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On Our Way

2014-09-17 19.38.01

 

 

On our way

I promised my roommate that I would not leave her sister and kids behind.  She was out of town at the time of the hurricane. We went to search for Jenna and the kids.  We found them with out incident and I told her and her husband that if I did not get her out of dodge, that her sister would tan me alive! Jenna’s husband Dilan offered me a warm Mexican beer and it was good. We then we went back home.

We didn’t sleep very much, if at all, that last night in Cabo. We kept going to the balcony and watched the residents armed with flashlights walk around the complex to try and keep us protected from the “ banditos” that were apparently coming to the gringo neighborhoods to loot, pillage and burn.

That night we had a hot meal. Our pastor and his wife decided to cook their meat that was going to go bad so we had hot chicken and tortillas. I don’t remember eating much for the 5 days or even drinking much water. I know that I really wanted a cold drink and there were no cold drinks to be had. I guess many people had a generator (smart move) and they ran their fridge so things stayed fresh and cold. But I didn’t know any one that had a generator – things felt pretty bleak!

We were ready to leave at 4 am as we had no idea what to expect at the airport. We had heard through word of mouth that we were not going to get through, that the army was there and they were only allowing tourists to leave. We half expected we would have to walk through the desert in the hot, hot, sun to get to the airport.

We went to the friend’s house that had a full tank of gas,  they are going to drive us to the airport. There were 4 of us in total. I gave my keys for the truck and the one locked door in my house that housed the precious gallons of water to the pastor of our church, advising him to use what he needed to use and take what he needed to take.

I am tired, really tired.

Baja Junkie | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment

Day 3 After Odile

2014-09-14 18.25.34

Sept 17

Didn’t sleep again the place is so unsecure, it’s hard to rest. Woke up and began cleaning again. I think what’s the point another storm is coming and my home will be flooded again.

No communication is the worst, we don’t know if anyone is okay, the only way is through word of mouth and it’s all really bleak with not much hope given. No food, water is limited and if help does come we need to get to the drop places for food and water but with no gasoline how do I get there?

I am sick of trying to clean, with no water. Haven’t showered in a few days, but we are trying to remain hopeful that we will see the military soon. Why hasn’t help come yet?

My old roommate came over; she lives over in the next community. We talked about going to her friend’s house and siphoning gas from her bike that we could use.

I packed a bug out bag with a few pictures, money, and papers and decided I would carry it everywhere. We locked our water in the only locking door and we ventured out. I had over 1/4 tank of gas in my 4 wheel….not much…I had to conserve.

We left the safety of the community and it shocked me every time we left…. the decimation of my beautiful Cabo in ruins. Cabo; in the last 3 years have become my home and I have such a connection to the people that live here. Gringo and Mexican alike.

We drive 10 minutes away from town towards San Jose and the downed cell towers, palms and power lines are everywhere too. We are carrying weapons. I have a screw driver, knives……..wow is all I have to say…..

Now I have tell you we had some  good laughs along the way….siphoning gas is a real treat and I remember from my farm days how gross it is………we were all gagging and laughing and finally my friend got it to drain……..great we have 2 gallons, not much but not nothing either. We couldn’t get gas from the other 3 cars we hit someone already got to them and they were parked in my drive way. This place had a relatively clean pool, I got in and washed my hair….still gross but better than before.

We just happened to try the phone and we got a dial tone! yippee I wonder if we can call international?

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Day 1 & 2 After the Hurricane

2014-09-15 07.55.18

 

My friend who lives in the complex over came to see me. She didn’t have it as bad as me. We walked over for a moment and used her landline phone. Little did I know that it would be the last message left for my family for a long time. I got there answering machine. I so wished I could of talked to them.

We decided after a bit of clean up to go for a drive. Unbelievable destruction! Power lines, palm trees, signs all over the place. The destruction was so bad that we came home immediately.

We went to bed early with a plan for the next day to try and clean up some more and then go into town. Oh I forgot to mention there were buildings down everywhere and people were starting to loot the corner store!

Sept 16 day 2 after the storm

We woke up and decided to go to town to see if there was anything left. I am so grateful I have a 4 wheel drive because a regular car would not get through. Mudslides from flash floods were 2 ft. deep full of mud across the hwy, power lines down, buildings just gone!

I stopped to see if my coworker was ok, as she lived alone with her fur babies. She was not home or at least she didn’t answer, her dogs were outside. I will check again tomorrow I think.

We stopped at my work and a window and water was blown all over. No one was there. Met my friend Tony and started to talk to people about the power. They tell us that it could be up to a month to get power back! Plus we have no cell service. Without power we can’t turn on the tap and get washing water, cooking water…..it doesn’t run without power! Things just got a lot grimmer. We talked about the food we have on hand and we realize we don’t have a lot of canned goods……I never expected this!

People are gathering a small army and I see they are going to start to loot Walmart, SAMs club and maybe Costco and this is only day 2 . I’m so scared. The army is there. Later I hear they just opened up the doors and let people take any food items etc. that they needed……

I have 1/2 a tank of gasoline…..why oh why didn’t I get a full tank? I feel so stupid! I was so unprepared! Oh but we have 12 gallons of clean drinking water….that should last a little while if we are careful.

I have a Costco size baby wipes. Thank you Kyrstin for getting me hooked on them. This is how I will wash for the next several weeks because of no power. We do have a cistern with water that we decided we can use to boil and cook with….thank goodness we have a gas stove!

All the freezer stuff is starting to melt, the fridge is warm…..everything is going to go bad. We will have eggs and bacon tomorrow and lots of it!

 

We heard there is only one working cell tower in La Paz 2 hours away. We won’t be getting power back on for at least 2 weeks and all the stores are getting looted! We are worried we might have to bug out, oh ya we just heard the airport is destroyed and won’t be having any flight in or out for a week or more. What are we going to do? And to top it all off with all the rain, our doors won’t shut as they are swollen, bugs and mosquitoes with the threat of dengue. Plus we heard through the grapevine there is another storm headed our way!

My place looks like a bomb hit it, it’s super-hot and humid out and we don’t have a safe place to ride out this next storm. We are afraid that people will start looting houses and we have nothing to protect us…. I can’t go to work and that means no money for me……I really feel …….tired….

Tomorrow is another day to fight the battle.

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The Night Of Hurricane Odile

2014-09-04 21.46.10Sept 14/15

 

I thought I was prepared for the storm, I thought I was smart, I thought I was ready for what was coming. I was so wrong about everything. Hurricane Odile was not suppose to hit us

There is something about it being in the dark going through a storm that I think makes it even scarier. The wind was picking up and sheets of rain were coming in hard like buckets dropped at 60 miles per hour…..the power flickered a few times around 6 pm, rumors were going around on social media that the power company was going to shut of power as a preventative measure. All I had was my phone to reach out and I continued to do so until my battery died.

 

Even before the storm hit us the house was shaking but nothing like we were about to experience. We moved away from the windows just in case the windows blew in. Josh and I both decided to ride out the storm together and I am so grateful for him. He kept me sane in the most terrifying moments of my life! I have never before felt that scared. We could hear all the stuff being blown around outside……haha we thought we secured everything, but you can’t secure anything from 145km or more winds!

 

Creaking and groaning and thing smashing outside with us trying to guess what it was that was being destroyed. I wanted to check on my house we lived side by side in a duplex. It was dark, and all we had were the lights from our cell phones. What we saw was unbelievable….my whole sliding glass door was coming out with the frame! We started to move a few things around to try and secure it with a couch as the wind was wiping around us and rain. In a flash we decided to move all my electronics…..there were a lot of things so many that I missed a few. We put them on this bed with wheels and covered them all up and moved the bed behind the wall. We went back to safety on the other side of the house which seemed safer and less wet

I hugged a pillow and we couldn’t take our eyes off the windows praying that the windows wouldn’t blow in…..sitting in the dark but for a few candles. I couldn’t relax and neither could Josh. We started making an exit plan…..what if the windows blow in? what if the house starts to blow apart? Where do we go? We decided on the bodega downstairs, it has no windows so we could be safe or the bathroom.

We sat not saying a word except for “the windows will hold right”? We will be all right. As the storm hit us direct the house started to shake and the sound was like a train right beside us….I really thought the house was going to go. Then it started to calm down and we thought we made it through the worst, but we were wrong we were in the eye of the storm. Another wave of this, surely the house won’t survive this go around. Water was pouring in through the windows, the house was shaking and groaning and creaking and the wind was howling but it was like a sound I have never heard before……of course I have never heard it before as I have never before been in a hurricane! At one point we heard a crack and then a car alarm…..later we found out a palm tree was pushed over by the gale force winds

 

It finally passed and we were so tired but scared to sleep. We both took turns sleeping for 20 min here and there but every time there was a noise I awoke to attention. Dawn arrives and we look outside and all I see is complete decimation of my yard. We try to get out the door but the wood has swollen from the rain and we are stuck! We look outside and see a man, I talk to him in English and in broken Spanish if he would come and push on our door

We are free! Free to see the damage caused by odile. My house has no sliding glass doors and I have 4 inches of water on my floor. I mopped and wrung 3 or 5 full buckets of water out. The pool is green and black with the pool pump destroyed, everything we thought we secured were in the yard or gone! The brick wall around the pool knocked over, the lawn chairs and BBQ in the bushes. My beautiful yard…..devastated! No more pretty trees or bushes ……gone.

If only I knew then that going through a hurricane was nothing like getting through the after-math of a hurricane.

More to come tomorrow

 

 

 

Baja Junkie | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment |   hurricane odile cabo

New Season

I have not written for a long time. Where does the time go? I am amazed at all the super women out there. . Women in my life that work full time, have a family,  school;  a project or passion they work on and don’t forget about exercise and eating fabulous tasty nutritious meal, redecorating their home and on and on and on. I am not one of them, but I would aspire to be.

It a-m-a-z-e-s meeee, I can barely work full time and work on starting my new business and I am exhausted. I have BAD habits I tell ya! It is so hard to get those bad habits straightened out.

I feel this year for me will be all about walking by faith. Resting in the knowledge that I am taken care of. Knowing that God has my back in all things especially in my new business. All the past experience with failure surfaces and tells me I can’t, I don’t know enough, this will never work – all those lies that my head tells me, yet my heart rests in the knowledge that it’s going to be okay. I will not let my past determine my future no matter what my head tells me!

Sometimes I don’t know if my brain shuts off after 3pm and I can no longer think to write but I have all this inside and I am determined to get it out.

So let me see if I can do a better job with this blog.

Happy New Years to you all as we almost at the end of the first month of the year, I wish you peace and contentment in this coming year.

EDIT:

I wrote this in 2015. I still have bad habit’s but maybe not as bad so I am thankful for that.  I still have not put myself on a writing schedule even thou I have time.

And I am learning to stop looking in the rear-view mirror and move past traumas and heartbreak and walk into my future. Let all that shit go. I still know in my heart that everything will be okay.

Blessings peeps.

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Part 3- Cured of Depression

So after a couple of weeks at the center I went off my meds for depression. Within a few days I started to decline in my mental state. First symptom was I felt tired all the time, no matter how much sleep I got. That is always my very first indication of a dive into the darkness. Then a very flippant I don’t give a crap attitude, swearing like a trucker (more then usual), feelings of  guilt, hopelessness and worthlessness set in. Lack of concentration and loss of interest in life. The black hole. Darkness

Every day my friend would ask me ” how are you doing?” and I would respond “here it comes.” I spoke of the depression that held unto me for 25 years like something out of a horror movie. This depression had become my worst enemy and I felt like I was trapped in it forever. Depression was forever ….wasn’t it?

In about 1 week I was hard pressed to get out of bed. This one particular day as we were starting bible study the leader asked me a question. To be honest I can not even remember the question but I do remember that it invoked such rage, defiance and rebellion in me. If looks could kill the poor guy would be dead and he knew it. I was ready to blow this popsicle stand and leave this God behind!

That’s it everyone, its time to pray, he said.  All 10 people stood up and gathered around me and raised there hands towards me. Some touched my shoulders or my head. Most of them spoke in their prayer language of Spanish. I couldn’t understand their prayers but God did.

I started to cry. I was told I needed to ask this Jesus person, someone I did not know, to heal me. I raised over my head lifted high and I started to pray. My prayers were like a child, not flowery with beautiful words or scripture just a “please I don’t want this to control my life any longer” more of a plea then a prayer.

I felt like my insides were being pulled. Like a tug of war with my guts, like something didn’t want to let go of me. A gust of air escapes my lungs like I had been punched in the stomach. The prayers and voices went silent. I felt exhausted and I didn’t feel like anything was different.  I felt the same depression only now I was really tired! Huh see nothing happened! This God doesn’t care about me. I went to bed. I slept hours and hours but before I went to sleep I felt hopeless again.

The next day I awoke with a song in my heart! I felt something I never before felt, maybe never felt in my life. I felt freedom! I felt like the world that I was carrying was lifted from my shoulders. I had a smile on my face which was not forced

Was I cured? I was cautiously optimistic. For the first few months I waited for that dark place with no color or light start to creep in, but it never did. It has been almost 3 years and I finally threw away all my medication after the second year. I continued to think it was a fluke, it was the Mx sunshine. It was anything but an actual super-natural miracle from God! Today I know I was relieved from this deadly, mind-altering disease by Jesus.

My life has changed because of His gift to me and I know now that He has given me many gifts that I never recognized that it was from Him!

Today I have hope. And in the last 3 years I have not had a hint of any kind of depression. I am truly free. Now I just need to have him help me kick the nicotine habit! And He will in his time.

Matthew 11 : 25-30

28 ” Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden light”.

 

 

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bullshark

 

I love to SCUBA dive and ever since I can remember I have loved sharks. And the more I dive and see what is happening to our oceans, the more I love the sharks!

The picture was taken by CJ my friend at Cabo Pulmo BCS Mexico, a National Park that Jacque Cousteau once called “The Aquarium of the World”!
I have wanted to dive sharks for a long time but I have to tell you that when I saw them circling the boat before entering the water my heart rate jumped.
Now I am not a novice diver, I have been diving for years and years with a few certifications under my belt. My point I guess is: that as I was descending to 40Ft I forgot all the instructions that the boat captain gave us ……like get to the bottom quickly – don’t float around swimming above them. As I realized that everyone else was at the bottom and I was still “floating” around on my descent I quickly raced to the bottom!

Once I was settled at the bottom I looked to my left and a large bull shark was coming right for me! In the last second it turned away to a different direction.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat – I love these creatures and I think they are often misunderstood and mainstream media does them no justice and creates fear. They make them into monsters with headlines like ” Shark seen in the FL keys” well duh that is where they live, in the ocean.

Be kind to our oceans folks!
Blessings
Scubagirl65

Diving with the Bull sharks in Cabo Pulmo, Mx

Importation Tax! Drives me nuts!

I have been living in Mx for almost 3 years and the one thing that I really miss is getting the items I want to buy without paying importation tax! It drives me nuts!

Not everything I need/want to buy is local, and example of this would be Q-Tips. A simple thing but I can not find the brand name here anywhere. I have looked and on occasion I have found them once. The thing that I have learned over time is that if you find something you like, buy it up, buy lots of it cuz you will never know when you will find it again!
I love to shop on Amazon! I can find great deals but the problem is that when I receive the items here. Another 30% if not more depending on the item.

So usually my cart at any online shopping store stays full and I continue to look and debate is that 30% extra worth it – how bad to I need or want this item.

Happy Shopping
Scubagirl65

Baja Junkie | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment |   importation tax online shopping shopping taxes

So much garbage!

My dive shop Nautilus Dive Tech went out on a dive in our local area of Cabo San Lucas, Mx to pick up garbage. So much trash in the sea!
Now on most of my dives, I come up with a pocket full of garbage from tons of fishing line and lures to bottles and cans.

Considering that this local dive spot is a no fish zone, we came up with so much fishing line. I have seen the damage first hand on how hazardous this can be for marine life. A fishing line was strangling a beautiful Moray Eel. Another eel had a hook in their mouth. They will surely die because they can’t eat!

picture by Nautilus Dive Tech
picture by Nautilus Dive Tech

The strangest thing I have found in the ocean is a dirty diaper! WTH!! Or women products??

Please pick up your garbage. Take the bottles and cans, plastic waste, and cigarette butts back home with you.

I don’t understand humans – I would rather hang out with the fish!

Blessings
scubagirl65

Baja Junkie | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment |   cabo san lucas conservation diving garbage missing rings scuba diving

Part 2 – The turning point

 

When I was planning to move to Mexico my biggest concern was if I was going to be able to get my drugs that I came to rely on for the past 20 years. I soon found out that I could but they were expensive. I made a plan to get a 3-month supply and I would wean myself off 1 of the 3 drugs. Sounded like a plan, this would be one of my constant mistakes through out life – formulating a plan! I knew by this time in my life that left to my own devices and own thoughts I will suffer.  My best thinking got me to this point!

When I landed in Mx, I stayed at a Christian rehab center. A place that believed through prayer, I would be healed from depression.  When I heard about this place I certainly did not get a lot of hope. I heard of prayer curing people but in my heart, I thought God only helped some people but he certainly would not help me.

I grew up with a family that went to church every Sunday. I had serious Christian grandparents who were very strict and made me memorize scripture when I was 5 yrs. old.  However, the story changes from here. I put my hand up at the thought of God or even the possibility of God at one point. Looking back now, I could easily believe in demons and monsters. Why then, was it such a stretch to believe in the light and goodness of God? I was blinded but soon I would see.

One of my biggest fears about going to this Christian rehab was that I swore like a trucker. Every second or third word would be the F bomb. I joked that I would probably walk through the gate and spontaneously burst into flames. I did not.

What I found in this rehab was freedom; from depression, bitterness; and a world that had a lot of gray in it. This no way infers that the grey was from living in British Columbia Canada where we had 300 days of grey skies.

For the first 2 weeks, I was getting myself acclimatized to the new world I was living in. Mexico was at its hottest time of year, September.

I was dealing with new food, new people and no real permanent home or job. All my worldly possessions packed in my little Ford Fit. What had I done driving 4000Km, to this?

Structured like no other rehab I had gone too and believe me I have seen a few, six to be exact. Morning time we were suppose to get up early and seek God by reading the bible and praying on God’s word. I never really did that when I was there.  I would wake up just before it was devotional time. Enough time to get up and make a coffee. One thing with depression I always felt tired even on my meds; I loved my sleep and every one of my friends and family will attest to that.

I was meeting other residents that were all there for some kind of cure whether it is from alcohol, drugs or the dis-ease of life! All of us searching, for something, too alleviate the pain of living in this world.

After 3 weeks of learning the power of Jesus and HIS word, I decided that I was willing to try the power of prayer. Over the years I have always looked for a cure in some sort of pill, potion or notion why not try prayer! I was ready, willing, and open to believe that any thing was possible. I must admit that I still had doubt in my heart but so did doubting Thomas in the bible and Jesus was his teacher in the flesh until Jesus proved to Thomas that HE was indeed real and alive after HIS resurrection. This is what really happened to me. After Jesus had cured me of the depression, I finally believed HE was REAL.

I went off my meds.

Stay tuned for Part 3 – Cured!

Spiritual Journey | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment |   belief believe believing cured from depression decisiions diagnosed dis-ease disease freedom God hopeless jesus lies negative recovery