The Chronicles of Carmen

Mexico – March 08

After we had everything settled and we were berthed in Marina Coral we began our Mexican adventure, for the first time. We had been told at the check in that we needed to be back at 0900 to arrange for our papers. These are the arrival papers to be sorted with the Port Capitaine in Ensenada. Well we were late in getting up and so we arrived at the desk at about 0935. Aha Mexico did not change clocks with the USA and so we (as islanders) were astounded to see we were 25 minutes early!

Pedro took our details, keyed into a PC for a while and at exactly 0900 led us out to the car. He assured us that he would take care of everything; and what exactly was it that we declaring? No problems there and with the strict admonition to do exactly as told in the “office” he said all would be OK and that he would speed it up as much as possible.

Upon arrival at the Service Center (all of the relevant offices are represented in one building at Ensenada) we were “parked” in the corner at the bank counter and Pedro started filling in forms. It was a blur as he darted here and there with different forms, went behind most of the counters to talk personally with the officials and stopped back at us occasionally to request we pay the bank officer some money.

Not much money and a little while later we had all our paperwork and were ushered out of the building. On the way to town he had stated that at the end we would face what looked like a traffic light on the way to the exit. Push the button and if it went red then we had to talk to the officials, if green then depart. However we evidently looked “ok” as we were not even required to perform the button pushing ceremony.

So that was our introduction to Mexico, kinda fun. Lunch at the hotel restaurant and then back to the boat for a siesta.

Marina Coral is very nice but there is a strange sense of suspense. Everything seems to be ready except that there are no people. It turns out that most all of the boats are new or new to their current owners and have been brought here to wait out the California sales tax. This group, sometimes called the 90 day club, stems from the fact that if a California resident takes delivery out of state and then keeps the boat out of California for 90 days then there is no sales tax payable. Makes for a weird marina only populated by security guards, boat maintenance and cleaning crews. The Hotel itself is very nice.

We began a week long process of unwinding after the previous six months. After the first week we began to surface and see what was around us, a very lovely place.

Warm to the point of hot during the days and cool to the point of loving the hydronic heat at night. Yes we really really love hydronic heat. Lots of Palm trees, Oh and brownish red dirt - more on that later.

Our trips into Ensenada were somewhat regular based on our milk consumption. It seems the ruling commodity for Carmen is not diesel or water, it is milk. Fortunately the teas supply was adequate. We went where the taxis takes you to a small “supermarket” just off of the tourist strip in downtown Ensenada. Ensenada is a cruise ship stop and boy when they are in town it is a good time to be elsewhere.

One day as we went into town we noticed a funny looking logo on a very small cruise ship in the harbour. Seemed odd but it wasn't in the cruiseport either. Closer examination revealed that it had Vancouver 2010 in BIG script all down one side. Then we recognized it as one of the new BC Super Cs on its way north to BC. It had stopped in Ensenada for a few days.

Feeling yet more relaxed we decided it was time to visit the real Mexico, Costco and Wal-Mart etc! We rented a car from a place that had Hertz signs and forms and all that. The cars were discards from rent-a-wreck though. The first one had no insignia, a Chrysler steering wheel but Hyundai windows. Steered better going backwards – had over 86000km on the odometer. I do not know which parts had done the 86000km, but the others had gone further! To add insult to injury the engine check light was on, so we changed that for Nissan of indeterminate age with 65000km on the odometer. It ran better. Of course the small incident with the Ensenada police officer had no bearing on the situation. We found that Ensenada has a population of over 170,000 and yes it has much bigger and better stores. Prices are much less than those in California (unless you count rental cars). Mostly you can find the stuff you are used to but there is a lot of stuff that we did not yet understand the labels.

We went for a drive south into the mountains and over to see La Bufadora, a waterspout caused by a deep sea cavern and the ever present pacific swells. Needless to say the day we went was too calm and there was no action other than the countless local selling everything that you do not want. One day we went further south into the mountains and decided that Mexico is a series on large population centres connected by black top roads with everything else off road, literally. They don’t grade them or gravel them or oil them or anything them, traffic does all maintenance.

Not good for our little car so we passed up our visit to the missions and settled for a visit to a gringo retirement community built around a golf course. Very nice and not very expensive.

Gas is “prixe fixe” at about $0.51 per litre and yes (oh yes) diesel works out to $2.33 per gallon. We are converting all tanks to fuel! The water was clean and after the in-boat filtration it was perfectly drinkable. Maybe a watermaker would be a nice feature.

The weather calmed and we wanted to get out for a day or so and after consulting with the various guide books and planning charts it looked like there was a decent (in NW winds) anchorage at Ilse Todos Santos about 8 miles west of Ensenada. There are three protected covers, the central one being occupied by a fish farm. So out we went only to discover that the swell was twice that predicted but still not too bad. At Isle Todos Santos we found that the aquaculture or fish farm had expanded from one cove to all three. There was a little space in the south cove but by the time we squeezed into the available space we were so close to shore that the stink (of bird dodo) was quite objectionable.

So we left, cruised by the north cove which was totally full (two boats) and so decided that we would visit La Bufadora by sea and then probably go back to Marina Coral as the next good anchorage was some 90 miles away and it was 1500. La Bufadora was performing so we did get to see the water spout and most impressive it was.

Back at the marina I decided we would pretend that we were at anchor for electrical purposes and so we stayed on the house bank. This was fine until about noon the next day when I decided to plug us in. Well the problem was that the cooling fan on the inverter/charger was not functioning so the charger would overheat and shut down till it had cooled. The house bank recharge took about 12 hours to achieve. Repairs arranged for San Diego! To be continued.