The above picture is my pirate flag, MY pirate flag, designed by me and sewn together by Leanne Fredrick to fly on my boat. Nice isn’t it? I found out that Wells Fargo has a card customizing service that allows you to use an image to be printed on your ATM card. NEAT! I thought this would be the perfect picture! It was REJECTED! Why was this rejected? One of their guidelines for inappropriate images is:
Images of flags, unless it is one of the flag-related images from our photo gallery.
What flags are in their image gallery? Only the US flag. I have no idea what this policy serves. What flag could one have on their card that would offend someone? I personally think this is pure jingoist bullshit. Now I eagerly await your rebuttals in the comments section about why this policy makes sense.
-Aaron
P.S. They even anticipated me trying to upload the same photo again, the website automatically prevents it.
And now the final chapter to the Cozumel trip.
As far as I can tell, the people in Mexico that make road signs are a bunch of pranksters. They have rarely failed at representing some sort of hazard with an image that brings to mind naughty bits. For your enjoyment, here they are:
If any of you have ever read THIS post, then I am sure you are aware of my fascination with blowholes. I will let these pictures tell the whole tale…
I went full blowhole. You never go full blowhole.
And now the grand finale. Our first night there, we admittedly drank way too much. There are some bits that Jordan and I don’t remember, but we DO remember this:
That’s all for now folks!
-Aaron
No vacation would be complete without a few mishaps. Here is the story of the bad.
On the first day I thought it would be a good idea to stick all of my cash, credit cards and ID in a ziplock bag and put it in my pocket so I could go swimming with it. Turns out, it didn’t keep the water out and it floated…. out of my pocket… far away into the wild blue ocean. It is good to travel in groups though, Jordan was able to lend me some money to hold me over for the trip. Geed news, did not lose my passport!
In the course of the trip there was a lot of swimming. This lead to some painful ear conditions that affected Jordan, Jackie and me. It didn’t feel good and there were days where some of us didn’t feel like coming out to play.
There must be something in the water down there in Mexico because we also universally developed a surprising number of gastronomical conditions. We took the liberty of naming them:
- Chum butt
- Mud slide
- Inking
- Whooosghe
- Bubble gum
Senor Frog’s: This place was freaking annoying. We went to the one before the ferry and it was somewhat annoying. The one in downtown Cozumel was outright obnoxious. We were seated and accosted by multiple clowns, head shaking shot givers, sombrero picture takers and a DJ that was yelling out things such as, “Yiy, yiy, yiy, arrriba, andele!” The menu outside had different prices than what was inside, I am sure you can tell why that is. There were more waiters than tables and our waiter was more than dismayed when we decided that one beer was enough and we wanted to leave. He took the liberty of clearing our tables and increasing the price of our beers while the clowns accused us with their eyes of killing their puppies.
Texans. Many of the people there were from Texas. With a few exceptions, they were very rude people. They must really dislike these very polite and friendly people who were waiting on them hand and foot because they made it clear that no such courtesy would be reciprocated. Sometimes it was hard to watch.
That was the story of the bad parts. One segment left to reveal, I challenge you to guess the title.
-Aaron
Cozumel was awesome! This is the story of the good parts.
After a long plane trip, an expensive meal at Senor Frog’s, a ferry to the island and a cab ride to the resort, we had arrived. We got these cool little wrist bands that let us do anything we wanted for free! Of course we took full advantage of that.
Our rooms were beautiful, HUGE and the back patio lead out to a connected pool. I got to swim over to Mike and Jackie’s room to bother them into drinking with me. The pools had water slides that went straight to the main pool with the swim up bar. Guarberto “Wallace” was our bartender for the whole week, he was such a great sport.
Our favorite restaurant was Mosaic where we had a lovely waiter named Jesus. He lit our drinks on fire and we had some lovely Pad Thai. We ate there mostly but there was a buffet and a couple other restaurants that we could choose to eat at. Great food, great drinks, great times.
We also made a lot of friends with this new game we learned called Liar’s Dice. Many a late night ended with the words, “There are twenty-five dice on the table”.
At the water you are allowed to use the snorkeling gear for free so we did that. I am really impressed with my underwater camera! It took some great underwater pictures while snorkeling and never broke down. We also took a catamaran to snorkel out in the reefs. We saw turtles and lots of neat fish, and even a shipwreck marker!
The last couple of days were spent shopping and checking out the Myan ruins. There were a lot more ruins than I was expecting to see, really cool! We also went to a restaurant called Coconuts (visualize a sign with two coconuts wearing a bikini and a sombrero and having nipples). It overlooked the sea from a cliff and they had some great conch ceviche.
We took a tour of a tequila tasting room that gave some history and information about making tequila. Yummy!
That is the story of the good. There will be two more blog posts in the following days, stay tuned!
-Aaron
Pirate Fest 2009, Blow the Man Down… and we did! This was such a great success. I don’t remember ever having this much fun, great food, side-splitting moments or good friends around me ever in my years sailing the forest floors.
I want to thank Randall for being the bad guy and collecting money from everyone. For the first time ever we broke even and had enough to give a little back to those who went above and beyond. Thank you Myla for arranging for all the wood to be delivered in a most convenient and cost-effective manner. Thank you Jordan and Anna for building and delivering the chairs and swanky playboy sheets for the Black Shenanigan. Thank you Amelia for bringing that excellent homebrew, especially that mead that caused many of us memory loss on Friday night.
Thank you Chunker for bringing those awesome egg rolls. Thank you Benny for the great rum pasta salad. Thank you Greg for the awesome gumbo and congratulations to you and Maria for best outfits. I forget or do not know who brought what dishes entirely but thank you all for really beefing up on the Pirate Feast this year! Last year there were maybe half the dishes but you all really put out this time round.
Thanks Randall for bringing dice and Ivanhoe, Alan and Debbie for bringing Unspeakable Words and Monsters Menace America, Tommy for bringing Toblero, Julie for bringing Apples to Apples and anyone else who brought a game at the great risk of losing pieces to the camping gods.
Thank you Niko for bringing the wide array of weapons, explosive and sharp alike. Perhaps we could drag some more fighters up there next year for a mini pirate fighting tourney!
Chunker, James, Kevin and a few others have taken some great pictures which are currently featured on Facebook. I think you may need an account to access them but HERE is the link to Chunker’s and HERE is Kevin’s. If anyone else has a gallery URL to send to me and add to the list they will all be added to the Santa Cruz Pirate Fest website.
Thanks to everyone for being awesome about carpooling! I hope the way we did things this year was okay with everyone and if there are any comments or suggestions please feel free to email me.
Finally, thanks for being a saucy crew and taking the weekend out to hold your steins high in the air.
-Captain Groggy Swagger
Tomorrow Pirate Fest begins. I am extremely excited! We have some surprises in store for everyone coming. Remember to bring something for the Pirate Feast Saturday evening!
In other news, I had Rock n Roll hauled out of the water and re-painted. It was quite an ordeal and I have to give a big thank you to Vince, Randall and Maddie for putting me up in their house the whole time. Thanks also to Mark Dowdy and Randall for helping me get the boat back and forth under the bridge.
I am taking Jui-jitsu classes right now. It’s a great workout! Thanks to Adam for forcing me to go, I needed it.
-Aaron
Late in the evening of July 4th Jordan, Anna, Darwin and some new friends Matt and Jody and myself took Rock n Roll out into the bay to watch the fireworks. It was … amazing. It was the first time running at night for me. My new favorite phrase right now is the best way to learn is to do. The experience was surreal. I woke in the morning wondering if it all really happened. Might add pictures to this post later.
UPDATE: Here is a photo taken by Anna during the fireworks.
-Aaron
Many things happening, which is no excuse for not posting!
Pirate Fest is in 3 weeks. Woo hoo!
In 4 weeks I go to Cozumel for a whole week with Mike, Jackie, Jordan and Anna. I am sure we will behave ourselves.
I am again playing Diplomacy. I cannot reveal what country I am playing or which countries plan on brutally stabbing me in the back at this point, but I promise I will.
Recent movies:
Year One – Okay.
Land of the Lost – Loved it.
Star Trek – Best movie of the year, will be hard to top. I hope the franchise continues!
Recent TV shows:
I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! – Pure trash. Enjoyed it.
Stargate SG1 – re-watching the whole 10 seasons in preparation of Stargate Universe.
Legend of the Seeker – Like it
Burn Notice – Still my favorite show right now. McGyver lives!
Recent books:
Seven Seas on a Shoestring – Bought in an antique shop. Quite informative and interesting!
Recent games:
House of the Dead – Rail shooter zombie game. Nice and simple.
Agricola – Like Puerto Rico but a little more complex and fun to play.
Citadels – Fun card game with roles.
In other news, I love sailing.
-Aaron
I have been asked multiple times recently about how I learned about boats, how to sail and a myriad of other things lately. Here is a little bit I have thrown together in case someone out there might be interested in being a liveaboard in the Santa Cruz harbor.
As soon as I got the idea to be a liveaboard I researched on my own, through friends and through the internet and within two months I had bought my boat and completely moved out of my former living space.
This link is a journal of someone who became a liveaboard. He is a great writer with a sense of humor and very insightful about the things you will need to know. Read everything on this site: Sleeping With Oars
This link is the noaa sailing conditions webservice. Always refer to this and refer your friends to it when planning to sail.
This is the link to the Santa Cruz Harbor. This has news, slip information, rules, regulations, etc…
Here is where I looked for boats to buy:
Craigslist
Yachtworld
Pacific Yachts
Wizard Yachts
Remember that to get into the Santa Cruz south harbor with a sailboat you will need a boat between 27 and 32 feet with a tabernacle mast. If the mast does not tabernacle it can be modified to tabernacle if it is a deck-stepped mast and not a keel-stepped mast. You will want either an outboard motor or an inboard diesel engine. For loan purposes, you will want a 1980 or newer, unless you have cash.
When I finally had the boat I needed to learn to sail. I tried scheduling a class with someone to learn but the person never showed up and I decided that if you don’t need a license to sail, it couldn’t be that hard. I read two books:
Sailing Fundamentals
Chapman Bible
Also on my first trip out I had my grandmother and grandfather there to answer all of the questions I still had after reading that book. They were very helpful and I suggest going out the first couple times with someone who knows how to sail. The hardest parts to understand are right-of-way, tacking/gibing and setting the sails based on the wind angle.
I have now lived on the boat for 7 months and gone on 12 sailing trips.
-Aaron
In case you are not in “the know”, our friends Randall and Vinny have had a baby! Maddie is healthy and cute and I have never seen her two fathers happier than they are now. For more baby goodness you can visit their baby blog and here is a picture:
-Aaron
