After spending over 2 months doing maintenance, chores and having a great time with my brother and Barbara's son in San Diego, it is time to start phase III of the adventure.
In the end, San Diego gave us a beautiful farewell sunset after spending days doing final preparations and provisioning.
Barbara loaded the boat in her typical fashion with 5 dock carts of groceries, clean clothes and filled scuba tanks. We visited the friendly fuel dock and used two pumps to fill diesel in both sides at one time. We ended lowering the boat by over 2 inches.
Captain Matt arrived and we enjoyed a final farewell dinner in Gary's back yard.
It was time to set the alarm clocks.
At 5:45 AM we were up with engine running and turning south around Harbor Island and into Mexican waters.
Passing the pacific fleet.
Ensenada is the point of entry for Mexico, a mere 10 hours south. The wind was a bit stiff and directly on the bow, but it was not uncomfortable cruising.
We saw hundreds of porpoise as we cruised south. They jumped and played in our bow wake.
As we have done in the past, we raised our Mexican courtesy flag and Quarantine flag as we crossed into Mexican Waters. (thanks to Jeff and Norma for providing us with a perfect courtesy flag)
Finally, we arrived in Ensenada, passed our health inspection and had a celebratory dinner at the cruise port. Tacos and Margaritas.
In the morning, the dock attendant came by as we were enjoying our morning Lattes and said we need to go to the office to check in and go through customs and immigration by 8:00. Since it was 7:55, we scrambled to get our documents and headed up to the office to see Anna. We had our passports, vaccination cards, boat certificate of documentation, title for the Dinghy, serial number for the boat engine, passenger manifest, Mexican liability insurance card, port of departure and proposed cruise plan, health screening receipt, facemask and keys. We presented our documents to Anna and sat in the office for an hour while she did paperwork. She came out several times to get signatures and answers to questions. Carlos then appeared with a manilla folder full of documents and took us to the van. We took a drive to a building downtown and went to the immigration line. We got visas and stamps in our passport. Next, we went to the port captain's office and stood in line to register something. I was a bit confused what this step was for, but I discovered that Mexico requires a ship to register into and out of each port. I was signing paperwork that was all in Spanish, but Carlos explained everything to me. We then went to the motor vehicle department to do a temporary import document for Coda. Then we went to fish and games to get our fishing license (required even if you don't fish). That was a couple of hours and a pound of documents, each with an official government stamp, signature and an associated fee. I was very happy to have Carlos to help us through that and it was very nice for the marina to provide that assistance.
Well actually, I could have gifted Coda to Carlos and not even known it.
It was after noon, so we walked down-town and had tacos and beer. What an ordeal!
We are in! Tomorrow we will continue down the coast -- perhaps to San Thomas! Stay Tuned.
Technical Data:
Time: 10 h 18 m ( 05:46 to 16:05 ) Distance: 74.74 nm
Fuel: 29.36 Gallons Fuel Rate: 2.85 GPH Fuel Economy: 2.55 NM/G
Avg Speed: 7.53 kn Max Speed: 8.65 kn
Engine Runtime Start: 3186.95 Hours Runtime End: 3197.25 Hours Fuel: 29.36 Gallons Fuel Rate: 2.85 GPH Fuel Rate Max: 3.88 GPH Avg RPM: 1259.72 Max RPM: 1321.75 Avg Oil Pressure: 53.40 Low Oil Pressure: 32.49 Avg Temperature: 177.21 Max Temperature: 192.20
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