Thursday, January 21, 2010 -- WE BECOME CRAB CATCHERS

Pancakes for breakfast this morning, something Jenn says Dina hates to make. They were tasty though and served with syrup.

Then we packed up—Jenn, Jess, and I to paddle north to Mechapa on the Pacific Ocean, and Uciel and Dina to take the food and gear back to Jenn & Peter’s in Jiquilillo.

The gang poses before our farewell to Donā Juana. Jenn, Donā Juana, Dina, Uciel, Jessica, a neighbor or relative of DJ’s

It was a long paddle, and we birded again as we went, seeing a Black-headed Trogan, Black-necked Stilt, Wood Storks, Mangrove Swallows, Hoffman’s Woodpecker, Redstart, White-lored Gnatcatcher, Summer Tanager, Grey-headed Kite, Common Black Hawk, Crested Caracara, and a White-tailed Kite as well as all the pelicans and herons and water birds we’d seen already.

When we stopped at a beach for a swim and a drink, I jumped in with my camera tucked into the front of my PFD. I didn’t realize it until I was back in the kayak. Fortunately the camera was in a plastic bag so didn’t get soaked, but it did get wet. Jenn wisely told me not to use it until I dried it out.

In due course we got to a place where we were supposed to find a western channel to Mechapa. It took a bit of searching but eventually we found it behind a small island. I liked paddling in the close channels better than paddling on the open water. More to see and few waves to battle.

We paddled and paddled until eventually the channel was about 20 feet wide. Before it narrowed completely, we nosed into a steep bank and got out. Jenn climbed the bank and soon came back with a man who helped us unload the kayaks and haul them to the top of the bank. Here we found a thatched house that the man and his son were caretaking (a common practice). The man agreed to watch the kayaks, and the boy, who had hitched up a rickety wooden wagon to a small, bony, white horse, would take us and our gear into Mechapa.

It took a bit for me to get into the wagon that had a single plank seat and only one axle. Each time I stepped up onto the wheel the cart moved forward. We put the oars and our gear behind the seat and the boy sat on the front edge of the wagon at our feet to guide the horse. We all had a cold fruit drink, and Jenn offered the driver a Sprite which the kid downed in one gulp.

The man and his two sons and the little white horse and wagon that would haul us to Mechapa

The horse struggled for a distance along a wagon rut, a field on one side and the Padre Ramos channel on the other; then we turned left and followed a sandy trail which came out right on the Pacific on a deserted beach. Once on the hard packed brown lava sand of the beach, the horse had an easier time of it. We rode down the beach for quite a distance and then turned in to Redwood Beach Resort, the horse struggling to pull the wagon through deep sand.

Jess taking a photo of Jenn and me in the little horse-drawn cart

I felt sorry for the little horse as it struggled to pull us over this deep sand

Finally some relief for the horse on the hard  packed sand at low tide

Yes, Virginia, there is paradise. RBR was formerly owned by a cocaine trafficker who was arrested, his property confiscated, and put up for sale. The property was bought by Mike, a Chicagoan, and Stacey, a New Yorker. They’d owned it for only three years but had spruced it up. There were many very nice amenities, especially in view of our last three days at DJs outback—tiled baths, flush toilets, hot showers, soft mattresses, and mosquito nets! Ricardo, a top-notch chef. A washing machine. Electric lights. There was nothing else along the beach beyond RBR. The fishing village of Mechapa, nestled behind RBR, but shielded from it by a coconut grove, had maybe 100 residents. This truly was a tropical paradise where time stood still and the pace was unhurried.

Our porch hammock

Our frilly but delicious HOT shower

Cozy shaded patio and eating area with a well-fed and content rescued street dog

Mike and Stacey greeted us. We were still in our grubby bathing suits and paddling clothes. I opened up my camera and placed it, the card and the batteries in the sun at the edge of the thatched pavilion. Then we were shown to our room in a lovely wooden cabin facing the beach. We both took hot showers, changed into clean clothes, sent our dirty clothes to be washed, and then went back to the pavilion to enjoy a cold drink.

Me checking my bird field guide

A rubber glove that Jenn put over my cleaned blister to keep it dry. Ha!

Pretty quickly thereafter Mike loaded us and Ricardo into his Toyota Land Cruiser to drive us down the deserted beach to cliffs and tide pools several miles away almost on the border with Honduras and nearly the farthest one could go on the Nicaraguan Pacific beaches.

Toyota Land Cruiser with its snorkel 

At the cliffs, looking south , back toward RBR; we are nearly at the Honduran border 

Ricardo, Jess, and Mike at the tidepools

Crystal clear tide pools

When we got back, we had lunch—two drumsticks, rice, tomatoes, watermelon. Mike and his guests (a diplomat’s family) were having fish. They had one red snapper meal left over and offered it to me. Very yummy. They had two rescued street dogs whom they said could have our chicken bones and fish heads. I gave them same which they immediately crunched down. No prissy eaters, these.

Jess and Jenn at lunch

It was 3 pm. We all went into lazy mode. I caught up on my journal and bird sightings. Jess went back to the cabin and finished reading Into Thin Air, the book she’s been reading since our adventure began. I returned to the cabin for something and found her in tears in the porch hammock. The ending, of course, is very sad.

While Jess lazed and read, I took a walk into town with Jenn who wanted to buy a few things at the pulperia so that she could break some large bills. On the way in we saw Orange-fronted Parakeets and White-fronted Magpie Jays. Did I mention that Jenn is an ornithologist? We had a great time birding with her. On the dirt road into town we passed the Mechapa fish co-op and a small building with some pinball type machines in it, and then came to the pulperia. Everyone came out to greet Jenn. She had lived with Mike and Stacy for a bit when she was pregnant with Penelope. All enquired about Penelope.

Not pleasure riders but villagers using the smoothest route in the area

The building where the teens hung out and used the pinball machines; a very sleek, well-fed, and elaborately saddled horse for the area, probably like a U.S. teen proudly leaving his mustang car outside

Fishermen putting their boats into the water in the evening

Nets drying at the fishing co-op.

We walked back and sat oceanside in two chairs under a little thatched roof. Jenn borrowed a machete, chopped the husk off a coconut, and made a hole in it so that I could drink the cool coconut water inside.  Coconut water is very refreshing and cooling in the heat.  We watched the terns (royal, bridled, and Caspian) and gulls and skimmers on the shore and also watched as the village fishermen put out to sea in their small boats for the daily fishing ritual of their Cooperativa. The remoteness of the small village is deceptive — this little community is doing very well by Nicaragua standards, but they also work very hard for it. Each evening the boats head out to lay their nets. It is an amazing feat to watch these small wooden boats wait and gauge the best time to punch through the large surf. They fish through the night, and in the morning they return with their catch, which is also a sight to see because now they must punch through the surf the other way without damaging their large outboard motors.

The little shaded spot where Jenn and I rested and watched the beach birds and fishermen in the afternoon

Jenn cutting a coconut open with a machete

When the fishing boats return in the morning, the entire village takes part. Everyone not fishing runs down to help as the boats begin to return. And this village has a tractor! The tractor comes roaring down the surf, a boat is attached, and the tractor quickly hauls the boat back across the sand out of the reach of high tide. Then the fish processing starts.

Jess joined us after a bit and we watched the sun set. Then we went into the pavilion and played Chinese checkers with a diplomat’s two spoiled little girls before dinner. Mike charges $60 to $100+ a night, a huge amount in this country. Thus most of his clientele are diplomats, politicians, and very well to do Nicaraguans.

Terns and gulls on the beach before sunset

Our supper was something right out of Gourmet magazine—seared tuna, very fine pasta, and cooked pineapple, all arranged artfully on our plates. 

After dinner we piled back into the Land Cruiser, were given kitchen mitts and gloves, and became RBR’s “crab catchers.”  Mike drove slowly down the beach. When he had a crab in his headlights, he’d stop the truck, yell “Crab!” and we’d pile off the tailgate and run the crab (or crabs) down before it could get to its hole. Crabs are fast, skittle sideways and backwards, and make right angle turns. Chasing them down was hilarious. After three or four, I was winded so rode with Mike while Jenn and Jess and Ramon chased. Ramon was the RBR handyman. He had a bucket into which we’d pitch the caught crabs. Mike said that it was not a stellar night for crab numbers, but it surely was a great deal of fun. 

It was 10:30 pm when we got back. I went to bed, but Jess and Jenn stayed up a bit longer and had a nightcap. The bed was deliciously comfortable and I enjoyed a good night’s sleep.