Author Archives: Melissa

Would You Buy a Boom From This Man?

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Muy guapo!

I sure hope you would buy a boom from this man because we just did! Only in Mexico can you have the kind of experience we had yesterday; Mexico where people are resourceful as heck and will surprise you with what they have stored on top of their houses.

Our story began with a broken boom back in May, and continued with the trials of finding a fix. Ours is a story of denial of the seriousness of our issue, followed by the realization that a new boom would be upwards of 2000$ plus shipping to Mexico, and then the dogged determination that comes from simply refusing to pay that much money when there are many other things Galapagos needs. Our tale is one of reading the signs of the universe when they say ‘stop, this isn’t the right thing’ and then waiting for that green light when the pieces begin to fall into place. You never really know for sure when you are riding the waves of the universal green light until you have the boom in the back of the pickup truck and you’re barreling down the road with your husband riding in the back, arm lovingly draped around his new piece of metal.  Frankly, we won’t be completely sure that some cosmic trick isn’t being played on us until that boom is installed on our mast. But anyhoo…

This is legal in Mexico. All Mike’s dreams were coming true. A boom, AND a ride in the back of a pick up truck. If it weren’t for all the dust, that would be a big grin on his face.

We got hooked up with the cowboy in the photo, Chuey,  by the magic of the internet. Mike and I had posted all over the web that we were looking for a boom, knowing there was one out there somewhere and we just needed to find it. After many false starts and dead ends, we had come to terms with the fact that we were mistaken. There was no boom to be had and we surely would not have one when we went back to Mexico. Having several other things to deal with at the time, we just accepted that and were prepared to move on. Perhaps we would order one when we got south to the La Cruz area.

Then in early October I got a text from a woman named Lauralee from Sandy, Utah. She knew a guy; a guy who had salvaged a few boats back when Hurricane Newton came through. One had been a Moody 44 or some such larger boat and he may still have parts from that boat. She knew he had some booms in his yard so she sent him a message and he replied with some photos of the boom she had asked about

. When I got those photos I could not believe it. The boom looked just like ours, down to the fittings.  Turns out it was the very thing we needed! Right manufacturer, right size! Just the length was wrong, but that was OK because we really only needed about 8 feet of length. This boom was 14 feet. Could this be ‘the one’? 

Hitching a ride with friends and truck owners Lynn and Curt Brownlow on S/V Slow Motion,  we showed up at Cheuy’s house with high hopes of boom ownership. He lives on the outskirts of Guaymas in an area of farmland and modest houses. There’s a dragon fruit farm down the road. Mangos and bananas grow by his house.  Goats wandered down the street, chickens and turkeys scratched, and a serious guard dog announced our arrival. He announced and announced and announced, the cute little ankle biter.

Seriously guarding everything. I think he bit that tire.

One of two cocks in cages.

As we knocked on the door and took in the local surroundings I wondered where Chuey was and why I didn’t see any boat parts lying around in the yard. Just about the time we began shaking our heads wondering if he was going to keep the appointment, a cowboy on a horse came tearing around the corner, little cattle dog in his wake.  You can’t make this stuff up. Was it the stars in my eyes or perhaps the burning Mexican sun that took me straight out of my own life and into a western film set? With an absolute flourish, he ripped off his dark glasses and dust mask announcing, ‘Hola, amigos! I am Chuey! You want to see the boom?’.  My mouth hung open as I missed the photo op of the century.

After hand shaking all around and talking cows with Mike (Chuey and his business partner have about 30 of them), Cheuy led us into his yard and leaned a ladder up the side of the house, motioning Mike to follow him. His boat yard? On the roof.

Mike went up. I do not like ladders unless they are absolutely necessary, especially when you have to climb around them with no handholds. Nope. Plus, I would have just been in the way. Mike and Chuey would bond, as manly men on a rooftop filled with boat parts often do. My woman voodoo magic had no place up there.

It was absolutely necessary that I climb the ladder to take a photo of the top of this roof for posterity. It’s pretty smart to keep stuff up here. That’s a lot of real estate up there not being used for anything else.  See anything you need? Chuey’s your guy. He stores the smaller stuff inside the house. I believe that might be much to his wife’s chagrin.

The boom looked like it was in very good condition, with the caveat of a small dent in one side. But even so, there was plenty of material for our needs and the fittings looked like they were in good shape. Extras! After their male bonding time, Chuey and Mike struck a deal that was agreeable to both and about $200 later that boom was securely tied in the bed of Curt and Lynn’s truck. 

I had a nice chat with Cheuy, who showed me his boat skipper’s license. He also works on boats and that’s how Lauralee met him. He’s done work on her boat and she’s been a very satisfied customer. Business concluded and needing to get back to his cows, Chuey saddled up, gave the horse’s rump a slap, and rode off in a cloud of dust. Farmer, cowboy, boat skipper, and dealer in used boat parts, Chuey is a man of many talents.  If you’re relating this story to your friends and in the telling you let slip that he bounded into the saddle in one super-human leap, I wouldn’t say you lied. 

Next stop: the metal shop. Until then, S/V Galapagos out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are We There Yet?

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Sorry about leaving you hanging with that last post. Would the LCP crew receive their ‘Get Into Mexico for Free’ card?  Or would they be seen as the mules of boat parts, paint, and paraphernalia that they actually are and have to pay the dreaded import tax? Turns out, we made it through, even though we got the ‘red’ light. We didn’t have to pay any extra fees. I guess we just didn’t look like the guilty type. 

For those who’ve never traveled to Mexico, they have an interesting system for determining who will get searched at the border. They use this system at the airports and also at the border crossings on the road. You approach light that will show either red like a stop light, or green. If you get the red light, you get searched, more or less. If you get the green light it’s like a free pass. It’s supposed to be random but I have some doubts about that. 

We entered Mexico through the border crossing for trucks at the Mariposa Road exit just north of Nogales. This would allow us to skip going through the town of Nogales, which sounded just dandy to us. After a last loving stop at Starbucks for an iced coconut latte, my final act as a dedicated American consumer, we filled the fuel tank and took our chances. 

And it did, actually, feel like a game of chance. I mean, just following the signs and getting in the correct lane was fraught with opportunity to FSU. (This is my new acronym for what goes on in my head when we do things incorrectly. It translates to Flub Stuff Up. No actually it’s a much coarser version of that but I don’t want to be offensive here with my gutter speak. Use your imagination.) And FSU we did! We wound through the maze of lanes, past what looked to us like a border guard housette, absent the guard. ‘Are we in?’ I asked Mike, confused. I mean, I’d heard that this border crossing was pretty casual but no border guard at all seemed like too much to ask. What the hell. Mike didn’t know either. We kept driving. Probably it would have helped if there had been other cars, but we were alone except for the small grey Toyota truck behind us.  

Nothing to see here. Nothing at all. Grey tub of kitchen stuff, lid temptingly askew. Obama/Biden and Unicorn stickers proudly displayed.

We came to a place where we had a choice of which way to go. Ahead of us was a cement barrier on the left, with two lanes, a drop gate, and a guard house to the right of it. (I was too lost to remember to take a photo.) Which way would you have chosen, considering the lack of any signage? Yes, that’s right. You would have stayed to the right of the barrier because CEMENT BARRIER and unlike some other countries, we stay to the right in ‘merica (and also in Mexico)! We pulled up to the guard house behind the drop gate. It looked totally legit. But no one was there. The gate stayed down. The grey Toyota pulled in behind us. We sat, waiting, the Toyota breathing down our tailpipe. Surely someone in uniform would approach us, even if just to tell us we had FSU. Nope. Nada. No one gave us the time of day. We could have eaten our lunch right there at the deserted guard house and no one would have cared. 

Finally Mike got out and approached the Toyota. The woman appeared to know more than we did (although my question, then,  was why she followed us into the wrong lane, but whatever. Who am I to question the mysteries of border crossings?). She said we had done it wrong and we should go around the closed gate as though we’d gone to the left of the cement barrier. Great. Just exactly what I wanted to do. Drive around a barrier in full view of people who might have machine guns at the Mexican border. Fine. Just fine. I did it. I hightailed it over the yellow speed bumps, circled around the closed gate, and drove across several lanes to what I hoped was the right place. 

And that’s when we got the red light. I should have known that would happen because, I mean why WOULDN’T they want to stop the car that had just driven around their barrier? I would do the same in their position. I wonder if the Toyota got the red light, too. Because she darn well should have. 

Solar panels? I don’t see no stinking solar panels.

I’d like to say the guard was nice, but actually he was slightly surly. That’s fine, I have dealt with surly border agents many times, mostly coming into my own country. So I smiled and called him ‘amigo’ and ‘señor’, and gave him all the permissions to open the side door to the car and the tailgate. “Oh yes, please, Señor! Open ALL the doors!” He glanced into the interior, he lifted up the lid to the carefully and strategically placed tupperware tub of kitchen crap. He asked where we were going. I said, ‘San Carlos’. He walked away. That was all. Not even a wave or ‘have a bueno day’. I looked at Mike. Are we done? He shrugged. I sat for a few seconds watching the man’s back as he walked off. Then I drove on. We thought at that point we were in, but we couldn’t be sure. Eventually, a few miles down the road, we accepted that this was, in fact, the border crossing. 

Our next stop was the immigration office popularly known as KM 21, or maybe it’s KM18.  No one really knows because there are no KM signs that are anywhere close to either 21 or 18 from the direction we were driving.  We saw KM2 and got excited, expecting the next number to be KM3. It was not. It was KM1, then KM0. After that we just gave up and kept driving, trusting to the fates that we would find the right place. In Mexico there is a lot of trusting-to-the-fates. It keeps life interesting.

 Long before we thought it appropriate, we found the place. Maybe I should have marked how far we drove from the border, but considering the border felt like it was several kilometers long, that measure probably wouldn’t have been accurate for others anyhow. Its presence was brought to our attention by all the signs for Mexican liability insurance, which you can buy there. One stop shopping, Gringos! Not certain at first this was the place we missed the turnoff, so, this being Mexico and all, we went in the exit and drove the wrong way through the parking lot, turned around and did it right, and parked the car. 

This nondescript group of buildings is the immigration stop. Inside that building on the right is a very efficient man with a stamp.

After that the immigration process went smoothly. We got at the end of the line, which was pretty long considering that a tourist bus had just pulled into the parking lot.  The kind and very fast man behind the counter was stamping passports as fast as his stamp would fly. He saw that we had applied for the Temporary Residence Visa and scanned our passports, just as we were told he would. He filled out our FMM form for us, checking ‘other’ as the reason for the visit, just as the lady in Tucson said we should. He wrote 30 days on how long the FMM was good for. Wait. WHAT??? We knew that we actually had only 15 days if we wanted to get the advanced visa. I’m not sure what the 30 days stuff is, but it’s clear from immigration in both Tucson and here that after your passport is scanned at the border, you have 15 days to complete the second part of your paperwork and pay your fee for the Temporary Residency Visa. We take no chances, regardless of these alleged 30 days. I wonder how many people see that 30 days marked on their FMM card and forget all about the 15 day limit and then have to apply and pay their fee all over again? 

At that point, we were cleared into the country. A sigh of relief later we were bombing down the road toward San Carlos. Here are few thoughts about that drive:

You will never want to drive at night here and it’s not because you might be robbed. It’s because the roads, even the new ones, are dangerous in their own right. There are no shoulders, and the drop offs are steep. Even if you don’t get hurt if you go off the road, your car surely will get hurt. We saw a car that had run off one part of the new highway and could not get back up. 

Photo credit to Lynn Brownlow on S/V Slow Motion. See that edge? Yikes!

In addition, there is chronic road work. Hey, it’s just like home that way! So you will be switching back and forth between the old highway which is two lanes, and the new highway which is 4 lanes. These places where you switch over are hard enough to see in the daylight. 

Changing sides. Some of these sneak up on you. Thanks for the additional photo, Lynn Brownlow. This one was pretty easy to see.

The speed limit is just a complete joke. And I’m not talking about the kind of joke we experienced in Arizona where the long, straight highways call for speeds that are close to that of light; where the other drivers breath down your neck when you’re already going 75. This is more like a speed limit sign of 60km/hour (about 37 mph) on a brand new 4 lane highway. That sign then changes to 110km/hour (about 68 mph) for no apparent reason. But wait! Then it goes to 80km/hour (you do the math) and continues to go back and forth between all three just to keep you guessing.  No rhyme or reason that we could deduce. Perhaps there’s a system. We failed to recognize it.  And naturally, no one pays the slightest bit of attention to these signs. They all just go fast. We finally just went with the flow of traffic, worried our pace would call attention to us or worse. 

We found the drive to San Carlos to be a stressful one and were pretty glad when we finally saw the sign to the town and headed down the familiar road to the marina. I imagine it gets easier with familiarity, but if you are crossing the border and driving down, take care and drive during the day. Our first stop, Marina Seca, San Carlos to check on S/V GalapagosI I’m glad to say she fared well and all our preparations were useful. As I write this we are in the work yard and getting her put back together, moving forward on repairs. More on that and our further immigration adventures another time. 

Stay away from the edge!

S/V Galapagos, out. 

 

 

Wishing and Praying and Plastic Jesus

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I don’t care if it
Rains or freezes
As long as I’ve got my
Plastic Jesus
Ridin’ on the dashboard
Of my car
by Ed Rush and George Cromarty

Sitting here in Tuscon at a beautiful Air Bnb out in the desert, watching Hummingbirds and Cardinals, waiting for the Javelinas to show up, we’re ready for the big border crossing into Mexico. I’ve packed and repacked the car 6 times working to fit everything in reasonably well, hoping to make it less noticeable that we are, in fact, bringing a lot of stuff for the boat back from the United States. Why would we do this? Why would we pack our car such that to find the boat stuff you are going to have to actually unpack the entire vehicle; a task that is a lot of work?

As seen from our patio at the bed and breakfast.

Because kind of like the speed limits in Arizona, the rules for crossing the border and bringing things into Mexico are really more like ‘guidelines’. They are notoriously vague even though on paper they look like they aren’t. We have a boat ‘in transit’, which means we are technically just passing through, and we are supposed to be able to bring in things to replace or repair systems on the boat without paying import duties. We have our boat import permit, and we have this extensive list of stuff that we are replacing or repairing on the boat. But although the ‘rules’ say one thing, it doesn’t always work that way. Rules change constantly and are interpreted individually by the folks who control the border.

So people like us are basically just rolling the dice as they cross the border with cars filled with boat goodies and stuff from home. Will we be stopped and our car searched? Will we have to pay import fees on stuff we shouldn’t have to pay anything on? Who knows?  Ninety nine out of a hundred people in our position crossing that border are waved through without any kind of scrutiny. But that 100th person will be searched and told they can’t come in without working with an import agent. That would mean fees for the agent, as well as a 16% tax on a lot of stuff in our car.  Usually that adds up to more than the amount we want to pay, which is zero dollars.

We are staying in this stunning ranch house with a view. Honestly, I love Air Bnb.

I don’t know about you, but when faced with what feels like an outright gamble, I like to cover all my bases. So we’ve got the car packed just right, we’ve got all of our paperwork, including our Temporary Import Permit with list of associated stuff, and all of our receipts. I’ll spit and spin a few times as we get in the car, we’ll say associated spells and prayers, and then we’ll leave it up to the Plastic Jesus on our dashboard to get us through. And if we have to pay? Well, maybe we have just committed one too many sins and the Great Spiritual Scales of Justice will need balancing. If that happens I know it’s probably going to be because of that 1/2 bottle of Prosecco I drank with my daughter-in-law when we met up with the kids in Beatty, Nevada.  That was downright wrong.  A lot of sins are like that. They feel so right at the time…

Holy moley, a little kangaroo rat! He came to the patio hoping for birdseed but refused to pose for us.

Anyhoo, speaking of rules that change, let me give you the low down on getting your Temporary Resident Visa for Mexico. Mike and I decided it would serve us well to do this because of two things: 1) It allows us to stay in Mexico without leaving to renew our tourist visa every 180 days. That’s a pain when you are traveling by boat. The temporary resident visa, when it’s all completed, will give us up to 4 years. By that time we’ll need to get jobs again. 2) All the cool kids are doing it and we like to fit in. Getting the actual visa is a very simple 500 step process that involves a lot of spitting and spinning and also being flexible and nice and smiling a lot. Maybe even the use of crystals, I don’t know for sure yet. Also $72 for both of us together.

To apply, you must first visit the Mexican Consulate in your home country. That’s where you start. We thought we’d do this in Seattle, but we were so focused and busy getting our house ready for renters that we didn’t get to it. We called them about a week before we left and they would have been happy to make us an appointment –  about 6 weeks out. Uh oh. Fortunately our good friends Curt and Lynn on S/V Slow Motion had given us the pertinent information about applying here in Tucson. If you are going to cross the border in Nogales, this is a good place to apply. No appointment is necessary and they have same day turn around for the FIRST PART of the visa.

Here’s the building you want.

You’ll need to bring paperwork with you, as well as some recent passport photos. They will take their own photo of you, and also fingerprint you electronically, but for some reason you need to also provide a passport photo. It’s best to just do as you are told and not ask questions.  Bring your passport, your current driver’s license with your United States address on it (Plastic Jesus help you if you don’t still have a US address), your marriage license if you are applying as a married couple, your boat documentation if you are traveling by boat, and 6 months of bank statements that show your deposits. Hell, at this point they may be requiring the birth certificate of your first born child as well, I can’t guarantee anything here. You can print out the form using the link above. BUT WAIT! Recall what I said about rules changing without notice? They do and they did.

The form we printed out, the one that is still on the website, has apparently been replaced by a form in Spanish. Our very nice lady at the consulate expressed dismay that the form is now in Spanish, since, as she says, most people who need the application do not speak Spanish. But whatever.  I mean, Mexico is a Spanish speaking country, so if they want their form in Spanish we don’t care. Besides, she copied all of our information for us onto the new form, using her very neat and tidy handwriting. So that’s one change. Please note THERE IS NO WAY FOR YOU TO KNOW ANYTHING FOR SURE UNTIL YOU SHOW UP! I am yelling in all caps here. It’s that necessary you hear and understand this to avoid disappointment and possible irritation.

We love this patio.

There is another change that is even more important than language on a form. Where you used to have 30 days to report to the Immigration office in Mexico to begin the final 300 steps to receiving your actual Visa, that is no longer the case. You now have 15 days. So that means we are very glad we did not apply in Seattle. We would have been really pressed for time had we applied that early. In addition, a friend who applied in Seattle had to go back the following week to pick up their temporary visa. We got ours the same day. My suggestion is to apply at the last possible time before you cross the border. We showed up at the consulate at around 10:00 AM and didn’t even have to wait. I don’t know when this allotted time period for showing up to the Immigration office in Mexico changed, and I have no idea if or when it will change back. But today when we showed up, the magic number of days before we turn into pumpkins was 15. Your mileage could vary.

We did make a couple of mistakes that had us scrambling just a bit but, I mean, why not let the adventuring start now, after all? We consider this a warm up exercise for the real Mexico. First, Mike had printed out the statements from his retirement account with Boeing as proof of income. It shows his income. It’s an ‘account’. You’d think that would do the trick. ALAS!!  First, Boeing is not a bank. They want bank statements. Period. Second, my name isn’t on that paperwork. The woman at the consulate asked me if I got Social Security. I sure hope that someday I will actually be able to draw on that account, since I’ve been paying into it since I was 16 years old and, why YES I DO feel entitled to it. Very much. But I’m not old enough yet. She looked confused about how I would have an  income since I’m ‘retired’, until I pointed out that I was, after all, married. So that Boeing income supports both of us. She wanted proof that the Boeing money was actually deposited into our bank account each month, so Mike worked his digital magic on his cell phone accessing our account and downloading bank statement going back 6 months. Then we trundled off to the Office Depot down the street where, after typing a special secure email address into his tiny phone 6 times, the young man behind the counter accessed the information and printed out our statements.  We paid about 15$ for two sets of statements. Most of that was trash since all they wanted was the part that shows the deposits. Still, money well spent not having to explain to the clerk that we needed only the first page of each month.

Our other mistake was forgetting the file of boat documents, which we didn’t even know we would need. It’s possible Slow Motion Curt told us to bring them, but whatever because we left them in our room 20 minutes away.  Fortunately Mike has a photo of our Coast Guard documentation on his phone and that  was enough to satisfy the consulate rep. Our advice to you: Bring EVERY PIECE OF PAPER YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON.

Here’s proof we were there. OK, our arms are not long enough for an adequate selfie.

When we go through the border they will scan our passports and that will activate the visa. Our next step is to stop at the little office off the highway at Kilometer 18 (or 21, some say) and fill out the FMM form (tourist card). Where it asks what the purpose of the visit is (tourism, etc) we are to check ‘other’.  She was specific about that. I pass this information on to you for you to check it out for yourself if you apply. Because I was confused about why I shouldn’t check ‘tourism’, or something like that. In the end, I felt it best not to ask too many questions. After that, we have to visit the immigration office in Guaymas. We’ll let you know how all of that goes down.

This issue of applying for the Temporary Resident Visa gets brought up on cruisers forums all the time. People who have been there and done that throw in their experiences, other people give their best guesses about how to go about it. It’s kind of like crossing the border. You really are not going to know until you are there and faced with a person whose job it is to either usher you through a process or say ‘no bueno’ and send you packing. Give yourself time, flexibility, bring cash and correct change, and make sure you can get copies of whatever documents you might not have right away. Smile and be grateful and all will be well. And it wouldn’t hurt to install a plastic Jesus on your dashboard.

Arizona sky view from the bed and breakfast.

We’ll let you know how it goes. For now, Galapagos, Out!

Let’s just hope his glue sticks all the way across the border.