Working Boats

I have a thing about workboats. Whenever we're near the ocean, I like to prowl the local harbor with a camera. Workboats are one of my favorite photographic subjects, whether they’re pangas hauled out on a beach or trawlers tied to a dock. As a kid, I learned to paddle a canoe and row a dinghy on the Delaware River in northern New Jersey. When I was a teenager, our family vacationed on Lake Ontario where my father and I fished out of an aluminum skiff with a small outboard motor, which he taught me to operate and let me run it into town by myself. As a marine scientist, I worked on commercial fishing boats and research ships from dories and seine skiffs to coastal and offshore oceanographic vessels. While we lived in southern California, I co-owned a 24-ft Skipjack with two diving buddies; we took it to the Channel Islands most weekends from May to October to hunt white seabass and yellowtail. Now I’m relegated to a sit-on-top kayak that I carry on the roof of the truck. Maybe, when we’re settled, there will be a bigger boat in my future.

Cruising yacht in Point Hudson Marina, Port Townsend, Washington

Barra de Navidad

We left Ajijic early on a Sunday morning. Lake Chapala had been dry and dusty, although sprinkled a couple times hinting at the rainy season to come. We were heading back to the Pacific Coast where it would be warm and humid. Descending to the coastal plain from 1,525 m (5,000 ft) on the paved road from Guadalajara to Manzanillo, we could feel the temperature and humidity increasing to 25°C (77°F) and 70% humidity. The air felt dense and heavy. What would summer be like at 35°C (95°F) and 90% humidity? 

Marlin-sailfish sculpture at the entrance to Barra de Navidad

We spent five weeks on the Costa Alegre (happy or cheerful coast), roughly 300 km (180 mi) of coast south of Puerto Vallarta to Manzanillo. A tropical environment, modest beach towns and uncrowded beaches attract Mexicans on weekends and holidays from as far as Guadalajara and Mexico City (link). American and Canadian tourists and snowbirds show up in the winter (November-April) when the temperatures are warm and it rarely rains, but their presence is not large like in Puerto Vallarta.

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz is the anti-Mazatlán. It's a small town on the Pacific Coast south of San Blas. There are no high rises and few tourist hotels and RV parks. The industrial-scale agriculture we saw north and south of Mazatlán has given way to towns and villages surrounded by orchards and small farms growing fruits and vegetables. “The local people are hard-working citizens, fishermen, farmers, blue-collar workers such as waiters or waitresses, or small business owner” (link).

Street near Playa La Manzanilla