I've logged in a few times this week mainly because we've had a deluge of weather, tropical looking stuff, lots of rain, and life has slowed down a bit. Now the weekend is here, and I'm off to collect a few stories for the upcoming week. I received the letter below from my dear friend and brother-from-a-different-mother, CB after our trip last week aboard Olivia.

In a previous entry I made mention of the fact that he had taken his beautiful hand crafted canoe, Enigma down the Rio Grande River in a display of protest regarding the proposed wall between the US and Mexico. CB is a consumate biologist even though he's a federal bureaucrat (just kidding pal) and recognizes the great ecological impact such a structure would hold on an already stressed and abused ecosystem.

His missive is a unique insight into this controversial issue, as well as conveying the special flavor that Latitude 26 is.

CB is a master wordsmith, and I offer his account for your enjoyment:

JW:

 Stick this in your Blog!

(Just teasing on the subject title!)

I was thinking about the incident in which Olivia failed to come around.  You will recall that the sheet had gotten snagged on the loose forestay for the second head sail (sorry, there has to be a better term for this).  I couldn't unsnag it because there was too much tension on the sheet, so the wind was filling the sail but in a strange way.  Finally when DD released the sheet from the winch, I unhooked the sheet, the sail filled out normally, and we came around.  So I have to wonder if that was the cause of the failure to come around.

Nobody sang Kumbayah on the float trip, in fact the 60+ boaters represented a real cross-section of society.  They ranged from teenagers to seniors, conservatives to liberals, anglos and hispanics and those who are undecided or otherwise relegated to the middles.  The one thing we all had in common is a concern for this unique natural setting and the hugely negative impact that an ugly steel wall will have on it - as well as our willingness to speak out.

But one of the more memorable incidents involved a beautiful young Russian journalist assigned to join the crew of Enigma, my sycamore-epoxy canoe.  Most of the 38 boats were sleek and efficient kayaks that have no room for huge coolers full of water bottles and beautiful young Russian journalists.  I also had a middle-aged lady named Sarah in the bow; she manages a B&B in Del Rio.  Ana, our reporter from the San Antonio Express-News, elected to sit facing backwards on the out-sized cooler.  I was not yet aware that Ana had never been in a canoe before.  She spoke fluent English, Spanish, French and of course Russian, but her linguistic talents were as yet unmatched by nautical sensability and her first canoe trip ended in a matter of seconds.  When she abruptly leaned to starboard to retrieve her notepad from a bag, the unsuspecting bow lady simultaneously tipped a few precarious degrees in the same direction.  I leaned hard to port to counter-balance, but the Russian girl instinctly grabbed the listing starboard gunwale, pushing it down to the water line.  When the cooler full of water bottles slid downslope, I knew it was all over.  In a last final effort to save herself, the reporter stood up, her flailing arms connecting only with handfuls of air, then plummeted ass-first into the drink with a terrific splash heard at least up to Salineρo.  I greatly admired her reporter's instict to go to all extremes to get the story and keep it dry, as she held her notepad aloft even as her head sank beneath the waves.  I managed to save the boat, the water bottles and the bow lady, but we took on six inches of water and had to beach the canoe and dump.  Worst of all, I lost my bow painter. 

But the indefatigable Russian girl was a true sport, wet tee-shirt and all, and her second voyage was a great improvement over the first for all concerned.  She had me running alongside various participants for interviews, as well as Mexican families fishing and bathing on their side.  One of the more memorable quotes was from a fisherman's wife, whose comment on the border wall was, "Como quiera, vamos a cruzar, porque tenemos que trabajar.  Solo que ahora con mas mortalidad."  - "Regardless, we will cross the river because we have to work.  But now there will be higher mortality." 

Newspaper photographers and TV videographers don't knock themselves over much any more to record images of me for posterity.  But another way to earn fame is to have a beautiful boat with a beautiful woman riding backwards down the river interviewing people in four languages.  The tee-shirt, of course, was an accident of fate.

Whenever I load Enigma cartop on the RAV for a voyage, people hover alongside on the highway, staring.  You and I know there are a few design problems with Enigma, she being my first boat.  But it has been a remarkable way to meet people.  On the recent trip, I stopped at a gas station NW of Edinburg around 10:30 pm.  A Mexican man passing my made his wife pull up alongside, and he got out with his daughter of about 8 years of age, and just walked up to the boat.  He looked at me, not knowing I spoke Spanish, and tried a few garbled words of English.  Then he just reached up and touched the boat.  We began to converse in Spanish, and talked for 5 minutes about boat construction, the river, the wall and much more.  On the way back, I stopped again in Raymondville for gas, pulling alongside an old faded yellow school bus for an Iowa Boy Scout Troup.  The scoutmaster, a fellow of the most centrist American values and probable military background, came over, and it was the usual barrage of questions:  Did you build that yourself?  What is it made of?  How long did it take?  and so on.  And I told him I had gone down to participate in the border wall protest, and he launched into his own anti-wall sermon.  So yes, there are even conservative people in Iowa who realize how pointless and destructive this wall will be.

As always, I truly enjoyed the cruise on your wonderful boat, Olivia.

CB