Away Away
Thurs 20/3/2014, We are off, I awoke at 5.30 this morning to find the captain already bouncing around on deck, needless to say that I wasn't the only one keen to get away.
You may notice the date, we have been in San Jose del Cabo since the previous Friday afternoon after our night hove to. We had thought that if we arrived early enough on the Friday that we could have checked out then, provisioned on Sat and left, but we were Oh so wrong. Friday was done by the time we got the anchor down.We did manage to provision on Sat and anyone who knows my wife will not be surprised that we also provisioned on Sunday. So, ashore on Monday to check out of Mexico. No No No. It's Benito Juarez day. Oh well there's always Tomorrow.
Tuesday sees us visit the Port Captain in San Jose to discover that we need to first go to immigration which is in Cabo San Lucas. The immigration costs nothing besides 2hrs, Oh and a $100 dollar return cab fare. Back to the Port captain and a short wait sees us then off to the bank to pay the fee and return with a receipt. Very nearly there, we were already drooling at the thought of lunch and a last Beer in mexico. Crap, the Port captain informs us that the immigration paperwork is incorrect. The office had used an old form dated 2012 among other things and He was not going to accept it and wouldn't allow us to white it out. Our Taxi driver was really looking forward to seeing the back of us by now and informed us that immigration would be closed by now, 1.30 in the afternoon. We didn't believe him as the Port captain had told us they were open till 3. We figured the driver just wanted to head for lunch himself. It cost us another 100bucks to find out he was right, a very quiet second trip back from Cabo San Lucas.
Wednesday saw Alan off to try again with another 100 dollar cab ride. Nat and I stayed onboard. He arrived at immigration, explained why he was there and Lo and behold. Mr Macdonald your papers are ready. No way. It seems the Port captain had rung them the previous night and Had them changed. Too good to be true Eh, sure was. It took another 2hrs to redo them, the departure Port and Port captains name were both still wrong. Mexico was sure milking those last Cervezas out of us before surrendering and letting us go.
Away Away, no really this time, everything is in order and the anchor is up by 7am, we had the dinghy on deck and lashed down, so we were set. Of course all this did mean we were already 5 days into our fresh produce and some of it is already not looking good. La Paz had much better growers markets than the one in San Jose del Cabo by the way.
SJC didn't let us go easily despite the promising NWrly blowing us out of the anchorage. It wasn't long before we're drifting east not west and barely South. By pure will power I summoned up something from the NW by early afternoon (maybe the last of the beans) and we started heading in the right direction.
As the sun set on our Mexican adventure we were escorted into it by a crowd of dolphins playing on the bow in the dying rays of light.
Awoke to find our first flying fish on deck in the morning, surely a sign of good luck. Not so good for him though, we had been looking forward to tasting one but this fellow had landed right at the foot of our equivalent to the Lemon tree. A very well salted flying fish went out the back as bait. We have dragged a lure for hundreds of miles and not caught a thing in the last 3 months. Hoping to change that shortly. Touching wood as we speak. The timber kind, not the other.
Adios Amigos