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He was a San Francisco Bay sailor, traveling with his wife and a group of friends, on a ten-day vacation in Mazatlán, searching for a sailboat to charter. There were none. Not even a day-sail trip out the

isla, a mile offshore. He instantly saw himself a sailboat charter captain in Mañanaville. The infection immediately began to set in. Three years and a thousand reveries later he sailed his recently acquired, tired but reliable, 1956 Clipper-Ketch out of San Francisco Bay and made a sharp left, bound for Mazatlán, Mexico.

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Two brothers who owned a sport fishing business at the harbor (that he'd met during one of several recon trips to various ports in Mexico) promised they'd get him legal if he brought a sailboat to Mazatlán - "no problema". So after lingering in San Diego to pick up a lusty lady, who thought she was eager for adventure, they ventured off to a storm-tossed south of the border.

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The lady fled after a week in Mazatlán, uncertainties of Mexico not to her liking. He stayed, and with the approving wave of a Mexican "partners" hand, used his magic marker flyers to lure gringo tourists out to the island on a four-hour tour - only $35.00 dollars each. Mexican vagaries being what they are, his hard work and high profile were rewarded by quasi-arrest, detainment and the very real threat of jail. The payment of the modest bribe of merely all his profits - which after buying and outfitting the boat and passage-making to Mazatlán, his life savings, kept him out of jail.

 

The partners promised they'd "fix it right this time". They promised for two years and produced forty-five days of illegitimate "legality". The skipper managed to slip back to the states and bring back a Jeepster, towing a travel trailer to call home. Jeep tours of local sites and nightlife, including the Dragon Rojo (a working mans whorehouse on the fringe of civilization and society), provided margarita money and cheeseburgers in paradise. Finally, after almost three years of waiting for "permiso", the skipper sold his now nearly derelict boat - on time payments, to the most honorable, educated, local he could find - then limped home in his battered Jeep (travel trailer long since sold) to re-connect with the tall blond with whom he had fallen in love during one of her many visits to Margaritaville.

 

Through it all he made good Mexican friends and friendly enemies. He laughed, cried, lusted, loved, lived high, lived like a poor Mexican, hung with ex-pats, and learned more about himself in those three years than the prior thirty-seven. He lost the battle with Mexico, won a war with life, and found a fair lady. All and all, it was, as is, a damn good twenty-one chapters.

 

For anyone who ever thought about chucking it all to sail away to paradise (whatever that represents for you), start a new life filled with romance, danger and excitement - grab life by the shorthairs and say "OK! I'm here! Let's go ten rounds!"Mañanaville