We woke in the morning and several additional boats had arrived throughout the night. S/V Delos, S/V One Life and S/V Calico Skies. If you do not recognize these names, you are not a you tube fan of sailing videos. They were all travelling together and had just been through the canal and were trying to make it to the Sea of Cortez prior to hurricane season.
Throughout our passage during the past night, we were tracking another sailboat on AIS directly behind us named Bella JuJu. It arrived after dark as well. It came very close to passing us at one point in the night but thankfully I did not have to suffer that embarrassment.
All of the captains were offered a trip around Chiapas the next day to do our paperwork. All six of us (the agent, delos, Calico skies, One Life, Bella JuJu and Coda captains) all jammed into a pickup truck and started our adventure. The agent drove us and walked us through 4 buildings in 4 different parts of town and while we were out we ran a couple of personal errands that I guess the agent needed to do. It took literally all day. We took it all in stride and by the end of it all we were all good friends and we congregated in the restaurant and took a run at depleting their stock of beer. Chiapas marina has a pool, so after the beer was consumed, we all went to the pool to cool down.
The funniest thing that happened on this documentation voyage was at the customs office. There was a young and very cute girl agent doing the paperwork and calling us in tern by boat name. She spoke very little English but the agent was helping us with translations. When it cam time for Bella JuJu -- she sheepishly looked up and called out Bella Hoo Hoo? She was quite red and embarrassed. Since then -- we call the boat Bella Hoo Hoo.
This is the port captain's office -- one of the four stops to check in (or out in my case)
The next day, we were all invited to Bella Hoo Hoo, a beautiful new 58 foot Jenneau. Rei, the owner, was headed to Costa Rica as well. This is a huge sailboat and there were no problems hosting the 11 of us.
Chiapas was a wonderful place and I was really sorry that we decided to leave as soon as we did. I would have loved to stay and bask in the sun and pool another day or two. Costa Rica Calls. We needed to get Matt back to the Libera airport in Costa Rica and we had to be settled into the marina by June 1st to satisfy the insurance company. Hurricane season is upon us.
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