Night of the Lepus By Michael & WindyAJO, AZ

Our own bunny cactus in our yard.

Just when you thought you were safe... They come out of the desert at night: flesh eating bunnies. Just in time for Easter, the Movie Channel broadcast a cult-horror classic famous for its awfulness. Night of the Lepus features a town under siege from adorable bloodthirsty bunnies the size of grizzly bears. MGM shot the movie in Ajo, Arizona in 1972.

For the giant killer rabbit shots, they used regular rabbits stampeding through a model town (no CGI back then) and slowed the film speed to give the bunnies a seeming heft. It was a good idea, but the end result looked like giant friendly bunnies juxtaposed with the terrified faces of men, women, and children.

At some point in post-production, the studio heads realized the problem and addressed it with a marketing plan. They stripped all rabbit references from the trailer and posters and title (lepus is Latin for rabbit). They built hype by keeping the source of terror a mystery (“Buy a ticket for the big reveal.”)

I don’t think it was effective. Even the all-star cast was lampooned for their performances.

And like all good (?) stories it’s based on a kernel of truth. Ajo is overrun by bunnies. They are adorable and plush and have the cutest white puffy tails. They do come out at night (and during the day). In fact, at any given moment, you can look around and spot at least one. They’re regular-sized and they don't eat humans, but they do eat gardens, especially savoring tender new shoots as they eke out a life in this harsh environment. Each one looks like Peter Rabbit, and so we share our garden with them.

This is why Ajo is a good place to celebrate Easter.

--MR & WR

One of the many murals of Ajo. The rabbits in this
mural look silly, but they're much more terrifying than
those in the movie.

The official trailer.



Here's a clip to give you an idea of what the movie looks like.

Back to Mexico By MichaelAJO, AZ

The FAA doesn't allow passenger rides
in ultralights in the United States. In fact
the only approved use of a 2-person
ultralight in the U.S. is certified instruction.
But, as though we needed to be reminded,
Mexico is not the U.S. That's me in the
red shirt, about 45 seconds prior to take-off.

It’s frustrating living in our shell of a house, with six weeks still remaining before we batten the hatches and head back to Fiji. I mean, I don’t mind being here, I really like Ajo and I often enjoy doing this work we chose to do, but it’s hard being away from home, from Del Viento. It’s especially hard when I’m in regular contact with friends and others casting off and heading across the Pacific for the first time. I know what awaits them, I can feel it like it was yesterday, the anticipation before the crossing, the exhilaration that comes a few days out when you’re in the groove and you realize you’ve made enough miles that the air temperature has gone up. There’s nothing like it. Manakai and MonArc and Terrapin and others are all feeling it.

And they’re all leaving from Mexico too, where we left from.

And we’re so close to Mexico.

And a family friend was visiting.

So we battened the hatches for a few days and went to drink some cold Tecate on the shores of the Sea of Cortez. After all, it's the reason we bought a house in Ajo.

It helped, a lot.

--MR

Full power and we were off the ground in about 30 feet,
and our ground speed was super slow, headed directly
into the afternoon onshore flow from the Sea.

I got a bird's eye view of the harbor at Puerto Penasco.
This whole place is like Cabo in the 1980s. Five

years from now this view will be utterly different.

Turkeys.

I'd love to know how they came to have a twin-Beech in their backyard.

"But you got to ride in the ultralight, Dad."

My woman in her element: a drink
in each hand and close to the water.

These beautiful Katrinas were ceramic, the larger ones
about 3 feet tall.

Ally, Frances, and Eleanor on ground level, same harbor.

An excellent taco meal, I'm up playing soccer with the owner's kid.
He didn't stand a chance.

Eleanor, our dear friend Ally, and Frances.

The ocotillos were in full bloom, throughout the
Sonoran desert, but especially on the Mexico side.

Twists and Turns By MichaelAJO, AZ

A is for Ajo.

There is no way we’re going to complete this house on schedule—on schedule meaning before we return to Fiji and Del Viento in early June. Part of the reason things are taking so long is that the house needs much more work than we anticipated. It’s going to be a gem when we’re done, but it’s gonna take longer than we planned. The other part of the reason for the slowdown is work related, like work-for-money-work related.

I’ve been freelance writing since we began cruising. It’s not paid the bills, but it’s certainly slowed down the burn rate (and it’s been a lot of fun). Then, just over a year ago, while in Tonga, I assumed the role of managing editor at Good Old Boat magazine. This job has demanded a bit more of my time, but it’s paid the bills and it’s been interesting and pretty easy to do, about a 20-hours-per-week commitment. It’s not really slowed us down.

Now, I’ve taken on the role of editor at Good Old Boat and it’s a great pleasure and excellent opportunity, but it’s a full-time job. Windy and I considered the offer carefully for about two weeks before I committed to it.

This house was my full-time job. Now I’ve got two full-time jobs.

In short, we’re making slow progress on the house, but I’m mostly spending my days learning my new magazine job.

I’ll be able to work just as easily from Fiji as I do from Ajo, thankfully, but I’m realizing that very long passages are not in our future. We could spend the rest of our lives living and working in Fiji, exploring her 300 islands and maybe even making passages to Vanuatu or the Solomons or New Zealand or Australia, but we’d long planned to head north to Japan and those plans are off the table. This is a huge blow to Eleanor, especially, who’s been teaching herself Japanese for the past 18 months.

Our plan now is to return to Fiji in June, swim and dive and sail and explore and assess and evaluate our lives as a family for a few months, and then return to the U.S. in October to attend the Annapolis sailboat show and finish this house.

We’re all still enjoying this unscripted path our lives are on. It’s with wonder that I recall where we were six years ago, on the precipice of jumping into the cruising life. Even then I could not have guessed at how things would have unfolded. And it’s still unfolding. And I don’t yet regret a single twist in our path.

--MR

We've been to four or five of these
bonfire potlucks in the desert near our home. It's
no different than cruising to look at a photo like
this from a couple weeks ago, and see a group of
people I know and call friends, none of whom I knew
just a couple weeks before this was taken.