SD to Ensenada

Dock Day 35 11/08/2016 San Diego, CA

Today was filled with all sorts of different things. We visited and planned with friends and took care of basic cleaning around the cabin. We drove the boat over for a pump out of the holding tank. Tim worked with the website for our satellite device so we can be contacted and people can follow our travels online. Tonight I tried cooking potatoes in my new pressure cooker. Wow! It was so fast! From chopped potatoes to the table in maybe 15 minutes!

We are down to our last week before we pull out of San Diego for an undetermined amount of time. We have a number of items out there that are supposed to come in. Tim removed the wish list from our About page since we aren’t going to have anyone sending more stuff to us at this point. We went through our Amazon wish list and purchased the rest of the items we need and any that were going to take too long to arrive we put on our list to purchase here in San Diego before we leave.

I hate shopping, you already know this. However, there is the kind of shopping that gets you ready to do an adventure which I do like, and that is the shopping we did today! Costco shopping to provision our travels starting next week! Tim and I purchased more contact lenses and all sorts of food items to keep us going underway, and don’t forget the toilet paper! We now have piles of items cluttering our space. I need to purchase some more bins and then this will be a non-event.

All our shopping lists have been revised by the store we need to go to purchase the item. It is all coming together it seems…


Dock Day 36 11/09/2016 San Diego, CA

Another Minney’s Surplus run today! We rode along with Steve and Janny to the surplus store today to procure a few more items. We found a great deal on a Sextant for celestial navigation that we are planning on learning soon. We purchased some odds and ends for creating different sailing solutions on the boat such as a preventer. It was a full day.


Dock Day 37 11/10/2016 San Diego, CA

Shopping in shifts today, yes more of that shopping stuff. It is exhausting making all the decisions that go into choosing an item on the list, call it choice paralysis! We are again fighting to get the macerator pump working right so we can have that job finished. 


Dock Day 38-40 11/11 - 11/13/2016 San Diego, CA

We have received news that our son will be moving to another state to take a job. This means that we have to return to Redding to set up how we are going to manage the house without him. We spent these days doing more shopping, and planning what things were going back and anything else that we might need to bring back. We have masterminded that we will take the Laser back on the top of the car. Then the car and Laser will be left in the garage in Redding and we will fly back to San Diego so we have no ties that require us to return here in the future. We know we will return to our house, so best the car is left in safety there.

The news has now shifted our leave date away from the 15th to a later date. This has created quite a bit of stress inside of me. I know it will all get worked out.

Traveling Days 11/14- 11/18/2016

We drove to Redding in a one day shot to arrive at our friends’ Jim and Karen where we are being hosted while in Redding. We are so grateful to have friends who like to see us when we come back. Jim and Karen are a tremendous blessing to us indeed. We did all sorts of things in Redding. Tim caught up with his clients and I cleaned up some yard and house issues. We were able to have a couple meals with friends as we prepared to leave other people in charge of our land life. It was a good trip and we needed all the time we had allowed ourselves. We arrived back here in San Diego with quite a long list of things I still needed to complete to settle all the details with the house. That should not be a problem completing  since we will have technology on our way down the Baja.(stay tuned)


Dock Day 41- 42 11/19- 11/20/2016 San Diego, CA

We are to be buddy boating with Steve and Janny, with our emergency trip to Redding we did not expect them to wait. They are leaving on the 21st. We have been cramming since we got back to get the last of the items we need for this journey. There are a few items that we are going to forgo because we can’t get them in time. We finally got the galley faucet we ordered into the store and Tim got it installed. That job took him all day! Tim tested the new macerator pump only to discover that the pump leaks, and that’s inside the boat! Oh $h!*! We decided to purchase another electric macerator pump to install when we get to La Paz. I completed the lee clothes and got them in place to hold the new bins on the berth in the main cabin. All our supplies are now well contained and organized.

There is a lot of frustration in these days and tension is building. We want to leave! Why can’t we just get our act together? We are doing the absolute basics so we can leave if possible with Steve and Janny.

Sea Day 18 11/21-11/22/2016 San Diego, CA to Ensenada, Mexico (Finally!)

Steve and Janny left out this morning and we decided we could leave at dusk and sail all night and catch them in Ensenada in the morning. We left out around 1730 from San Diego and did 3 hours shifts all night. We motor sailed all night with very little wind. We arrived at about 0700 and Steve and Janny met us and helped us dock. 

At 0800 we all went up to the Harbormaster’s Office to check into Mexico. The marina provided us transportation and a translator at the Immigration Office where we were shuttled from window to window and paid all sorts of fees: visa fees, port fees, vessel fees, etc. We left with 180 day tourist visas and a TIP for our vessel. We checked in an out of the country as well. Phew! On the way back to the marina the chauffeur stopped at a fish shop for us to purchase fishing licenses for us and our friends. If you have any fishing equipment on your boat you have to have a fishing license for every person on the boat including kids! No problem, the licenses were $40 for the year. 
Oh, I forgot to mention that our cell phones went crazy when we crossed the border. Tim's decided that the iOS 10 update would be cool to have, and my phone was not configured for the GSM network in MX. So a few calls with Verizon got my new 6SE online, Tim's phone was another story. It updated without permission, he set it to not do updates and did not agree to the new 10 update. Well, when your phone does a major update without a tower to activate, we have a new set of problems. 

We arrived back at our boat five hours later. We needed fuel so we used dock carts to transport jerry cans into town and get our can filled up for the next leg of our journey. This was a crazy sort of adventure into the heart of Ensenada as we walked several miles to finally arrive at a Pemex station that actually had diesel! 

Imagine pulling carts up and over curbs in excess of 10 inches high! And then dropping off of the same! Definitely a work out! 

We arrived back at the marina, secured the jerry cans and left the dock heading out to sea at 2130. Now on with the adventure!

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