Mexico is an objectively dangerous place. They kill a lot of people here. If you move between countries, there is a much higher likelihood that your chopped-up plastic-bagged body parts will be found in a shallow grave in Guerrero than Saskatchewan.

Any of us who have travelled or lived here for any length of time inevitably have questions from some friends or family in Canada or the US directed at our sanity for being in such a dangerous country. "How can you live there? It's not safe!"

We Mexican fan boys roll our eyes and explain to them the reality of life here in Mexico. "There are some dangerous areas in Mexico, but we don't go there... If you are not dealing drugs, there are no problems... It's 42 times safer than living in Chicago... The tourist areas are safe and well protected... Tracey was shot in California, but we haven't had any trouble here..."

We have long ago rationalized in our minds how we are taking minimal risks and enjoying an extraordinary country with wonderful culture and friendly people. In fact, we sail on our boats or live in condos and marvel at how people back home get in their cars and do the dangerous drive to work every day. If you ask most anyone here, they will tell you they feel safer where they are in Mexico than they do in major cities to the north.

The Canadian travel advisories for Mexico mention the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, Michoacán, Baja California, Jalisco, Nayarit, Colima, Guerrero and Chihuahua. If I look at where we will travel to this season, it's not the dangerous places. Instead, we have travelled to Sonora, Baja California, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua. We are about head south for Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, & Guerrero. Umm.

We drove through northern Sonora this season the same day that 9 American women and children were ambushed and killed in their vehicles. But that was way over the other side of the state on the border with Chihuahua and their community had issues with bad guys.

Near a boatyard we were staying in, they dug 42 bodies out of shallow graves in the desert. But it wasn't like we were at risk - this was a full 8 km away and the people were killed long before we got there.

Last year we skipped a visit to one of our favourite anchorages because the Mexican navy was about to confront a stolen 80-foot power cat that was taken at gunpoint a few days earlier. But that was some sort of commercial dispute and there was no risk to cruisers in the bay.

We rolled through Chihuahua on a bus the same day that another bus in Chihuahua crashed and killed 13 people. Totally fluke accident - never a danger to us. We travelled on a different bus line.

3 people were gunned down in downtown Zihua last year while we were there. But hey we don't hang out at those bars late at night. We were fine.

Our friend we met in a coastal town described for us his day visiting a friend in a nearby city where a drug lord was arrested, and war broke out in the town. He drove from one street to another with police blockades and gunfire trying to escape. The President of Mexico ordered the alleged criminal released. The city has been peaceful ever since. This was 42 km away from us and happened at least a couple of weeks before.

We always seem to rationalize why we are safe when there is mayhem around us. But that's human nature. If there was some objective truth, we probably are at some higher level of risk than we like to admit, but it is still wildly lower than the risk of being taken out by melanoma in the Mexican sun.

And just in case you might be sitting smugly in your cubicle reading this on a computer thinking we are idiots for sailing away from the safety of home, when they are done fully quantifying the risks of sitting in your cubicle for 35 hours a week, you are going to wish you had spent your time hanging in the sun in rural Guerrero buying drugs from sketchy looking dudes.

We are all going to die. We aren't necessarily all given the chance to really live. Best to take it when we can.