bank-to-bank,     
  lashed it to the cliff feet    
in crystal stillness.            

The Way Sound Carries

The river has been solid for a week. 
Our neighbor’s dog is missing. My   
calling out for her reverberates in   
the crystal air, the ground crackles.
 Nothing moves—cloudless blue sky,
  pale sycamore, snow, and gray rock.
No black dash of tail-wagging dog.

Gladys, from the general store, told
a story about the last time the river
froze over, way back in the 1980’s:  
A doe, trying to make the crossing, 
 plunged mid-river, her hind quarters
in the sear of glassy water, her front
  legs scrambling the ice for purchase. 
Gladys said that all over town you    
  could hear the desperate wailing of a
living thing that did not want to die.

I am thinking about that doe when  
 the dog appears, all proud of herself.
She has been on an adventure and   
has returned, clutching the hooved  
foreleg of a deer between her teeth.

Costa Rica with Iris

We’re in an infinity swimming pool high above the Pacific, mountains in the distance. Iris plays a favorite song for me on her pink cell phone and, on the roof of the pool house, a large blue iguana rocks out in time to the music. We’re here because, for her graduation present, Iris wanted to see a sloth. On our first day, as we walked a steep path down to the ocean, we almost bumped into a sloth making his furry, three-toed way down a wide-leafed tree. He settled at the base and then, after his bathroom break, began his 5 minute slo-mo climb back up into the tree branches. A sloth descends to the ground once a week to make potty. His toilet was our magic moment and Iris caught it all on video. On that same walk to the sea, white-faced monkeys did monkeyshines in low branches over our heads. A bullyboy (Roy Moore?) monkey insistently pulled the tail of a smaller white-faced monkey, she evaded. Squirrel monkeys cavort across our deck and at dawn we hear the call of the elusive howling monkeys.

A morning’s walk to breakfast revealed two sloths high overhead and camouflaged by leaves, a flock of small green parrots, and the carnival flight of large multicolored ones; an aguiti crossed our path with a long-limbed amble. We’ve seen macaws, hummingbirds, butterflies, a small shiny black bird with a royal blue crest and a two-toed sloth with her baby clinging to her belly.

While Rick worked at the computer in Saturday’s afternoon shade, Iris and I went body surfing on the long pale stretch of public beach, and—back at the resort—made a poolgrimage: We visited (and swam in) all five swimming pools hidden in the jungle of this 30-some acre  rainforest resort. After supper (Iris’s vegan, my plantain shrimp tower and Rick’s roasted snapper) we three went to a small local bar perched on a rickety deck above the sea and forest. A dad twirled his blond barefooted three-year old daughter like a flaming baton, tossed her in the air, caught her, and then flung her over to her mom so he could pick up his guitar and be the 2nd in a two man band, performing with Greg Altman’s ancient double—both of them really good and playing songs where Iris knew all the words. At the third song, a silver-haired black man impulsively left his table of ladies to pick up a set of bongos and create a rock n’ roll trio; he grabbed two beer bottles and banged them together for extra percussion. He was apparently moved to join the two musicians he’d never before met. They were still jamming when we left the bar with sleepy Iris.

The three of us had gone early Saturday morning into the national park rain forest with a guide and saw more creatures, flora and fauna, than I could ever hope to remember (or spell). But we learned about “The One Day Moth” that goes through the usual cycle: larvae to caterpillar to chrysalis to gorgeous winged created. This moth is born with no mouth and has but one day to mate before she dies. The metaphor is overwhelming. Then our guide told the story of a never-to-be-forgotten ‘stay at home dad:’ a small male frog who watches after the larvae the female has abandoned and, as the tadpoles begin slowly to appear, he loads them—one at a time on his back—and climbs a long flower stalk to deposit each infant tadpole into the water-filled tube of an orange flower. Dad then goes back for the next and the next, until all the infant tadpoles have been deposited into individual flower floating incubators. Their species are cannibals and if the tadpoles were left to mature together, the siblings would devour one another. There is probably another metaphor in there somewhere.

Sloths have a damp green fungus, on their bellies, inhabited by little beetles that ride down the tree for that once-a-week bathroom visit and lay their eggs in the sloth poop (then quickly hop back on for the plodding upward return), thus perpetuating their species. A lot of stuff going on in these rain forests.
 

the colors of the cliffs

We built our riverside house on an amazing piece of land paid for by the publication of Midnight Lemonade. It faces the Eggleston Cliffs, also known as The Palisades. The design and materials of the house aimed to blend with—rather than intrude upon—the towering stone ridge rising above the second oldest river in the world. Someone recently asked if I could describe the colors of the cliffs:

The cliffs—without any play of light—are granite gray with drizzles of darker gray and black. They are ridged and, perhaps like the rings in a massive felled tree, the ridges represent time. Maybe each ripple ten million years, or a hundred million?

In summer the gray recedes, leans away from the river to nestle into open limbs of green, all the greens of summer: apple green, forest green, mint, pine…. The cliffs reflect on the clear surface of the river so perfectly that it is difficult to separate the real from the reflection.

The autumn cliffs appear closer, moving through the warmth of leafy flames, deep maroons, reds, and bright yellows, orange. And as the leaves blow or fritter away, the cliffs come even closer, become grayer. The river nudges the feet of the cliffs with a rusty crust of floating leaves.

During winter the sheer stone is very close and seems higher, prison gray except when the snow comes. Depending on how long it snows, and how light the snow, the cliffs might fancy themselves up with flouncing ruffles of lace. If the snow is heavy, the cliffs turn Viennese, become gigantic dark pastries mounded with fluffed sugar frosting.  Winter turns the river a deep shade of jade.

Spring sprinkles the cliffs, breathing pale green vapors into the contours, and then startles with redbud pinks and wild cherry whites. When spring storms are not swelling and browning the river, it ripples below the sheer stone like pale tinted bottle glass.

Near sunset, on a day of sun—no matter the season-- the cliffs amaze and never ever hold the exact same colors. We have seen sea shell pink and oranges more vivid than autumn’s pumpkins, maple and poplar trees. We have seen lemon yellow, blood red, shimmering pale blue, azure, indigo; golds so bright that they light up the inside of our house.