At 0920 on Friday morning we took Non Sequitur over to the floats at the marina and went inside to pay the 150 Pesos for our landing. The fellow who was supposed to get pricing on the watermaker pre-filters and Tef-Gel was not around. We left the marina at 0945 and walked along to the offices of the Port Captain, hoping that she had come through on her promise of Wednesday afternoon to have our Zarpe ready for us at 1000 Friday.
We were a couple of minutes early, but were ushered in and given seats in front of Antonio, a fifty-something man who spoke no English. After some rudimentary communications, in which he mentioned 'migracion' and 'aeropuerto' and 'una hora', he started slowly hunting his way around a computer keyboard. In just under half an hour of replacing old screen data with our data, he managed to get a document to the printing stage, printed three copies and handed one to me to check the data for accuracy. It was the Zarpe.
Once I had confirmed to him that the data were correct, he started the painfully slow process with another form, which he managed to complete and print in only twenty minutes and handed me a copy to proofread. This form was the Direction de Supervision, listing our departure from our previous Mexican port, our arrival in Acapulco, our departure from Acapulco and our next destination port, including Sequitur's ship registry number, port of registry, gross tonnage, net tonnage and crew list. I confirmed to him that this form also had the correct data, so he began to hunt-and-peck at a third form.
The third form was the Zarpe Internacional, which appeared to be a landscape-format rendition of the data from the portrait-format Zarpe, missing only the crew list and the signature block for the ship's captain. This form had taken him another twenty minutes to complete and print, and after I had confirmed the data were correctly entered, he combined the three new documents with Wednesday's photocopies of our passports, entry visas, ship registry document, crew list, vessel importation certificate and our exit documentation from previous Mexican ports. He then shuffled the papers into three stacks and checked them a couple of times before he committed a staple to each bundle.
Antonio took the stack of papers, which was over a centimetre thick now, and disappeared into the Port Captain's office for signatures. He emerged and sat down to admire his handiwork, and after a look of dismay, pulled out the first bottle of whiteout I have seen in nearly two decades. He had serial-numbered the Zarpe and Zarpe Internacional as 033. He painted-over the last 3s and with a ballpoint wrote-in 4s, changing the serial numbers to 034.
He again sat back and admired his handiwork, and mentioned 'migracion' and 'aeropuerto' and 'una hora', adding this time 'lejos'. I had earlier gathered that an immigration officer was coming from the airport in an hour. I now learned his lateness was because of the distance from the airport. Finally after an hour and three quarters, Roberto the Delegado Regional arrived from Migracion. Antonio cleared off his desk, sat Roberto in his chair and placed the stack of papers in front of him.
The Delegado began a perfunctory scanning of the papers, and then must have realized we were not agents, but boaters clearing ourselves. He slowed-down to a thorough reading of each document, and then had Antonio re-copy our passports with less contrast so the photos showed better. In just under half an hour Roberto managed to read the file, apply his signature to a dozen and more places and wear-down his rubber stamp some more. We shook his hand and thanked him for his fine services, and off he went.
But we were not done yet. I now needed to pay the exit fees of 306 Pesos. Antonio went back to his keyboard and after three unsuccessful attempts, managed to print two copies of an invoice. We left Edi at his desk with our files while Antonio and I headed down the stairs, stopping after three flights to retrace our route back up to the office. He corrected an error, photocopied the result and off we went again down the stairs.
This time we made it down to the main level, and then out onto the street where we walked along to an afterthought of a building, which was plunked on the lawn of the main building. He indicated to me the front door, and he went in the back and called me up to a wicket and asked for my credit card. We then spent almost half an hour as the fellow at the computer behind the wicket tried to learn how to use the payment terminal.
Finally paid and receipted, I followed Antonio back up to his office, where he practiced his rubber-stamping and flourished signature technique. Somehow, he seemed much more adept at this than with a computer and printer. We were finally issued with our Zarpes and many other pieces of paper shortly before 1300. We thanked Antonio for his services, and attempted to do the same with the Port Captain, but we were told she was out to lunch, and so were, as we observed through the long morning, most of her staff.
We were delighted that we had managed to get our Zarpe without having to resort to surrendering our passports and ship's papers to an unknown agent, paying US$75 and waiting two or three days. Weary and hungry, we walked back toward the marina. I had 157.70 Pesos left in my pocket, the last of the supply of Mexican currency we had bought in September in Vancouver. We decided to stop for lunch in the marina restaurant and use it up. We left the restaurant an hour later with 20 Centavos, recovered the dinghy and headed back out to Sequitur, free and ready to leave Mexico.
As we were unshipping the motor and getting ready to hoist the dinghy, Capitan Alberto, the fellow who was getting pricing on the watermaker pre-filters motored-up with two friends. He said he had found filters, and showed me a written quote from a swimming pool filter supply house at 216 Pesos each, and that he would charge me 250 each to go and get them, saying it would take an hour-and-a-half. He assured me he had checked that the Spectra filter part numbers were on the list of compatible replacements. I told him we wanted four of each the 5 and the 20 micron and gave him CA$200. As a receipt, I suggested I take a photo of him and the money. Shortly before 1600 the capitan returned with only four 5 micron filters, saying they had no 20s in stock. He gave me back a hundred and wished us a safe trip.
Because of the lateness in the day, and to give the winds a chance to build a bit more, Edi and I decided to postpone our departure until first thing on Saturday morning.