September 10 – October 6, 2016 It’s been an easy month here in Huatulco – the only major boat project completed was refinishing the coaming with Cetol (our only wood that requires maintenance!) plus some other small chores. One big Gina project – I had a bunch of dental work done – four crowns, one root canal and two fillings!! Thankful a wonderful dentist was near by and was available! DreamCatcher celebrated her 20th birthday on October 2nd – amazing that Bruce has owned her all these years! What a blessing! We enjoyed a couple of days touring the area with Rick and Beth (s/v Stingray). We visited the Hagia Sofia agro-ecological project located in the mountains of southern Mexico. This 321 acre preserve strives to teach locals about organic/sustainable farming as applied to exotic fruits and flowers. Today this beautiful area is abundant with exotic flowers and fruit that parallels a beautiful stream. On our way home we stopped at a Mezcal farm and learned about the Mezcal process (photo is of horse crushing the agave plants with a big stone) – we enjoyed lunch and sampled the many flavors of this traditional Mexican alcohol! Tequila and Mezcal are somewhat related, but have very different tastes because of the type of agave used (Tequila only uses Weber Blue Agave and is steamed before fermentation – Mezcal can be made of any other kind of Agave and is cooked in an underground fire before fermenting). Now for the dog’s drinking lesson: Tequila is drunk in either mixed drinks or as shots with lime and salt. Mezcal is normally taken as a shot folowed by a slice of locally grown oranges that have been dipped in a mixture of sea salt, chili and ground up agave worm (yuck!). The worm in the bottle is not traditionally seen here, but was added as a marketing scheme for export. We finished Andy Stanley’s sermon series “What Makes You Happy” with “You’re Not Enough”. We’re tempted to believe that happiness comes from acquiring things – doing makes the difference – especially doing for others (serving and volunteering). You won’t be happy as long as you are all about you.
Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.