So I returned to San Diego to find Altere still in her slip as I had left her. I immediately went to work preparing the boat for her next adventure.

I repaired a slow leak in the top of the port side water tank where a non-working sending unit for a tank gauge had been. I took the cover plate to a South San Diego metal fabrication shop and had them weld a cover over the hole for the sending unit. It was a family shop run by Mexican-Americans who had customer service down and also had a lot of fun in their jobs.

I also hired a diver to come look at my sacrificial zincs on the propeller and its shaft. For the non-boaters reading this, the zincs are a less noble metal than the other metal parts under a boat. In the electrolysis present in salt water, they degrade rather than the expensive and vital running gear. Mine had degraded faster than I had expected, but I had been in several marinas since leaving Seattle in early September. I guess I will just have to watch this.

After paying for a lot of UBER rides that first day, I rented a car to do all of my running around. I had a lot of errands and shopping to do that has taken me all over the area. I purchased charts and a data chip for my chartplotter, mosquito repellent for clothing, a sunshower, and many more items. I also bought some new toys (but more on that later).

I had great fun buying fishing equipment at West Marine here. The salesman was one of those guys who could not help himself when given an opportunity to introduce someone to the sport of fishing. Given that the last time I caught a fish was in the 1980’s in Alaska, I am no fisherman. He set me up with two handlines with snubbers to troll with while sailing as well as a long gaff hook for getting the fish on to the boat. Mostly he gave me about a half hour of great advice about how to fish from a moving sailboat.

The weather had been beautiful here. Yes, “had been”. Last night it started to rain and early this morning, I was awakened by the boat bouncing around in its slip. There I was at 4:30 am adjusting fenders whilst the rain was going sideways. It surely got the day going for me.

I went to the Mexican Consulate this morning to inquire about a Temporary Import Permit (TIP) that I am told I need to have before entering Mexican waters. They seemed not to know what I was talking about. This surprised me, given that hundreds of boats pass through San Diego on their way south every year. Eventually, I was advised to go ask at the San Ysidro border crossing.

This afternoon, one of my crew members, John Tebbetts, is flying up from La Paz and I am picking him up from the bridge that leads from the Tijuana Airport. He and I will work on provisioning the boat ahead of the arrival of our other crew member, Andrew Rife.