Espiritu Del Mar
It started in the Northern Gulf, up near San Felipe but it took a while for people to wake up to that. Lots of news over the years in San Diego papers
and border town Mexican papers about the plight of the Vaquita, the overfishing that wiped out the shrimp and the fortunes being made in selling parts
of the Totuava. When the U.S. began to pay the Mexican fishermen not to fish in the Northern Gulf, all the papers were quiet about how much was paid
and even quieter when the fishermen took the money, went back to fishing anyway and with a last gasp kind of urgency.
The whole thing got back in the news big time when somebody burned 22 small fishing boats on the beach near San Felipe. They caught a little Mexican
guy in a broke down pickup who had a lot of empty gas cans in his truck. In the lockup they couldn�t get much out of him even with the Mexican
version of water boarding. He kept saying he didn�t hatch the plan, had no idea why he was there, knew nothing about the fishing, the fishermen,
their boats.
He didn�t have any money on him, nobody in the area knew him and he was very vague about where he lived, what he did for a living; he was drug and
alcohol free, his truck was registered in Sonoyta. They put him in jail in Mexicali and that was the end of that. There was a small article in La
Jornada at the time reporting the inmates caused a near riot to get him away from them because they claimed he was endemoniado, possessed.
There were the usual rumblings but no protests when five new longliner permits were granted and Korean factory ships began a vigorous interception of
commercial and other food fish that travel up, down and around the mid gulf as bait migrates with the currents. Then all the papers lit up when one of
the big ships was disabled and had to be towed to Guaymas. A CONAPESCA team found tons of illegal catch aboard and among those detained was Angel Cota
Garcia who the crew blamed for the serious problem with the running gear. He was drug free but seemed to be in some kind of trance and was totally
uncommunicative.
Their investigation indicated he could not have been involved with the San Felipe fires because he was in jail at the time in Mexicali. Quite by
accident they found he was there when the San Felipe arsonist was arrested and incarcerated.
Now the Mexican patented mystery rumors began to fly but I didn�t learn of it until much later --- with my kids and grandkids scattered all over
Colorado and Idaho, my wife Helen�s health problems and ongoing projects around this old place, I was too busy to keep up with much Mexican or U.S.
news. Somewhere along the line, as each crime occurred against those who farm the sea, a mystery character evolved --- sinister like the Chupacabra
yet heaven sent like a vengeful rectifier.
The rumor, the national superhero of the day became Espiritu del Mar, the Sea Ghost, who randomly entered the minds and bodies of innocent Mexicans to
use them as tools to save, restore and return the treasures of the sea which Mexico had so wantonly sold or wasted.
Some seiners moved from mid waters south to avoid any more trouble but when they began to appear in small armadas around Mulege, Loreto, La Paz,
locals took to the streets. What a wonderful circus for the press! Kids and adults in ghostly bedsheets chanted and moaned, brandished paper knives
and bloody hammers; they moved with a clumsy kind of derangement and posed with abandon for the hungry cameras.
The papers, the TV, everywhere across Mexico and Latin America were alive with news and accounts and videos of the small but colorful mobs of faceless
people in protest of things they hardly knew about but sorely wanted to demonstrate against.
The Ghost was pleased. Just below Ensenada someone cut through several tuna pens, releasing uncountable farmed tuna and escaped without notice. Three
restaurants in La Paz that made a major market in marlin and dorado were torched --- some say police were not all that interested in the
investigations or the hunt for those responsible.
Police in Nayarit found two men dead on the beach with several big bags of turtle eggs. They were not beheaded, they were dismembered, their hands
were in the bag with the eggs.
The news, the movement, resonated far from Mexico and its waters. Through Central and South America where natural resources and uncountable treasures
are being squandered and sold at unsustainable rates The Spirit moved the people to be involved in guerrilla kinds of actions in the jungles and in
the halls of congress.
The irony escaped no one; that The Spirit was invisible, amorphous, like the ever changing cabals arranging permits to change giant hardwoods to paper
and plankton to cat food.
I don�t know where this particular spirit will die but we live in a Pushme-Pullyou world where things don�t really flow but go forward or backward
in fits and starts. Very hard to keep track. I would like to think that The Spirit will stay alive and do more good than harm. This part of the planet
is in a war of attrition and if this is a skirmish, I only hope there are more of them. It would be great to think my sons could watch the grandkids
catch a tuna or take a run up the Orinoco to see a parrot.
I had better stop thinking those kinds of thoughts --- might be cause for The Spirit to pay me a visit and cast a spell I can�t ward off with a
couple of my famous Amnesiaritas.
http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=81887#pid1020...
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I also get blamed for a bunch of things than
most, so it is a labor of love! LOL, It's all entertainment along with some education!