Category Archives: Cruising Life

Ensenada to Guadeloupe Island

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After 7 weeks of land travel in Ecuador and back in Tacoma (December through January), we arrived back at our slip in Ensenada ready to rumble. Our plan had been to spend two days getting Galapagos ready to go, but that was, of course, ridiculous. We spent 5 days, one of them doing almost nothing because we were in grief at the loss of our beloved dog, Skippy. The boat was filthy from diesel exhaust from the cruise ships and had to be scrubbed on the outside and lightly cleaned inside. We had National Park permits to buy, a Zarpe to get from the Port Captain, and an alternator to install. While I provisioned at the local Costco and supermarkets, Mike installed his new Balmer 100 amp alternator for the engine.

Approaching the east side of Guadeloupe Island, the volcanic origins of this land are apparent in the many red cone shaped hills.

The 60 amp alternator we had wasn’t really powerful enough to charge the batteries efficiently and after going round and round about choices, Mike decided to just do things the ‘easy’ way and put this 100 amp Balmer model on. It was supposed to be quick and easy: take off the old one and replace it with this shinier, more powerful model. We picked it up at Fisheries Supply in Seattle while we were home and managed to get it over the border with no extra fees.

Nothing ever really goes as planned and so it came to pass that the belt that came with his refit kit was too short. He needed a different belt. So we adventured around Ensenada looking for the right belt. After a number of false starts, we finally found a place that sold alternator belts, called ‘bandas’ in Mexico, and he bought 4. You can’t have too many alternator belts. Many thanks to Linda and Bill Hoge-Pattison, cruisers who ferried us around Ensenada in their truck in search of good beer and bandas. So we left Ensenada with a shiny new alternator, extra belts, our Mexican National Park passes, fishing licenses, and a packed fridge. Onward to Guadeloupe Island.

By the way fellow cruisers. If you are traveling down to the Sea of Cortez you will need a National Park permit in order to anchor and go ashore at any of the protected areas. The Mexican government has just made this easier for you if you have an Android device. You can use this app to get the permit, which costs an earth shattering 350 pesos, about $18.50 US dollars for a year. You’ll get an email confirming your purchase. Then you can print it out if you want a hard copy. Or do what we did: go to an office supply store where they can print it for you in color for 5 pesos. They should have an IOS version at some point. Anyhow… we needed this permit in order to anchor at Guadeloupe, not that anyone cared we were there.

Most people don’t bother to sail to Guadeloupe Island. It’s about 150 or so miles offshore and isn’t really ‘cruiser friendly’. Most cruisers tend to hug the coast.  But it is a perfect run with wind and swell coming from the north and west: a long tack out to the island, and then a long tack back toward the Baja peninsula to either Turtle Bay, or, in our case, Asuncion. And thus it proved. We had an idyllic passage; one for the cruising brochure. And the island is completely stunning, even though we didn’t go ashore.

It’s an unforgiving coastline even in the best of weather.

Going ashore there is by permission only. The Mexican Navy has an outpost on the island and it’s likely we would have received permission to go ashore had we asked. But the wind and seas were fairly big while we were there and going ashore would have meant a rough dinghy landing as well as leaving Galapagos alone. We decided against it. Sometimes disappointing decisions have to be made in the name of safety.

Here’s the Navy facility on the island. We could have called them for permission to land, but decided against it.

If all the passages we make could be like the one to Guadeloupe Island, I’d probably be glad to make passages. Here are some of my notes from my travel journal. Notes in parentheses are explanatory notes.

“ February 4, 2018   1830

Mike is below trying to rest and suddenly our little space ship is heeling and going 6.5 knots. The ride is no longer pleasant and I look at the compass heading. It should be about 200 degrees and instead reads 250. WTF? (My way of saying ‘what the fuck’? I talk like a sailor in my head.) Why isn’t Carly (our windvane) doing her job? I tweak her steering cables this way and that and get her back on course, but she quickly steers us upwind again. I tweak again and still she can’t hold the course. I think that the mizzen sail is blanketing Carly’s little red sail too much and she cannot read the wind. I hear Mike below attending to things we forgot to put away, now shifted or on the floor. He comes above and finds me at the wheel trying to keep us on course as we fly blindly through the night. He suggests letting out the mizzen, which requires him to go onto the aft deck and release the sheet. Honestly this sail is sometimes more trouble than it’s worth but we don’t take it down at night, or at least not unless we have to. He plays games with Carly, getting the same response as I do. He agress that the mizzen sail may be the culprit. We decide to use the autopilot instead of the wind pilot. (The auto pilot uses electricity to steer us, the wind pilot uses the wind to steer.) I suddenly realize we have either forgotten to name our autopilot, or I’ve forgotten its name.

It was fun going 6.5 knots, but in the dark 3-4 knots is good by me. If I’m going to hit something, I’d like to be going slow. We talk about how we both fantasize about getting rid of the mizzen sail altogether since we actually rarely sail with it. The aft deck was so much nicer without it when we were doing repairs to the deck there. We loved it.

2/5/18 0200-0600 shift

No sleep to speak of during my off hours. I lay in Mike’s bunk on the leeward side of the boat but the motion is still too much. By the time I finally decide to move to the midship cabin, it’s too late to get rest. Note to self: just ALWAYS make up the berth in the midship cabin for night passages. Regardless. Just do it. With the earplugs in there is no sound, no light, only motion. I check my clock at 1:22 AM. 25 minutes before the alarm. May as well get up. Make coffee.

I emerge to a moon filled sea. I it were not for the ever-present condensation at night I would be able to see the water from my perch on the downwind side of the cockpit, legs stretched out under a blanket. At least I can see the water.

I would love to have crew on passages like this. People always seem suprised when they find out it’s just the two of us aboard. But why wouldn’t it be? We never think twice about that, really, but mostly because, well, who would we ask? We would have to know the person very well. Most people we know would have to be on a schedule. How would that work? I mean, we left a full 4 days later than we had planned from Ensenada. Andrew (our son) is the only other sailor we know who we’d feel comfortable with right off the mark. But it would really be nice to have another person to share watches with. I just get so dog tired.

There is literally nothing out here. We are doing about 5.3 knots, dead on target. Almost too good to be true; we are still sailing.

These colors, these lines, these forms. Stunning.

3:30 AM and I’ve played enough games of Solitaire. My mind begins to drift to how I’d like to live after this adventuring part is over. (Long rambling narrative about my fantasy house is left out here for your convenience and attention span.)

2/5/2018

Slept hard from 0600-0830. Not enough, but I had to get up to use the head. Winds have lightened a bit and we are making 4 knots at 193 degrees. Swells are a bit larger and the water is mixed smaller swells on the surface, making conditions pretty rough down below. Last night I was sitting beside the autopilot and must have accidentally hit the ‘standby’ button (which pauses the autopilot). So Galapagos was heading upwind again to 260 degrees and the ride was rough, feeling like the wind had picked up suddenly. We were heeling over and going close to 8 knots, crashing into the seas. After spilling wind from the sails and fretting that we had not reduced sail by enough I noticed the compass heading. Oy! It was a much better ride after that got sorted. I should always check the compass heading first when something feels wrong. It’s a lot easier that way. We are 94 miles from our waypoint at the south end of Guadeloupe Island.

1645 pm

I had a nap in the midship cabin. We are still making about 4 knots. We had to slow the boat down after motoring a bit so we wouldn’t arrive at the anchorage during darkness.

I forget how this kind of thing beats up my body. Walking is so hard, getting flung around, especially below. I can wedge into that little cabin berth and not really feel the movement of the boat too much. But as soon as I try to sit up I get flung out of the bed. Also the nights are so long and dark. I’m out of shape and not used to the boat again yet. That makes it harder for me this time out. The swells are big and it seems like they are right on the beam no matter what we do. No wildlife except for 1 diving bird who tried to get Mike’s fishing lure. He reeled it in to keep the bird off it. No fish, which is just as well.

As the sun goes down I notice the deck light on the mast is dangling by its wires. A halyard has been left unsecured at the bitter end and has wrapped around the light, pulling it loose. How did that happen? Well, that’s a project. The wind is dying and the mainsail is flapping. I change the heading a bit in order to catch whatever wind we can. We have 3.3 knots and I don’t want to motor all night. I am glad to have only one sail to manage right now.

Ruh roh.. How’d that happen? The light is dangling by one wire. The fixture seems fine. A quick climb up the mast while at anchor retrieved the bulb and prevented it a shattering fall to the deck.

Feb 6, 2018 0700ish

I see hazy land close by through the port of my bunk. I have overslept because my battery on my phone died and Mike took pity on a tired sailor and let me sleep. We are at Guadeloupe Island. We are here!  Stark volcanic cones rise close to the water, reddish hills against the unrelieved greys of the rest of the land. The water is almost glassy on this side of the island. We motored slowly through part of the night to arrive at daylight and give ourselves a break from the unrelenting swells.

As we travel  down the lee of this island Mike and I both can hear what sounds like music, or people maybe. Likely it is unseen seals, but it does give rise to stories about sea people or islands that sing. Sounds echo off the cliffs and it sounds sometimes like children playing or calling to one another. There are seals but I cannot see what kind. There are calls that are different than what I’ve heard before. They blend into the rocks so well that the sounds seem to come from nowhere and the whole place has a spooky feel.

By 9:00 AM we are anchored in Caleta Mepomene. Indifferent to our needs for rest, as we came around the corner of Morro Sur the wind hit our flat protected water with big gusts. Anchoring conditions are not ideal but Mike needs sleep and I hear the calls of seals on the beach. This is elephant seal habitat and I see large grey beings blending in on the rocks. I hear the grunt of an elephant seal.  We drop anchor in 26 feet of prussian blue water and let out 150 feet of chain, plus another 25 feet for the snubber. The anchor sets immediately, firmly, on a flat bottom. We are well out of the thundering surf and hope the wind will die down as predicted.

I want to go sleep but I am too excited about being here. I stay in the cockpit and watch wildlife and incredible scenery. I think there are fur seals on the beach (in addition to the elephant seals), and two large porpoises laze their way through the anchorage surfacing slowly right behind the boat. They are not dolphins. They move slowly, like the harbor porpoises in our home waters. There are only two of them, and they stick together. I wish I had a cetacean field guide. Put that on the list for when we get home. The seals call to each other in this high, eerie voice that sounds like the wailing of lost souls.

Now the sun has gone down and it’s pitch black out here. Nothing but the stars, the sound of the earth breathing its wind, and the sounds of seals calling to each other in their wailing song. If it were warmer, I’d sleep on the deck just to hear them calling through the night.”

Hello cutie!

Finishing this up at anchor just outside San Jose Del Cabo. We’ve reached the end of the peninsula! A milestone to be sure.

Listen to the spooky sounds of the seals calling to each other on the beach at Caleta Mepomene on Guadeloupe island. Turn your volume all the way up. Sound is best about halfway through.

[vsw id=”gZLiRAay3Ak” source=”youtube” autoplay=”no”]

Can you see his little ears sticking out?

S/V Galapagos, out.

Ten Things to Know Before You Go

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It’s time for the New Year’s reflection post.  2017 was the year we made the break from our comfortable middle class home and moved onto our sailboat. It was the year we cut the dock lines and began cruising full time. Many of our readers are gearing up for their own shift to a cruising lifestyle. They pour over the Yachtworld listings, going down the rabbit hole of finding that ‘perfect for them’ boat. They are reading and following all the cruising blogs and vlogs out there, wondering when they, too, will be sitting in the cockpit with sundowners and friends, a warm and gentle breeze ruffling water. If you recognize yourself in this description, read on. What things have challenged our fun/suck ratio? Because you know we are only going to be doing this as long as it’s fun.

How I loved seeing these Elephant Seals and listening to them grunt at night from the starry-skyed cockpit.

I’ve made a list of what I consider ‘reality checks’ just for those of you who are in that position now. Some of these are not big things and, frankly, I had trouble coming up with 10 of them, but when you are cruising even small things can matter a lot.  I don’t want to burst any bubbles, but it’s useful to know some of the realities so you won’t be disappointed by your own fun/suck ratio.  Recognize, as you read this, that if your cruising grounds are different than ours, your mileage will vary. Cruising down the west coast of the United States is much different than doing the ICW, or cruising to the Bahamas from Florida. Many of these points will be moot for cruisers in other locations.

  1. You’re going to get really physically/mentally/psychologically tired. Reflect, if you will, on the idea of visiting 27 different ports and anchorages in 3 months.  In each of those places we had to figure out the logistics of being there: where it was safe to anchor, how to get ashore safely and securely, where to leave the dinghy, where we were in relation to things like stores and fuel, or even places to walk, what sights we might want to take in, whether it would be safe to leave our boat unattended.  This is part of the fun of cruising, it’s said. It’s part of the “adventure”. What is less said that I’m going to say right now is that this is bloody exhausting. There’s such a thing as ‘too much fun’ and after about the 20th place, the fun starts wearing thin. It’s important to note this if you are planning to cruise, especially if you are going to cruise down the west coast of the United States. This is probably why some people just zip down the coast in one or two passages. We wanted to see what California had to offer. We don’t regret the choice at all because we had a ton of fun and saw wondrous things.  But it’s important to note that you need to allow time for rest and recovery or people are going to start to get cranky. That leads to…

    Such great bird watching at Pebble Beach.

  2. Take breaks from the boat. Just go ahead and plan them in advance because the need for a break sneaks up on you. By the time we got on the plane to Ecuador, we really needed a break from boat travel but were just beginning to realize that was what was wrong. Tempers were getting shorter than in any time in our marriage. Communication skills were being challenged in ways it’s impossible to predict when living a shore based life. People will tell you that cruising will challenge your relationship, but the ‘how’s’ of that challenge are so intangible that it’s hard to put them into words. Certainly being together 24/7 would challenge anyone, but it’s more than that. Frustrations are more poignant and unless you want to fight a lot, you better learn to handle your frustrations yourself. Decisions are more important and carry more emotional weight, not to mention physical safety weight.  Weather is always on the front burner, as is boat movement. Both of those things will take precedence over your irritation or hurt feelings. There are physical and psychological demands that require physical, psychological and emotional energy to deal with on a constant basis. If the power structure of your relationship is a fairly egalitarian one at home (which ours is), that’s going to change some because there is only one captain on a boat at any one time, especially when the chips are down. So that creates a lot of opportunity for you to become humble and question the wisdom of what you have chosen. Put your breaks on the calender, just like you do your vacations back home.

    Monterey Bay was a favorite place.

  3. If you love anchoring out like we do, that’s going to add to your stress in some ways. Until we pulled into Cruiseport Marina in Ensenada, we had stayed 8 nights at a dock since September 1. That’s less than 10% of the time. We consider the idea that maybe we are too avoidant of marinas. Perhaps we aren’t doing ourselves any favors by being the stolid anchor-outers that we are. We’ve considered that we might stay in a marina one or two nights per month as we cruise in Mexico, just to have regular breaks and easy access to land. We’ll see how that plays out. We’re kind of stubborn about wanting to be independent of land as much as possible, and marinas eat through our money faster than anything else. Want to know how to save money while you are cruising? Don’t stay in marinas.

    Entering San Fransisco Bay after our first multi-day passage was surreal. Still is.

  4. Don’t quibble about buying a water maker like we did. Regardless of your tankage, just get one while you are employed and bringing money in regularly. We carry 300 gallons of water, which sounds like it should be plenty. And it is! But I am constantly aware of how much water we use, even though we are really good at conserving it. It’s a constant nagging stress for both of us that impacts the enjoyment of this life we’ve chosen. Here’s why this snuck up on us: if you are in the United States you are used to being able to pull up to the dock, put a hose in your tank, and fill up. We have good clean water for the most part in our country. So we assume that when a marina advertises that they have ‘water at the dock’, they are referring to POTABLE water at the dock. And this is where that assumption is incorrect. Even though we read a lot about cruising in Mexico and water being available, we didn’t connect the dots that MARINA water is not necessarily potable. So that means that you have to pay someone to bring water to the boat and pour it into your tank. Or you have to lug the jerry cans yourselves to do that. Here’s the rub: we don’t actually want to live that way. Sure, we are capable of it. But it’s not how we want to spend our time. And it doesn’t make us feel like we are able to spend long weeks away from infrastructure where we can get potable water. So at some point, if this cruising thing goes on for more than a year, which I’m guessing it will, there will be a water maker on board. And it will be the kind that is easy to get parts for.

    We came back to the boat one day surrounded by hundreds of these Lions Mane jellies. Monterey Bay.

  5. The common wisdom among boat cruisers is that this life is filled with highs and lows. Hmm. Okay. Fair enough. But here’s a thought: in day to day life on a boat, it’s actually the differential between perceived danger and relative safety that create most of these highs and lows. On a boat the differential between safety and potential danger can happen regularly, sometimes more than once in a day.  For instance as we traveled in the Channel Islands in California, we were often met with high winds and the accompanying gnarly seas that were not only uncomfortable, but took all of our skills to navigate safely. During those times there is acute focus. All the senses are on fire in order to keep the boat, and us,  out of danger. Those were lows. (Although for some folks they may have been highs.Those people probably enjoy things like bungy jumping and sky diving, too.) After we’d negotiated those conditions successfully and found a safe haven, we got such a feeling of relief that the differential between the two states could have been perceived as a high. But in reality we had just returned to a normal, average state of being.  It wasn’t like dolphins swimming off the bow, or seeing night creatures in the water, or swimming with a sea turtle.  It was just relief. Maybe this is what people are referring to as a series of ‘highs and lows’. For me, the true highs are those things that do not happen every day. By their nature, life’s ‘highs’ are rare things. Unless you are going to sit in a marina most of the time, your’re going to start understanding this part of my post pretty quick once you are away from the dock all the time.  Your adrenal glands will get a workout in this way of life. And that leads to more need to rest. Don’t begrudge those sailors who sit in the cockpit and drink their sundowners after a hard sail. They’ve earned it.

    Challenging and beautiful Santa Cruz Island, with good friends on S/V Blue

  6. Here’s one for the people who just do not LOVE cooking:  When you are planning a cruise, a lot of fuss can be made about how one cooks in a galley. I was guilty of getting into the drama of worrying about cooking in a galley, even though I had already cooked a lot of meals on our summer cruises. Why is this? I think it has something to do with wanting to be as prepared as possible. And also I needed something to feel like I had control over when Mike had control over most of the boat systems. But here’s what galley cooking boils down to: it’s pretty much the same as cooking anywhere else. That’s it. Sure, there are special items like a solar oven (which we do not have) that some people use really nicely on their boats. And there is stuff like making beans or rice in a thermos, which works pretty well. If you are really into cooking you might want to explore those kinds of things.  But at the end of the day, ask yourself how you cook at home. Because that’s probably how you are going to cook on a boat. If you are worried about conserving propane, get additional tanks and keep the extras filled. Propane is the cheapest thing you’ll be buying on a boat. Give yourself a way to cook outside the cabin if you are going to be in hot places, like having a grill on the rail. If you are the kind that makes full meals in a pressure cooker, you’ll probably use it on the boat as well. If not, well so far, mine has looked lovely sitting in the cabinet by the sink. Same with my thermal cooker. I’ve used it only a couple of times.  The one-stop-shopping resource you should have is The Boat Galley Cookbook. There are recipes, but mostly there is information about different ways to do things for those of you who like to tinker in the kitchen.

    I never get tired of snorkeling.

  7.  Every single penny you spend on making the interior of your boat comfortable and attractive is worth it. Just do it, if you can. I remember feeling somewhat guilty that we would spend money on things like paint or colorful, comfortable pillows for the boat interior when we needed to be spending money on engine parts and the like. Safety first, right? As I sit here, however, I do not regret one penny we spent on those things because this is not a vacation, this is our lives. This is how we live, at least for now. And referencing my comments above about the ‘highs and lows’ of cruising, having comfortable berths to tumble into, or an attractive salon that feels welcoming goes a long way after a long day of working with the sea.

    Galapagos is WAY down there. Catalina Island.

  8. If you are planning a trip down the west coast of the United States, go ahead and join the cheapest yacht club you can find that has reciprocal privileges. We didn’t do this and it would have made a big difference in our trip. Friends of ours pulled onto docks regularly because of those reciprocal privileges. Especially if you are not a consummate anchor-outer, join a yacht club.  California is all about yacht clubs in a way we did not predict.

    When you spend time in the salt water, you also use more fresh water because you must rinse everything off.

  9. You might be very bored. Yes. There. I’ve said it out loud. Cruising has long periods of time where you might have nothing to do unless you really, truly want to get out the sandpaper and get to that greying teak or take up guitar or bake something that you don’t really need to be eating.  We read. A lot. It takes a long time to get used to all the downtime and figure out what to do with it. I’m so used to having a focus; a goal, a project.   Mike always has some kind of boat project he’s working on, but I do not. I have my art supplies on board but have yet to get them out. They make such a mess when I do and I hate it when the boat is a mess. The things I used to fill my time with at home (called HOBBIES) are not things that translate well to the boat so far. But I’ll find my groove with it eventually and I’m not complaining that I have so much time to read. I’m remaining open to discovering new interests at some point. Just don’t be surprised if you get bored. I think of the boredom as an opening for inspiration that just hasn’t hit me yet.

    I wonder if this sea lion deals with boredom. Likely not.

  10. Going south from Washington has meant that we have sunny days, but the sun sets early, a rhythm we have not quite got accustomed to. After 31 years in Washington State, our bodies do not understand how the sun comes up so late and goes down so early, and yet the days are sunny and warm. Isn’t it summer? Isn’t the sun still up at 9:00 pm? No?  Go ahead and buy those cockpit lights and make sure you have good lighting in your salon. We should have invested more in cockpit lighting.  You may not need them up north, but as you move south you will. And while you’re at it, get an anchor light that comes on automatically when the sun goes down; maybe some reflective tape for your mast. You’ll never need them up north, but you will down here. The nights are long all year round closer to the equator. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s worth noting. Along with this you can expect your biorhythm to change if you are accustomed to a more northern latitude. We go to bed so early it’s kind of eerie. I probably haven’t had this much sleep since I was 5 years old and forced to take naps. It goes something like this: “I’m so tired. Time for bed. What? It’s only 7:30? Damn! Now what? ”  I’m starting to think this is why some sailors drink a lot.

    A favorite view of the full moon taken from our view on the sea.

Taking these things and others into consideration, the fun/suck ration for us is definitely on the side of ‘fun’ so far.  We are happy doing what we are doing for now. We would never in our wildest dreams have encountered Elephant Seals on the beach, or a sea turtle swimming just beneath us, or any of a hundred other things we’ve experienced had we not been traveling by boat. We’re even glad to have had some of experiences of the ‘low’ times, because we’ve mastered those and know we can handle them now.  But with so many blogs and magazines making this lifestyle look like an unending vacation, you can count on Little Cunning Plan to give you the rest of the scoop. It’s not a vacation. When you go on a vacation, you leave a lot of the everyday concerns of your life behind for awhile. When you go cruising, you take them with you and have to deal with them in a completely different way, plus some. Being mentally prepared for some of the challenges this lifestyle brings with it will go a long way toward making your cruising life a success for you.

 

 

 

 

Those TIPS: Temporary Import Permits

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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.