Climbing on the banana boat near the shores of Stone Island seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, we received a free ride with our $36 excursion in Mazatlan. The lunch had been terrific, and the unlimited drinks were refreshing on this hot, sunny day. The water felt good.
We had already enjoyed our other included activity, a horse back ride in the sand near the surf. I'm not sure I could handle the full day ride along the sand advocated by my friend Ron, who calls these horse rides in Mazatlan the best attraction on the Mexican Riviera, but this half hour ride was fun for Julie and me.
As a little boy, I always loved horses, imagining myself to be a cowboy or Zorro, and it was good to get back in touch with those feelings. Actually, when we were children, Julie and I both used to go horseback riding at a place called Lakewood Riding Academy. The little boy I was may have seen little Julie from afar and wanted to talk to her but, overcome by shyness, just click-clicked my rented horse to try to impress her with my riding skills. Though our paths crossed at those stables and possibly a party or two in Orange County, we weren't destined to meet until we were in our late twenties.
Yet, here we were, decades later, standing in chest deep water in Mazatlan trying to join three young teenagers already seated on a large inflated banana that would be pulled through the ocean by an old motor boat whose driver watched our clumsy efforts to climb on. I helped Julie up, and then I realized there wasn't that much room left for a guy whose best yoga position is leaning back in a recliner. Somehow, I made it on, and we were off.
All of us were laughing and screaming as we streaked through the water. We were doing great, even remaining stable through a turn. The kids on the front, however, started leaning side to side, apparently wanting a little more action. If you've been on a banana boat, you know that sooner or later, if you go from side to side you will eventually fall off, and we all did. The young kids, who I think were free-riding siblings of the driver, were all back on in a flash, and again Julie and I were faced with the challenge of getting on, watched by three amused young faces. Now we had no seafloor to push off, but I helped Julie on.
It took longer than I'd care to admit, but with a Herculean effort, I somehow made it back on the banana. Like Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb in "Dr. Strangelove," we were laughing and whooping it up as we raced back toward the shore. The kids wouldn't let it end that easily. Again they leaned back and forth, and off we went. This time, after the kids jumped back on, we were wondering if we could make it up. The driver apparently had the same doubts, and he yelled something in Spanish. The kids got off, and somehow Julie and I made it back on. The last kid to get on had a bit of a struggle himself, but we were soon shooting through the water again. We made it close enough to shore that when we were dumped off again, Julie and I swam the rest of the way in.
Stone Island isn't a five star hotel in Maui by any stretch of the imagination. It isn't polished, but overall it is pretty fun. The tour we booked in advance from Johann and Sandra was on sale at the port for $35 on the day the cruise arrived.
It's a good deal, although after being transported from the cruise port to a stinky harbor where we waited about an hour for others from hotels to join us was a lousy start. The harbor ride goes by caves, a sea lion colony and other sites before delivering passengers to Stone Island, which is probably a couple hundred yards across the bay from where the cruise ship docks.
When Julie and I went to Mazatlan for a vacation back in about 1984, I remember being amused by the fact that we could sit at the beach by our Zona Dorada hotel and shop with the vendors who walked by in the sand. In fact, I bargained for a swordfish sculpted from ironwood that I undoubtedly have stored in some forgotten box in the rafters of my garage.
By the time we returned to Mazatlan on a Mexican Riviera cruise during Spring Break in 2004, the vendors had multiplied to the point where we could no longer enjoy the beach in Zona Dorada. Nonetheless, we returned to Mazatlan four years later on another Spring Break cruise, opting for an excursion to Stone Island. Suffice it to say that we liked it so much, we returned this time. One of these days, maybe we'll have to see the cathedral and shopping area in the center of town, but that wouldn't be a day at the beach, would it?
