The anchorage outside of La Paz.
Docks are like drugs. You think I’m kidding. Once you have a dock you think you need it, every day for the rest of your life. Over time the dock starts to make you feel anxious, like you should be doing something every moment of the day, like you’re missing out on all the things that are just behind that gate, like you should be socializing with all the friendly folks that happen by.
When you start thinking about leaving the dock, you panic. Just one more provisioning trip. Need to fill up those fuel tanks. Top up on water. The list of boat projects grew rather than shrunk! There are neighbors we never said hello to! So many reasons to stay hooked.
No one stages an intervention because no one realizes you’re on the path to addiction. Those without the dock convince you that the dock is a drain. Those on the dock wonder why you’d ever want to leave it.
When you finally get up the courage to leave the dock behind, or (perhaps more likely) when your pocketbook begins to shrivel and dry up, you convince yourself that you’ll be better off without it. An internal declaration that you doubt, because you’ve forgotten life before the dock.
Finally, in a frantic fit, you jump aboard, push with all of your might against the dock, even as the current forces you back towards it. Engine in forward, one click…then two. Full rpms. As you move farther and farther away, as you gain perspective, you begin to breathe easier. All those things that plagued you? For some extraordinary and inexplicable reason they fall away, reaching desperately towards you but without a solid grasp. Life will be more difficult in some ways, but in many, less tangible ways it will be easier. Let it go, Harmony, let it go.
You swear you’ve quit it. That you’re off the dock for good, but when you sail by another dock somewhere down the line, you know how hard it will be to resist. Just one more night. One night is all I need. The price will be comparable to what you find back home and you’ll convince yourself that it’s worth it. That you deserve it. That you’ve worked so hard for it. Next thing you know, you’re hooked again.
We’re taking baby steps towards a departure from La Paz and it’s famed bungee effect. La Paz has been good to us, despite the fact that it was a somewhat strange transitional period (a topic for another post perhaps). The marina was a nice crutch, as well as a necessity for a portion of the time (when we were fixing up the engine), but we needed to cast of the lines.
Yesterday we moved out to the mogote (which is the anchorage inside Ensenada de La Paz). Nia, our new neighbor on SV Azul refers to it as the suburbs…an apt comparison. We were originally planning to leave tomorrow (Monday), but we keep adding things to our list and we want to say a proper goodbye to all the wonderful people we’ve met here. Plus, it’s hard to wean ourselves from the internet (so…hard…to wrench…myself free…from it’s grip.) But, for now, we’ll settle for a little victory – we’re off the dock. Internet, perhaps I’ll quit you another day.