Now THIS is my kind of race! Latitude 38, a sailing magazine and West Coast sailing community nexus, has an annual event at the summer solstice called Summer Sailstice. This falls during hurricane season here on Banderas Bay, when the seasonal sailors have left and folks who are here are often hunkered down carefully. So Katrina and Mike, our brilliant community leaders, have this fantastic tradition: The Umbrella Downwind Regatta. You can use any floating platform under 14' (4.2 meters), a paddle for a steering tiller or to fend off boats to prevent impact but not to paddle, and some kind of jerry-rigged sail, usually an umbrella. Donations were collected from the participants to benefit the El Cora Santuario de Crocodilos, the wonderful sanctuary we visited in March that cares for crocodiles and, really, any other animals that folks bring by. They are good and caring folks.
Me, James, and our new dock neighbor Randy waiting for the festivities to begin.
My board kept bumping into this nice couple. With only an umbrella and a paddle-tiller it was really hard to steer anywhere at all! At one point I bumped them accidentally from behind, then used my paddle tip to grab onto their board, linking us together and shouting "MANEJA!" (DRIVE!). We all had a good giggle. Later after we got tangled in some fishing boats I ended up catching a little gust of wind and getting ahead of them; I threw my paddle back to pull them along with me and the young woman laughed with fake outrage, shouting "NO!", thinking I was pushing them back, I suppose. I shouted "TE AYUDO!" (I AM HELPING YOU!) and the guy got it and threw his paddle onto my board too so we could all ride the momentum of my umbrella. The race was slow and hard and hysterically funny.
We raced over to the restaurant just inside the breakwater of the marina and helped each other get all our boards and 'yaks and even one big ol' inflatable dinghy out of the water.
The lovely family who own a local surf shop brought boards to rent for folks who did not have one and also these huge inflatable boards! For the second race we formed two teams, made sure we had an even number of people, paddles, and umbrellas on each monster board, and then set out. We paddled to a pylon and then umbrella-sailed back. That's me up on the bow with an enormous umbrella someone handed me. I was super overpowered and in the shot where my umbrella is opposite everyone else's, it's because the wind had pulled so hard on my umbrella that I almost either lost it to the wind or got carried away, and I yanked it out of the wind to depower. SO MUCH FUN.
It was a wonderful, silly day, and our first group social event since vaccination. Huge thanks to everyone who helped, and especially to Cat and her team for not only taking photos, but taking the time to send us some. James and I are so happy that we chose La Cruz as our pandemic port; it's been a sweet, safe home for us this past year and a half.
