Mexico!

We crossed the US/Mexico border at 5am on November 15th and arrived in Ensenda in the early afternoon and were able to complete our entry before the office closed at five o'clock.

After motoring almost the entire time, the wind finally picked up enough to sail, but we were only about 45 minutes out. We arrived just ahead of a thick fog bank which blanketed the entire city.

Checking in at the Centro Integral de Servicios was a simple and friendly process. It's good to speak some Spanish, have lots of patience and copies of all of your documents including insurance
.

San Diego

We spent a week in San Diego and got a tremendous amout of work done thanks to the car we rented for the week. Most of our time was spent restocking and repairing and Christmas shopping, so much so that we were seldom at the boat, but the dock were were tied to was always full of cruisers who had lots of useful information to share and much to the girls delight, there were lots of kids! Finally!

The kids from Shambala (Australia) and from Aquarelle (Vancouver Island) organized a cricket match for all of the cruising kids and their parents, there were about 30 of us who participated - it was a lot of fun!




















We had such a fun time visiting with several fellow Canadian cruisers and meeting many others. The cruising community is so wonderful, everyone helps everyone and it's so fun to show up in a new place and run into people that you know!

We spent a day at Sea World which was so much fun! We never tire of that place! Thanks to our friends on Maryke Violet who watched Diesel for the day and to our friends on Warren Peace who were our chauffers for the day.














NOTE TO FELLOW CANADIAN CRUISERS: Downwind Marine publishes a cruising guide that states that HAM radio operators need to get a permit to operate their radios in Mexico. We went through the process described in their guide only to be told that the requirement was for Americans not Canadians. Save your time and your money and skip this step.

Happy Halloween!

We spent halloween on Catalina Island at Two Harbors where residents of the town worked together to create an awesome haunted house! Being cruisers means you sometimes have a little extra time on your hands to make costumes and play dress up and we took advantage of the day and visited the haunted house dressed as the Incredibles! (Diesel too!).