Fishy Tails by Banderas Bay

 

We are now in our apartment in Bucerías, Nayarit, on the Bahía de Banderas (Bay of Flags), a booming tourist resort for Canadians and Americans escaping the winter cold or in search of living at Mexican prices (especially for housing). To escape the heat of the day, we walk for an hour every morning at about 7-7:30am to central Bucerías.

A frigate bird over the bay

 

The bay is ever more enclosed by hotels and condominiums which advertise ‘ocean-front living’ to mostly foreign residents. The impacts on wildlife and the environment must be substantial, although there are efforts to protect natural assets, such as citizen groups that seek to preserve turtle nesting areas. At lunch one day we watched from our terrace as an inert adult turtle washed onto the shore. The lifeguards buried it deep under the sand at the top of the beach. A few days earlier, we encountered a baby turtle laboriously making his way to the sea, although we also found a dead baby turtle who had lacked the strength to reach the shore. During a previous visit we met a number of babies clambering over and under beach debris, some heading in the wrong direction; we joined a group of Mexicans redirecting the strays to the water.

A pelican at Boca de Tomatlán

 

At least to this visitor’s eyes, the variety and abundance of life is impressive. As we walk in the morning, we frequently see the surface of the bay broken by shoals of jumping fish that attract hungry pelicans and other birds. We’ve seen dolphins further out in the bay. Frigate birds fly regally high over the shore and the bay looking for prey on which they swoop, somehow without entering the water. Pelicans, in contrast, dive precipitately into the water, surface and float serenely. If the dive was successful, in a minute or two their heads go back and their capacious beaks quiver as they swallow the catch whole. There are gorgeous birds, the size of a starling with bright yellow breasts, the tops of their heads are blue cap and they have a black streak across their eyes; they sit in the trees in the pool area and the vacant land next door. More adventurous all-black birds of a similar size fly down to the pool’s edge for a drink. And the tiniest of miniature birds sits on he palms and sing with a volume that seems impossible from such a tiny creature.

The yellow-breasted bird

 

We pass fishermen (yes, they are all men) who use a variety of methods: at the simplest, a line wrapped round a plastic bottle; rod, reel and line; a kind of net called a chinchorro cast seemingly at random by a man standing in the water up to his knees or waist; and today (Sunday 22/09) a man was threading a long line of thin rope, beheath which hung a net, dotted with buoyant balls as the tide carried it ever further out into the bay (we will return to him in a moment).

 

At 7:30 on Sunday we passed two men with a single rod and line who already had some large fish they called toros (bulls) in a plastic bucket, but other exponents of the line (whether rod or plastic bottle) waited patiently with no results. And the exponents of the chinchorro cast their nets over and over without catching anything, although the other day one man found a large catch in his net only to discover that it was an inedible spiny puffer fish. Sunday, the overnight swell had stranded some puffer fish on the beach and further along past Bucerías a few hundred tiny silver fish not an inch long had similarly been stranded.

 

When we returned, the man with the long rope line was floating on a tyre inner tube hauling in the line and removing any fish he had snagged and putting them into a plastic bag. The two men fishing for toros had finished their morning’s work with a catch of eight, enough to feed a large family.

 

Sunday night a tropical storm, complete with lightning and thunder, swept the bay. Rains quickly gush down the rivers from the mountains that hem in the bay, and along the streets of the towns strung around the beaches. By Monday morning each of these outlets had carved mini canyons in the sand. The more or less dry ‘canal’ that drains from the higher parts of Bucerías was running fast into the sea, where wading birds caught the silvery fish we had seen stranded the previous day. Tree trunks, some complete with roots, coconuts and other vegetation were carried into the water and then on to the beach, alongside man-made waste. By Tuesday morning, the rush of waters had deposited small patches of stones periodically along the beach. And two drowned rats lay near the water’s edge.

Casa Nautilus, designed by architect Eduardo Navarro in a tree-lined street. Behind the house looms another new concrete condominum; no trees, no shade, no sens of place.

 

However, as yet more buildings go up (one next door to where we stay, replacing a traditional single beach home and large garden with the excavation of an underground garage and a six-storey block of apartments) the strain on services and nature must surely grow, and in Mexico regulation rarely triumphs over profit and influence. We hope that the flora and fauna of the bay will be resilient enough to survive, or that civic action, and (less optimistically) municipal government action will protect the nature of the bay. Tuesday morning, we took a stroll round our neighbourhood. In places tree-shaded streets of older housing, some distinctly modest, others the homes of once prosperous families, survive. One proudly displayed a ceramic tile noting the name of its architect; another tile records the owner who built it. These are glimpses of an older, Mexican Bucerías. But, increasingly, crews of workmen erect the concrete and steel reinforced shells that will become more and more identical condominiums. The town is now a place for well-to-do Mexicans to vacation, but above all for Canadians and Americans (or other foreigners like us) whose money buys them a luxurious apartment and a lifestyle supported by cheap Mexican labour.

Our neighbours on the waterfront

 

Dormitory towns for Mexican workers are inland, but here expatriates whose income does not stretch to beachfront living can afford homes in middle class neighbourhoods, like the one where our con lives. At a pizza dinner a few evenings ago, our son’s (Chris) boss explained that he has now accumulated 1,100 INFONAVIT (Instituto del Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores: Institute of the National Fund for Workers’ Housing) points that entitle him to a government guaranteed loan to buy a home (all Mexican employees contribute taxes to INFONAVIT that turn into points). However, demand from foreign buyers has raised prices in the Palma Real neighbourhood district of San Vicente, where Chris owns his home, to levels that his boss cannot afford.

Our neighbours across the street

 

This economy is, of course, founded on profound inequalities of income and wealth in Mexico, and between Mexicans and nationals of more wealthy countries. Most of those who stay in the bay-side hotels kept scrupulously clean by neatly turned-out courteous Mexican workers, or served in the restaurants by cherry staff, have little idea of the conditions in which these people live. But if you get into conversation with a taxi driver, a cleaning lady, a waiter, or if you learn about the living conditions of the families supported by Chris’ charity Pasitos de Luz, you gain some insights into the social economy of Bahía de Banderas. This will be the subject of the next contribution to my blog.