For Spanish We were down at the marina one day looking for Dale and Esther Donaldson of Santiago's Ocean Services. It was a beautiful fall morning, cool and bright. A party of tourists got out of a car and headed down the ramp to the dock. They were wearing windbreakers and carrying boxes and bags, talking excitedly to each other, obviously ready to embark on a cruise in one of the boats there. As they climbed aboard one by one, the boat began to fill up. A couple of last-minute members of the party hurried down the ramp holding styrofoam cups of coffee, followed by another with bags of ice. Suddenly someone shouted,"Dolphins," and everyone turned to look. Sure enough a round back appeared out of the water in the harbor and disappeared again. A few minutes later it resurfaced. The tourists tried to capture it with their cameras, but it was always gone before they could click.
The party aboard the boat was soon gone, but we heard that later a couple of sea lions were seen in the harbor by those who were left behind.
The mood was infectious. It seemed as if going on a boat cruise was the very thing we wanted to do. "We have a sunset cruise every evening," said Dale. "Why don't you come back at 5:00 and go with us." We said we would. "If you come during the day," he said, "you can go parasailing." We weren't sure we'd have time for that, but we promised to be there for the sunset cruise.
"You aren't afraid of getting wet, are you?" Esther asked. "A lot of people don't want to go parasailing because they think they will. But they don't touch the beach, and they don't touch the water. It's all done from the deck of the boat."
"Maybe next time," I said. "We have a lot of people to see today."
Esther had told us that the cruise would last an hour and a half and that the $20 per person price included margaritas. So at 5:00 we showed up, ready to go. Dale and Esther introduced us to our crew, Chano and Kato. We went down the ramp and got into the boat, El Tigre, with 10 other passengers. It was very comfortable. There were padded benches along each side that would have seated 14 people, but one couple preferred to sit on the back deck on a sort of love seat where they could put their arms around each other in relative privacy. Our other fellow passengers were another young engaged pair, a family with a daughter and son, about 8 and 6, and a slightly older couple. I probably read too many locked-room mysteries, but I found myself wondering what they would turn out to be like if we had to spend a lot of time in their company, as happens in the fictional scenarios. They all seemed pleasant enough, and the hour and a half didn't show them to be any different than they seemed.
Our crew was very efficient. Before we even left the harbor, Chano made sure we all had our margaritas, and the kids had their cokes. We headed out around the curve of the rocky point that gives Peñasco its name. The tide was low, and we could see the high-water line far up the rocky sea wall and the restaurants and the lighthouse on top. As we rounded the point and steered past Mirador Beach toward Las Conchas, someone said, "There are the dolphins." Of course they were gone by the time I turned around, but in a minute they surfaced again--two of them. Chano turned the boat around to get closer to them, and they came up to it. For a while they were swimming right alongside it under the bow we could almost touch them; then they headed away from us. Chano and Kato kept turning the boat so we could keep them in view. As before, every time they came up, they went down faster than we could get our cameras ready. And, since we never knew where they were going to come up, we couldn't have the camera ready ahead of time. So we just relaxed and enjoyed watching for them. I think they were playing with us. Chano and Kato kept our glasses refilled.
The ride was magnificent. I said to John, "I can't believe we've been coming to Puerto Peñasco for almost 30 years and have never done this before. "Well," said Chano, "you picked a perfect evening to do it."
I had to agree. The temperature was mild, not too hot, and the breeze was soft. The moist breath of the sea surrounded us. Across the gulf we could see the fuzzy hills of Baja California, magnified as they are every evening by the sunset light so that it seemed as if they could be reached in a few minutes. Above them the setting sun hovered, ready to descend. The dolphins had gone, and we turned our attention to the west, following the flaming orange ball as it gradually disappeared.
After following the sun into the sea, we looked the other way and saw a glorious full moon, a globe lighting the eastern sky. It was still twilight, and the sky was delicate pink and lavender, shading into light and then darker blue; the wash of the propeller left a distant silver trail behind us.
The young lovers hugged each other, and the rest of us looked out at the sea , the twinkling city, the moon and the sky. What a perfect evening for romance, even for those of us who have been married for a long time.
And they have these cruises every evening. Believe me, I won't wait thirty years to go again.
