Bucerias

Volunteers releasing 2,000 Olive Ridley turtles at Playa las Tortugas. Photos by David Lansing.

The Fletcher’s house in Custodio, Casa Corona del Mar, is situated on a rocky cliff about 30 feet above the ocean. To the north is Punta Gorda jutting out like a crocodile head from the coastline and beyond that San Blas. To the south is an estuary that is a sanctuary for all kinds of seabirds. If you cross the estuary during low tide, when you will still get wet up to your navel, you reach a beautiful long white sandy beach, called Playa las Tortugas, where Olive Ridley turtles come and lay their eggs in the sand. Usually the turtles lay their eggs in the fall during the arribada, which is sort of like a turtle version of the invasion of Normandy. Who knows how this is coordinated or who is the turtle general that decrees that now is the time to assault the beach, but this is what they do.

Of course, even assaulting the beach in mass, the odds are against the survival of their offspring. Each female will dig a hole in the sand with her rear flipper and deposit 100-110 eggs that then must incubate undisturbed for 55 days before they hatch. Even if they survive hanging out on the beach for two months, the odds are not good that they will survive in the wild. First they have to crawl across the beach as seagulls and other birds pick them off one by one and then even if they make it to the surf, they have to contend with all the fish in the sea just waiting for an easy meal. In fact, it’s estimated that only 1 in 1,000 hatchlings will survive. Not great odds.

So although the arribada is over for the season, there are always a few old girls who didn’t get the memo and continue to find their way to Playa las Tortugas to lay their eggs in November or even December  which means they are hatching just about now.

Yesterday afternoon a small group of us went down to the turtle sanctuary and discovered that they had maybe 2,000 baby Olive Ridleys that they would be releasing about an hour before sunset and we were invited to help with the release. One of the student volunteers came down with a plastic tub with the two thousand squirming turtle hatchlings and told us the rules. He drew a long line in the sand and told us we were all to stay behind that line. We would be given a handful of hatchlings and we were to place them on the sand facing the ocean and let them go. Do not help them, he said. It is very important they crawl over the sand and find their own way into the water. It is how they remember where to come back in 10 or 15 years when it is time to lay their eggs. And then he walked down the line of volunteers with his plastic tub and gave everyone large handfuls of turtles and at his signal, we all gently put them down on the sand. Watching, like nervous parents, as they took tiny steps towards the pounding surf. Knowing full well that from these 2,000 or so hatchlings only one or two would ever return. If that.

I guess I’m the grinch in this bunch. I look at all these tiny little turtles struggling to even get to the water and it seems almost impossible to me that even one will survive. Chris and Malin, on the other hand, wander up and down the beach, finding the little hatchlings that have already been carried by the strong current several hundred yards from where they were released and thrown back up on the sand by the powerful surf. They carefully pick up the dark bodies, weighing less than an ounce, and, very much breaking the rules, take them back to the ocean. They do this over and over again, even as the sun has long ago set and it is almost impossible to see. For them, there is always a possibility of life.

Things were looking up. After five visits by three different plumbers, the pipes under my sink had finally stopped leaking. And the newly-repaired water purifier had been reinstalled with a T in the line that now sent pure water to the back of my fridge so I could get purified ice and water from the door. This was very exciting. For years I have buying blue 10-lb. bags of ice from Oxxo and using a hammer to break off the cubes for my drinks. Now all I had to do was put a glass under the dispenser and woosh! Out came the ice. I was so excited about this development that I thought about hosting a dinner party. Just to show off my new ice-in-the-door.

And the electricity problems had been solved. True, it had cost a fortune to replace the electric panel in the garage but it was worth it. I still didn’t have air-conditioning (Señor Rivera had sent me multiple e-mails during my time in Sayulita outlining the various obstacles to procuring a new compressor and I could explain them to you but I think you would find them as trying as I did) but I wasn’t too worried about that. The air-conditioning is basically for my renters who are coming after the first of the year, Tom and Libby. Tom is a judge. Or was a judge. From Tennessee. Tom and Libby spend more time in my house than I do. In fact, when I am down at one of the pools and someone asks me where I’m staying, I explain the location to them and they invariably say, “Oh, you live in Tom and Libby’s house!”

Anyway, I don’t know how often Tom and Libby use the air-conditioning but it should at least be an option. As for me, I long ago moved out of the master bedroom and into the back guest room which is cooler and darker and better for sleeping. A ceiling fan is all you need here.

So things were really looking up. After three weeks of residency, I now had electricity and running water. I had ice-in-the-door. Woo-hoo! Then last night, about four, I got up to go to the bathroom and, in the darkness, stepped out the guest room door and into a lake. I don’t mean a little puddle of water. I mean an inch of liquid that extended from the front door to the master bedroom and the kitchen to the patio. An area just about the size of Delaware. In total darkness (I wasn’t about to touch anything electrical and electrocute myself) I swam through the living room looking for the source of the leak. I figured it had to be coming from the kitchen, but where? It didn’t seem to be coming from under the sink or from any of the hoses running from the water purifier or the fridge. Then I noticed water pouring out from behind the freezer door and when I opened it, I was sprayed in the face by a gusher shooting out from the ice maker. All the bins in the now-defrosted freezer held eight or ten inches of water. So I reached under the sink and shut off the water and then stood in an inch or so of water in my dark kitchen. At four in the morning. Wondering how on earth I was ever going to get all this water out of my house.

A fish out of water on the Bucerias beach. Photo by David Lansing.

I had so many different workers at my house today that it looked like a construction site. First there was the electrician sent by Señor Rivera. He examined the utility panel in the garage and came back up to my house holding a two-inch piece of copper pipe in front of his face. “Mira,” he said, holding the piece of pipe out to me. I looked. “This is the problem,” he said. Someone (no doubt the air-conditioner repairman) had replaced the breaker in the utility box, which kept going off because there was a problem with the compressor, with a piece of copper pipe. And so much electricity had surged through the circuit that it had melted the heavy wires in the utility panel. Everything would have to be replaced. But before it could be replaced, the Comisión Federal de Electricidad, CFE, would have to be notified and they’d have to examine the utility panel as well. I asked the electrician if he couldn’t just repair the panel now and have CFE come out later. No, he said. This is not the way it was done. First CFE must come out and see things for themselves. So he would call them.

An hour later, three or four electricians from CFE were probing my utility panel. The leader of the group, after much examination, came to my door to tell me that someone had replaced the breaker with a two-inch piece of copper pipe. That is why your electricity went out, he told me. Now the whole thing would need to be replaced.

The electrician Señor Rivera had sent out was standing next to the electrician from CFE nodding. “See, I told you,” he said. And he had. Hours ago. And yet I was still no closer to getting my electricity.

Meanwhile, Bulmaro had also showed up. As well as the plumber sent by Señor Rivera. They were both poking around at the pipes and hoses beneath by sink. “You have a leak in your pipes,” said the plumber, pointing at the puddle of water under my sink. I told him I thought that was correct and asked him if he knew where it was coming from.

“This is difficult to say,” he told me. “It could be one pipe or it could be another.”

While he and Bulmaro were poking at my pipes, Miss Vicky’s plumber appeared. There was some discussion as to who was going to fix my leak, Bulmaro and Señor Rivera’s plumber or Miss Vicky’s plumber. After some heated words and discussions about family history and the like, it was decided that Miss Vicky’s plumber would fix the leak. And connect a new line from the water purifier to the ice maker on the back of my refrigerator. Which wasn’t working at the moment because I had no electricity.

Bulmaro and the plumber left. Miss Vicky’s plumber carefully looked things over and then asked for a pencil and a piece of paper. He wrote down a list of parts he would need to do his work and told me that it would cost about 1,800 pesos. Would I like him to get the parts? I told him I would. Bueno, he said. He would go to the plumbing store (which, fortunately, was not in Guadalajara) and when he knew exactly how much the parts would cost, he would call me for my approval to purchase them. But, I said, I have just given you the approval to buy the parts. No, he said, you gave me the approval to order the parts. But then you must give me the approval to pay for them. That is the proper way it should be done.

So Miss Vicky’s plumber just left. And now I am waiting for him to call me from the plumbing supply store to tell me how much a certain washer and a piece of flexible pipe will cost so that he can then purchase them. Because that’s the way it is done in Mexico.

Sunset at Bucerias. Photo by David Lansing.

Bulmaro came to my door as I was contemplating my options for dinner since I had no electricity. The first thing he did was to flip the light switch in the kitchen up and down. Sadly, this did not make the lights go on. Then he got a flashlight and proceeded to my laundry closet where the breaker panel is situated tight against the dryer. He opened the box and flipped one of the breakers. Nothing happened. One by one he tried all of the other breakers. All twenty of them. The lights stayed out. Then he called Señor Rivera and after speaking with him for a minute, handed me his phone.

“Bulmaro says there is some problem with your electricity,” said Señor Rivera. I told him I believed that to be true. “I think we should call an electrician.”

Of course, since it was after 7 now, an electrician would not be able to come to my house until tomorrow. “Is there anything you need that Bulmaro could get for you? Water? More candles?” I told Señor Rivera that I would be fine if we could just get the electricity back on. And the air-conditioner fixed. “But you couldn’t use the air-conditioner anyway,” Señor Rivera correctly pointed out, “since you have no electricity.” And, also, he said, the plumber would be here in the morning. “So, you see, already we are working on it.”

And with that, Bulmaro went home to his lit house and his warm dinner.

The night the lights went out.

The air-conditioning repairman, Chuey, came by yesterday afternoon. You have to understand that I live on the second floor of a five-story building and the air-conditioners are two floors below me in the underground garage. So in order to figure out what was wrong, Chuey needed to bring an assistant, Julio, whose job was to tinker with my thermostat and then run outside and yell down the stairwell to Chuey, two floors below, for instructions. It went something like this, only in Spanish:

“Julio, turn the switch on.”

“What?”

“The switch…turn it on.”

“Off or on?”

“On, damnit! Now off!”

“It is on.”

“No, you fool, I said turn it off!”

“But you just told me to turn it on.”

“That was before. Now turn it off!”

Anyway, after about an hour of this, Chuey came upstairs to tell me that my air-conditioner was broken. It needed some new parts. Unfortunately, the parts were in Guadalajara (it seems that Guadalajara has all the parts to fix things in Mexico). It would take a week or so to get them. Did I want to order them?

Yes, clearly, I told him.

All right, he said. This is good. He would find out how much the parts cost and would tell Señor Rivera who would then tell me and after I gave them the approval, they would order the parts. But I’ve already given you the approval, I said. Yes, you’ve given me the approval to order the parts but you will also need to give me the approval to pay for the parts once you know how much they will cost. Can’t I just give you that approval now? I asked. No, said Chuey. That is not the way it is done. You must wait until I tell you how much the parts cost.

Fine, I told them. But in the meantime, I’ve already gone a week and a half without air-conditioning. That is not a problem, said Chuey. I can make a small fix to the air-conditioner and you will be able to use it as long as you don’t lower the temperature below 75 degrees. Why is that? I asked. Because any lower than that puts a strain on the compressor. But if you keep it at 75, it will be fine until I can fix it.

Chuey set my thermostat to 75 and then left. Twenty minutes later all the power in my house went out. I called Señor Rivera. “Bulmaro is on his way,” he said. So now the sun has set and it is very, very dark in my house. Fortunately, I have lots and lots of candles. I light about twenty or so and put them all over the house. It looks a bit like a Mexican church on Day of the Dead. I open a nice bottle of wine and get my book and I sit at my kitchen table, candles flickering, waiting for Bulmaro.