This will be a test post from the land of slow interweb connections. Yes, we’re in Mexico. Didn’t see that coming, did you? We took the plunge and decided to leave early Thursday evening so we could get to Ensenada early in the day today and get cleared in before the weekend. We are starting to feel a little rushed as we have a plane to catch to Ecuador on December 7 and we would like some time to get the boat buttoned up. So here we are in Cruiseport Marina, and you won’t have any photos in this post because: slow and unreliable internet. What an interesting place this is already.

Let me be honest here: I’m having a number of what I’m going to call ‘American Moments’.  I’ve decided that term aptly describes the assumptions that I, as an American, make about how things will go when, in fact, my assumptions will cause me to not ask the right questions or even know what questions to ask!  The marina is not what I expected it to be in some ways, but it’s more than I ever dreamed in other ways.

For instance, I have been looking forward since September 26 to doing my laundry. That is the last day we did laundry in an actual laundry machine.  We have a lot of laundry to do and this marina was supposed to sport a nice laundry facility where for $1.25 American per load I could walk away with freshly cleaned and folded clothes. (I prefer to do my own laundry, not turn it over to strangers.)  The true part of this statement is that yes, there is a laundry room and it’s very nice and that’s the correct price. After that, things start to get dicey. The laundry room, and the rest rooms and showers, will be closing December 4 for renovations and to enlarge them. Ok, now I have 3 days to get all my laundry done. It would have been very nice for someone to have alerted me to this at the time of my reservation, since these are amenities that people are looking for in a marina. Added to my list of questions for future marinas: “Do you have a laundry room, do the machines work, and will you be closing them in the near future? ”

So we take two loads of salty sheets and blankets down to the facility, which, by the way, is about 1/2 mile away. We arrive to find only 1 washing machine that works. The other two have ‘out of order’ signs on them. Mike could probably fix them if we knew what was wrong; alas it’s a mystery. The entire marina has 3 days to get  laundry done. Also, do not use the second dryer. It does not get hot and will eat your money. After sailing all night to get here, checking into the marina, then being whisked through immigration, customs, etc,  I felt a bit like a wilted flower taking my semi-moist blankets out of the drier to hang over the safety lines on Galapagos.

Now. Another thing. There are no pump out facilities for holding tanks here at Cruiseport Marina. (Holding tanks hold your poo until you dispose of it properly.)  I mean, how American of me to simply assume that there would be! I know better than that and yet I didn’t even realize I was assuming it! That’s how assuming works. You don’t see it until you’ve made an ‘ass out of u and me’, as they say. No. Pump Out. You know what that means? Surely it means that people take their boats down to the newer Marina Coral down the water way and use their pump out? Or they take the boat out to sea and pump overboard? No, it does not mean that. It means I better look first before putting my hands in the water around here. I know, I know. I will have to get used to that. We have a clean holding tank right now and I wanted to keep it that way so we could leave with it empty, but darn it if those bathrooms are not closing December 4.

So those are the irritations, but the good thing is this: if you come stay here to check into Mexico, the marina will have a staff member drive you to the one-stop immigration processing office and in less than an hour you will be cleared into the country.  No muss, no fuss. This is part of their service.  I mean it, this marina guy was amazing. Considering that clearing in to Mexico by boat is a multi-step process involving several different offices and we don’t speak Spanish yet, this was a huge relief to us. We were in and out while other cruisers who arrived before us were still waiting. I’m not exactly sure how that happened, but I also didn’t ask questions about it. Marina man pointed and said ‘sign here’ and ‘pay this amount’ and we did. And it was done.

The biggest relief was when they issued us our Temporary Import Permit (TIP) for the boat. These are good for 10 years. Here’s the hitch: the permit goes with the boat. When you check out of Mexico you are supposed to cancel that TIP but lots of boat owners don’t bother. Then they sell the boat and the new owner inherits a head ache when they apply for a TIP to go to Mexico and are told that the old one still exists and must be cancelled first, preferably by the previous boat owner. I’ve literally read that you have to hunt down the previous owner and get them to have some kind of document notarized…blah blah, no way.  Our boat had a TIP issued as recently as 2008. It’s not 2018 yet, and they are good for ten years. You do the math.  I figured we’d have a problem and the previous owner wasn’t forthcoming with any information. (This was two or three owners back.) We’d kind of hit a wall.

When you research how to cancel a TIP there is no definitive answer to be found. It’s all very wishy washy. There have been days where the Mexican government, knowing this is a problem, has sent representatives to some of the consulates to cancel TIPS for people. They have been surprised by the number of people who show up. We never showed up because I never heard about any of these special events until after the fact. Also I just didn’t see why I should have to spend time and money traveling to another city, like Phoenix or Sacramento, to cancel something the previous owner should have done.

So we threw caution to the wind and just went to Mexico believing it would work out. I mean, we certainly wouldn’t be the only people to show up with an old TIP still attached in the system to their boat. I imagine that happens all the time. Surely the good Mexican people had a way of dealing with that. Our plan was to deny knowing anything about it and throw ourselves on their mercy if necessary. In the end, it never even came up! I spent months stressing about this, emailing the Port of Ensenada, contacting people at the marina who never returned my message, talking on the phone to the people at the Mexican Consulate in San Fransisco (who told me I would have to go to Sacramento to deal with it), hitting dead end after dead end. That’s why we just threw up our hands and rolled with it. In the end, no one even asked.  I’m not sure they even checked in their system to see if one existed for our hull number. They just took our documentation, processed our fee, and gave us our beautiful, holographed permit! Yippee! We’re imported!

So it’s been a long day and night but so many people are confused about this TIP thing I wanted to get this information out there. Just stay in the Cruiseport Marina when you check in. Wash your clothes before you come and look the other way when your neighbor pumps out overboard. Maybe you’ll get lucky on that Temporary Import Permit, too.

Oh, and about that furler, Mike fixed it in less than 2 days. I do have a post on it but can’t get it to load because of the photos. I’ll get to it.

S/V Galapagos, Out.

We’re in San Diego until December 1, when we plan to slip away in the wee hours of the night to make our way, finally, to Ensenada. We’ve been here now for, let’s see…since…um, I think November 15? It’s hard to say. When we’re in ‘explore’ mode, I write everyday in my journal and that helps me keep track of the days.  Somehow both of us stopped writing in our journals with the first anchor drop in San Diego. We’re not really ‘exploring’ so much as we are waiting to leave. I don’t know why that’s different. It just is. Of course, we could have left for Mexico already, but we made reservations for December 1 at the marina in Ensenada, and we figured we’d just wait until then to check in. That gives us a little more time to make final orders for parts and all that jazz. Plus our friends Kevin and Cressie on S/V Blue are here and we’ve been enjoying hanging out. It’s kind of like hanging out in the dorm back in college but without staying up all night and the ensuing hangover the next day.

Hotel del Coronado, historic and beautiful. You can walk to this from the Glorietta anchorage.

Cruisers who come after us might like our impressions of being a sailboat traveler who is ‘stuck’ in San Diego for two-ish weeks. Lots of cruisers find marina space here for awhile either through yacht club reciprocal benefits or through deeper wallets than ours. Those people are going to have had a much different kind of experience. If you are anchor-outers, like us, you are going to work harder. That’s because there are limited anchorages in San Diego Bay, and they are all  tightly regulated.

Like many places in the U.S., San Diego has trouble with ‘derelict’ boats. Usually these are boats whose owners do not have the means to keep them looking decent, keep their hulls cleaned off, and generally take care of their vessel. Sometimes that’s because they are destitute and living on a run down boat is the only kind of housing they can do. Whatever the cause, most communities do not welcome these kinds of boats. Not here, not in the Pacific Northwest, not anywhere. So there are a lot of rules that everyone else has to follow because no one wants derelict boats in their neighborhood. And that’s why we’ve been playing ‘musical anchorages’ since we’ve been here. We go from place to place, following the rules and hoping people don’t think our boat is derelict.  Unless you want to stay on a dock somewhere, you will play this game, too.

Sunset at Coronado beach.

You can go to the Port of San Diego website to make reservations at any anchorage, and reservations are required even though there is no fee. Only a certain number of boats are allowed to be at any anchorage at once. You are not allowed to reserve more than one place for the same date and each anchorage is good only on certain days of the week. We also found out the hard way that you cannot cancel a reservation on line after the first day of the reserved dates. So if you get to a place and change your mind and need to go somewhere else, good luck. That’s not going to happen unless it’s a weekday and someone is available to answer the phone and change your reservation for you in person.  It’s a complicated system and it doesn’t work on a Safari browser so heads up, Mac users.  You won’t get very far as no hot links or drop down menus show up. You won’t even be able to create an account.  Use a different browser.  However, if you call them on the phone during the week and during business hours they are helpful and friendly and you will be pleased with the service. Have your registration or documentation number handy.

Landing on the muddy La Playa beach. We chose to leave our engine on the boat. Photo by Phillip White

We started at the La Playa anchorage on Shelter Island. This is a fairly nice anchorage with good holding between two of the many yacht clubs.  The only problem with this anchorage is that there is no public dinghy dock of any kind anywhere in the area. There is a small beach at low tide that is easy to access and one end has some rocks you can tie onto.  I spoke with one of the Harbor Patrol police about pulling the dinghy up on the beach and he gave me mixed messages about leaving a dinghy there. You can do it (and people do) as long as no one who lives in the neighborhood complains. Pretty much what this seems to mean is that if you leave it there for the day, it’s going to be fine. But longer than that and the neighbors might call and report a dinghy and then the police might impound it. We did leave our dinghy there for the day and it was fine.

Also he told me that we are not allowed to leave our dinghy at the police dinghy dock down the channel. I guess we could swim ashore? Thank goodness for a blog reader who is a member of the San Diego Yacht Club, which is right by this anchorage. He gave us permission to use their dinghy dock and we were very grateful for that. You are allowed to stay at La Playa only Friday through Sunday. (Hey, that helps me remember when we got here! November 17.)

Galapagos and Blue rafted up for Thanksgiving at La Playa. Photo by Phillip White

One of the great things about La Playa is that once you figure out how to get ashore, there is every kind of marine service within easy walking distance. A huge West Marine is about a mile away and an even better chandlery, Downwind Marine, is even closer. It’s as good as Fisheries Supply back home. They have an impressive selection of sailing hardware. Sea Breeze Marine charts and books is in this neighborhood and is the go-to place for the most recent Mexico paper charts and for that cruising guide you’ve been putting off buying.  You’ll find a laundromat,  but at $5.50 per load of wash, the marina at Ensenada starts to look really close. Their cost is $1.25/load.  (I’ve waited this long. I can wait longer.) Von’s grocery store is 1-2 miles away, and a little farther is a Trader Joe’s. We have enough food to last until Easter now. There is a free pump out facility that is easy to access at the Police Dock at the head of the channel coming into the area.

After La Playa we had reservations for the Glorietta anchorage at Coronado. This anchorage is completely different from La Playa in almost every way. You get a view of the beautiful Hotel del Coronado from the anchorage and there is a convenient public dinghy dock just across the bay; very close. Leave your engine on your big boat and row over. This is a more ‘touristy’ area than La Playa so you won’t find marine stores or services. But it’s beautiful and historic and a great place to stretch your legs and go to the beach. Be sure to take in the little museum of the area, free or by donation, your choice. It’s well worth seeing. If you need groceries or hardware, those can be found on the main drag. There’s a Von’s grocery about a mile from the anchorage. Taking an Uber to the local Gateway Costco is about 9$ from this anchorage. We were at Glorietta on the days leading up to Thanksgiving and can say this anchorage is popular with the locals. The fact that it’s regulated keeps it from being super crowded.

Dinghy racing at La Playa. Photo by Phillip White

The third anchorage available to cruisers is the ‘cruiser anchorage’, which is close to the downtown area and right by the airport. It’s a large anchorage and the Harbor Patrol told me there are three dinghy docks available for public use. We have been advised by other cruisers to lock the dinghy, the outboard, the oars, and anything else we can lock when we leave the dinghy at any of the public docks.  We haven’t pulled into that anchorage yet, choosing to go back to La Playa to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with our friends on S/V Blue and with another friend who moved back to San Diego after a short stint in Gig Harbor. (Yeah, the weather ate her alive her first winter. She’s a wise woman to move back here. It was almost 90 degrees on Thanksgiving.)

We should be going to the third anchorage, the ‘cruiser’s anchorage’ early next week. You have to have a simple boat inspection to get your permit to stay there, but then the permit is for 30 days and you can renew it twice before they make you move on. We’ll report in with our assessment of that anchorage next time.

Be ready to play ‘musical anchorages’ in San Diego if you don’t want to pay for a slip (if you can find a slip). But also be ready for a different kind of musical treat. Because there is such a strong Navy presence in San Diego and sound carries over water, you will be treated to the musical stylings of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ in the morning and ‘Retreat’ in the evening. I surprised myself by enjoying this piece of military tradition. Maybe you will, too.

Walking along the beach at Coronado while anchored at Glorietta. Our first glimpse of the Coronado Islands, in Mexico!

Today we spend a last day with S/V Blue before heading to the visitor’s dock for a night to get our batteries 100% charged. Mike is working on some tweaks to our charging system because we anchor out so much that the batteries take a real beating. Until next time, S/V Galapagos, out.

We enjoyed our time at Newport Beach and Balboa Island. That area is a city of canals lined with multimillion dollar properties and boats; a never-ending panorama of lovely architecture and flowering plants and trees. I don’t know if I could live here, but it’s sure a nice place to visit for awhile. The community has many public docks that make going ashore easy. I admire a place that provides these kinds of amenities to the public. It’s almost like they welcome you to come here!

Way back in Channel Islands Harbor we noticed that most of the homes in that area came complete with one of those little Duffy electric boats. I’ve seen those at the boat show in Seattle and was always a little confused by them. Who owned such things? Where did they use them? They seemed quaint and a little bit boring. But down here in canal cities, they make a lot of sense. They are one step up from a nice dinghy with their weather-proof enclosures; like little floating sunrooms. They are adorable. People have dinner in them, go out together to the ‘dock and dine’ establishments, have small parties in them, and generally use them as easy and comfortable transportation along the canals. You kind of need something like that here, so I would hope that if you spring for one of these 15 MILLION dollar homes all crammed up next to each other, you’d get a little Duffy boat free with purchase.

This one is ‘Take Me Ohm’.

I can’t see this little Duffy’s name, but do you notice how their big powerboat matches their house? Man. That’s something. I’d like to see the towels and linens in this place. 

At least half of these boats have names that allude to their being electrically powered. We are always entertained by boat names and these have given us a lot of amusement. We saw “Ohm 4 Now”, “Tres Ohmbres”, “Pacific Current”, “Watter Dance” and so many more, some more clever than others. It’s almost like the Duffy boats without these electric names had been left out of the club.  I think if I had a little Duffy boat I might be tempted to name it something like ‘Ohmer Simpson’, or ‘Joule of the Nile’, or maybe ‘Current Sea’.. Get it? Perhaps Mike was less amused by these little plays on words than I was. He would name his ‘Nicholai’s Revenge’. You might have to look that up to understand it. (As an aside, he also named our Hydrovane ‘Carly’, after Carly Simon who wrote the song ‘You’re so vane’. You see how he rolls?  He wants you to have to dig deep for your chuckles. Sometimes his associations are too loose even for me.)

Our chosen stand.

While in Newport Beach we had to pay homage to the TV show ‘Arrested Development’ by seeking out a frozen banana stand on Balboa Island. Our kids can beat just about anyone in ‘Arrested Development’ trivia, and if that’s not something to crow with pride about I don’t know what is. We found two ‘original’ frozen banana stands and went with the one that most closely matched Mike’s shirt. We ordered the classic frozen banana covered in a chocolate flavored shell and rolled in crushed nuts. They were delicious. Both stands have been around for decades because, you know, “there’s always money in the banana stand”. [vsw id=”04SLXwjJvqg” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]

MMM. Frozen banana with chocolate and crushed almonds. Pretty nifty!