Sailing the Karina C

3/25 There will be no picture for a while as our camera was stolen.
As I write this, we are sitting in the Tufesa bus depot in Guaynas preparing to travel to Mazatlan. Wait a minute!!! We were supposed to be heading North if anything! Yep. Let me digress…..
When we got to San Carlos, we began the work of decommissioning Karina for the summer. In my frugal quest for decent air conditioning for the van, we went into an air conditioning shop in Guaymas. They spent a couple of hours tracing lines and tightening connections. They said they could find little wrong with the system, so they recharged it and told us to come back next week.
So we come back the next week and, after a little looking around, they conclude all is well and we were presented with an 800 peso bill (about $60CDN). Well that was good. On the way back to the boat we stopped in Guaymas Ley (a food store) and went in and got a few things for supper. We came back to the van and hopped in and headed for Wal-Mart as we needed a few things there. Just short of Wal-Mart, we noticed our camera was missing! Anita had left it between the seats. When we got to Wal-Mart we did a thorough inventory of all that was missing and the bag that held our passports and all important documentation was missing. (Are you getting an idea of why we are getting ready for the bus to Mazatlan yet?)
We reported the theft to the Wal-Mart security guys and they called the policia. The policia arrive and ask us to drive back to Ley. At Ley they get us to show them what must have happened and then we head to the office of the police downtown. We head downtown to a nondescript building where they tell us where to park. After extensive discussion with a lady in a decrepit office in the corner of the building, the police leave us with the lady who takes our statement. All this is happening in Espanol.
I have no idea what she was doing, but after extensive repetition and gesticulating we are done with her. She takes us outside and points and starts jabbering about the Ministerio Publico. Just at that moment a very distinguished looking older man comes by and tells us he knows some English and can help us.
He turns out to be a great find. His name is Jaime. He hops in the van with us and guides us around town to the Ministerio Publico where he sits with us for hours as we wait to file a report with this agency.
After 3 hours we get into see the lady who takes our report. She is sitting in an office crowded with recovered radios and evidence, documents, sitting at an old teacher’s desk that was probably thrown out of a B.C. school 20 years ago. Her chair has upholstery worn away and the computer was a 286 that was probably dug out of a dumpster in the USA or Canada. She took our statement (as translated by Jaime) and gave us the report which we had to sign.
After all this, We insisted that we take him for lunch and we returned him to his place. He refused to accept any compensation for his time. What a true gentleman.
After all the Mexican officialdom was dealt with, we moved on to Canadian. They were worse. We were advised that, if we cancelled our passports, it was irrevocable. The next day, an enterprising young Mexican fellow showed up with all our documents. I am not so ingenuous that I believed he found it, but I gave him 200 pesos for his efforts. The problem is that the passport will have to be replaced with a temporary document that is good for (maybe) 3 days as we pass through the USA. This makes getting from Nogales to the Peace Arch a reprise of White Line Fever.
3/25 We made the bus trip down to Mazatlan as that is the closest Canadian Counsul that is reasonable to stay in for 3 days. Tijuana was an option that we cast out as a headless passport photo is no good. The purchase of the bus tickets involved 2 trips into the Guaymas Tufesa depot. I couldn’t handle looking at the lady trying to sell us the tickets. She was dressed in the same clothing that Britany Spears would wear. The only difference was she outweighed Britany by 150 lbs. She refused to understand our crude Spanish. On our first effort to buy tickets, she buggered up our tickets and had to refund the entire VISA bill (in cash). On the second we found a nice young lady in the lineup who spoke English and Spanish and she explained what we needed and we were successful. Again watching the strain on the buttons of our ticket sellers button down shirt was almost too much for me.
We are staying with Lynn and Debbie aboard Dolphin Tales while the Canadian Consul replaces our documents.
3/27
Today we are on the bus back to Guaymas
We did catch a break as, after we got a cab to the Tufesa depot at 1510, the 1430 bus to Guaymas was late. In less than a half an hour, we were on the bus for Guaymas in hopes of finding a cab at 0300 the next morning.
Our experience with the Canadian Consulate in Mazatlan was great. Wendy stayed late and expedited the emergency passport. That was wonderful of her to do that. She sure went the extra mile. Passport Canada…… well just let me say I will be talking to my MP…soon. We hatched a convoluted plan to (rather than return to Mazatlan and then head North on the 4th of April) to pick up our emergency documents in Tijuana. The Passport people went for it and so we did catch some limited form of a break. The only problem is we may need to spend the night of the 3rd in Tijuana. Maybe the 4th as the request for the emergency passport stated our itinerary was to cross into the USA on the 5th. Karina will be taken out of the water at 0800 on the 3rd. We will then drive for Tijuana and hopefully arrive in the late afternoon.
At this point, we are investigating the costs and logistics of shipping Karina back to Canada ASAP. I will be 62 this year (if I make it) and I am too old to be dealing with these kinds of challenges. Maybe (to quote Dirty Harry Callaghan) “A man’s gotta know his limitations.” We may feel differently in a few days. In spite of all the wonderful support that we got from Lynn and Debbie, Terry and Patrica and all the special people we met along the way of this trying experience, that is just how we both feel now. We will have one or two more blog entries before I wrap things up for this season.