Guadalupe Island is a cycle shaped volcanic island. We parked (docked? Weighed anchor? Moored?) in the middle of the
crescent. The island itself is pretty barren except for the seals that live on the beach. It’s like watching a nature show in action, lots of seals basking on the beach, and Great Whites swimming just off shore. So our captain drove the boat around the cove letting us look at seals and telling us about the history of the island and why it works so well for both sharks and seals.So our brief tour of the island took us down the crescent of the moon to the tip, and when we broke free from the island, the waves came. I thought it was bad inside the relative protection of Guadalupe, but when we again hit the open ocean, it was really bad. I took a video so you, gentle reader, could appreciate the distinct non-gentleness of the Pacific.
Not much to report on the way back, other than it was a 23 hour trip, and we did our best to sleep through most of it. The few times we ventured from our berth, it was an exercise in balance, and trying to eat enough to feel not starving, but not so much that you felt like it was all going to come back to haunt you.
The fun came as we awoke the next day. It’s that neat sensation you get on a boat when you can’t see the shore, but you know it’s coming. Sure, we weren’t asea for 6 months hunting whales, but the feeling of “LAND HO!” was as palpable as it was healing. There’s just something to a landlubber to seeing the land getting larger and larger in your vision. At first you can barely make out the land, it’s like a dark smudge on the horizon, heck, it could almost be low lying cloud cover, then you can start to make out landmarks and you know it’s not clouds. Then with each passing minute (yes, we were absolutely staring at the horizon, I think if I’d looked any harder at it, we would have started to move the boat backwards) it gets clearer and you can start to see buildings and people. It’s here where you start to get a palpable feeling of envy for those lucky few who are walking around on the earth, not staggering, not pitching, and not feeling nauseous. It’s also about this time where you realize that once you get within the protecting of port, our rocking sensation goes away too. When you realize this, its like you’ve been given a free meal because that far off LAND is not longer the goal, but the somewhat closer SMOOTH WATER is now the goal. I mean, boats are great fun on the smooth water, but they suck on the pitchy stuff. My guess is that its like dating a crazy girl (for the boys out there, insert ‘ain’t they all’ here, for the female readers…”Hey look over there, a singing cat!”). When things are smooth its awesome, but when you get outside and the storm hits, it’s like “Whoa, what the heck is this, and you can’t eat and you feel nauseous, and you just want to lie in bed where it’s safe. Then, you get to port, and it’s great and wonderful again. I have no idea why Poseidon is the God of the sea when it’s clearly a woman in charge there.
So at long last we get to the smooth water, and in a weird sense of symmetry, there were seals swimming in the water and lounging on the buoys. And oddly, there was a boat full of Japanese tourists in little orange life vests being ferried around on some sort of harbor boat. It was such a jarring sight to see after five days on a tiny boat by a tiny island in a giant ocean that even Sander remarked on it. Not, “Daddy, why is there a boat full of smartly dressed Japanese tourists wearing orange life vests and clear rain ponchos driving around this harbor in the middle of nowhere,” more, “What are those people doing? “ (the rest was clearly implied).
Then we docked. And honestly, it was that anticlimactic. Boat pulls up, boat docks; you get off and get on a bus. No big send-off, no flowers, no long good-byes, not even an official “You survived the trip-here’s your T-Shirt moment” (in fact, there was no free t-shirt at all. What’s up with that? Where’s my “Shark Dive” swag? You get a t-shirt and a mug for successfully crossing the street these days. Doesn’t five days of Great White’s merit a t-shirt and a mug? I know, I know, the experience IS the swag. Whatever, this is America, if you’re not handing out free t’s, you’re just not in the game. It’s like spending a ton of money on a text marketing campaign to reach the kids, and then texting them in English and not using things like l8r, lol, tgfdr, and emoticons. You’re just missing something). It was so methodical it was strange. But whatever, we were now hardened veterans of the ocean, no salt in these tears.
So we got on our bus and headed north to the US of A. It was an uneventful ride, except that it was during this ride that I first realized that the “ocean motion” was staying with me. So while I may not have had a t-shirt momento, I definitely had the sea-sick as a memory. I felt like the bus was rockin’ and no one was knockn’. This “churn” would stay with me for about a week. I really made going to the bathroom an adventure, but I was able to sleep like a baby due to the gentle rocking in my head. But there was a point there where I seriously debated putting the magic patch back on.
Anyway, we make it back to the border. Remember that border where we breezed through, no line, no inspection and the guard just waved at us from his patio chair? Funny, it’s not the same leaving Mexico. Leaving Mexico you get long lines of cars, longer lines of pedestrians, and parking lot traffic conditions. Finally we arrived at the border. I’m not sure how it works on cars, but in a bus, you get off the bus, get your luggage, wait in a line, smile at the border guard, put your bag on an X-ray machine, get your bag, walk through to the exit and get back on your bus in America. It’s extremely efficient. Seriously. I know that everyone complains about the border lines, but given how many people cross the border here, I thought we made it through in record time. I’m not saying I want to do it daily or anything, but it was a non event. Mexico, then US. Ho-hum. And the US didn’t feel all that much different. In fact, at first, I thought that was the first step in something and we were still in Mexico.
Now that we were back in the states, back to the cutest girls in the world (and these were the California versions!), we reboarded our bus, and headed back to San Diego, and our familiar Holiday in Bayside Hotel. No much time to do anything but get in, order a pizza (by the way, hot pizza after 5 days in Mexico and on the ocean is about the best tasting thing in the world-we ate ourselves to sleep) and go to bed. I intended to get some homework done that night, but between the pizza stupor, the constant swaying and the general beatdown of the trip, it just didn’t happen.
One note about the homework. I promise you, I fully intended to get ALL the homework done that his teacher gave us as a condition of going on the trip. I really did. In fact, I even had it out that last night. Look, I like to think of myself as a conscientious father, and definitely believe that it’s great to learn because knowledge is power, that knowing is half the battle, and my favorite school house is schoolhouse rock, but not only did it not happen, but Sander called it on the first day of our trip. I told him on the way to the airport, “Do you have your homework?” “Yes.” “Good, because we need to get it done.” “OK. (pause) We brought the homework to do daddy, and we’re going to try to do it, but how HARD are going to try to do it?” “Oh, we’re going to do it little man.”
He was right. But listen, between the rocking boat, the sharks, the food, the sharks, the rocking boat, the seasickness, the sharks and the rocking boat, it looked like I picked the wrong week to get tough about homework.
So the finally tally looks like this. Dad v. Sunburn? Dad wins! Dad v. Son Getting Eaten by a Great White Shark? Dad wins! Dad v. Seasick? Close, but since there was no actual "chumming of the sea" I'm taking that as a victory. Dad v. Homework? Yeah, Homework kind of spanked me. But honestly, he can learn basic multiplication anytime, but seeing Great White sharks? That’s the priority right? Right? I’m not a bad dad…right? I’m not going to be one of these parents fined for their kid doing bad in school am I? Oh man, the Oprahettes are going to have a field day with me…
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