Phil & I decided to run around town to see if we could find a cheaper slip. As we're stepping off the boat, we see Jim & Lucy stepping off theirs. They were surprised! They're picking up Jim Donnell in a few days and then they'll be heading south Tuesday (where we can have the Jim, Jim, Jim reunion). There's a NW swell heading in Friday that doesn't sound fun but there isn't supposed to be hard winds with it. Hope not cuz we can't afford to stay a week.

We hit Baja Naval first and was told $30 a night! Yippee! We just took it and ran back to Marina Coral and checked out. Filled up with fuel (nice fuel dock but no help tying up) and sailed to the harbor entrance. Finally sailing!

Harbor was quiet and as we made our approach we kinda stopped...dead stop.....oh shit! I ran down and threw on the depth gauge--- nothing then 6.2! Oh NO! Jim kept working her (out of the mud) and she finally started moving and when I saw 7+ feet, Jim floored it forward. Wheew! Jim says you can't stay a virgin forever! And at least we know the depth gauge is accurate. Just didn't expect it when we were right next to a freaking Carnival cruise ship (same one that was in Avalon)! Now we know better.

Baha Naval has small docks on an angle and lots of surge (getting worse with the upcoming NW swell), but it's a nice gated (several gates) marina and an exceptionally clean boat yard. When Roger (the head guy here) asked how much we were paying at Marina Coral, he was kind of shocked and laughed that he couldn't hand someone a bill like that. Across the way is a Canadian boat that was in the San Diego slips....cruising really is a very small community!

Jim worked on the SSB while I provisioned up. Had tacos for dinner and went to a club where I drank WAY TOO MUCH tequila! Music and dancing was good though.

11/19/09

Hangover hell this morning and Jim is just laughin' it up! Jim checked us in on the net (CH 21 at 8:00) and visited with more people on the dock. We had breakfast at McDonalds and went back to the office to get paperwork for immigration.

Off to immigration before 1pm and started the course. 1st was visas. The guy got a little frustrated with me (I'm trying but hell I'm not used to accents) but then he saw my name and something about it made me ok again. Really didn't understand what he was talking about---a famous french person or someone he knows with the name. Visas paperwork done now bank to pay for them then back to immigration for completion. Then harbor captain for check in and checkout and pay for that and back to immigration for his copy.

THOUGHT we were done so we left for lunch and to find the water store. Lots of offroad vehicles up and down the streets. The Baja 1000 starts tomorrow. Got back to the boat and realized we didn't push the light thing for customs and checked with people to find out if we had our import permit. CRAP! No we didn't so grabbed the papers and walked back to Immigration and went to the bank window to start the Import Permit paperwork (after 4pm). Waiting, answered a few questions, waiting, paid for the permit then had to go to customs window and fill out another form - the how much luggage do you have kinda messed with me - and was told to press the button. I should have let Phil press it cuz I get buzzed and red lighted! Everyone in the office turns to look at us and just start to laugh cuz it's ALWAYS green! Just lucky I guess! So the two customs people (at 4:50) take me in their car (Phil walked back) and took 5 minutes looked at the boat, looked at the motor number (which we may not have correct) and just said ok. People said this immigration stuff took hours and was hard but even with our stupidity we managed to get it wrapped up in less than 2 hours. Thank you Immigration!

Back to the boat and Phil is still playing with the SSB trying to get it to talk to us. Instruction manual is nicely detailed in how to connect it just not how to use it. We'll figure it out sooner or later!

Now I'm all caught up with the log and have to check the weather as we should be headed out tomorrow for Turtle Bay.

Bug Report: just more nat-like flies
Tree Report: natal plums, loquats (P.S. to CDFA tejocote sells for $1/lb here!)