The photo above shows my friends at Marina Coral, Ensenada: Jesus "Chewy", Jessica, Juan, myself, Frank. They all worked hard, and encouraged me, to get through my problems with Mexican customs.

Not shown in the photo above: Marco, and the Harbormaster, Fito, who made calls to Mexico City to solve the problem.

At my lowest point in dealing with the customs problem, it looked like I had to leave the country the next day. I empathized then with the immigrants in the United States who the current U.S. government is expelling. I felt their resentment.

My friends above, and the Harbormaster too, came to my aid. The Canadian brokers from whom I bought my boat in 2011 also helped by emailing a critical document.

So with the help of my Marina Coral friends, the Marina Coral Harbormaster Fito, and the Canadian brokers, we saved S/V Ubiquity and her crew from expulsion from Mexico.

Not just that. We built bridges, bridges across cultures, bridges across languages, bridges across countries, bridges that reflect the commonality of human beings, bridges that show the humanity of helping each other. Not walls, but bridges; not anathematizing the others as different and bad, but embracing our communality of humanity.

At Marina Coral, by building bridges across cultures, we created a counter-example to some of the current rhetoric to build walls. Our countries should learn from what we did at Marina Coral. I hope that all of our governments will evolve towards building bridges, not walls.

Thank you Marina Coral - Chewy, Jessica, Juan, Frank, Marco, and especially Harbormaster Fito - for seeing me and my friend Leslie as fellow human beings who you wanted to help, and not as threatening foreigners.