We left San Diego and motored out to head south to Mexico – hoping to be able to sail the entire way.  Instead, we motored, and motored – for the first 6 hours, there was not even enough wind to put out the headsail.  Finally, at about 10pm we were able to put out the headsail to give us a little assist, motor sailing through the night.   At about 4am the wind started to build – and build!!!  Suddenly I was completely overpowered – I couldn’t release the main sheet and had to call Owen up on deck to help out.  Once we had the mainsail eased and the headsail furled in a bit, he tried to head down again to sleep for another hour – it was not too be – almost immediately I was again fighting the boat rounding up – the wind was building and the sea state was even worse!!!    We had to tack to head towards Ensenada and that put us dead into the waves – waves were crashing over the deck, drenching us and everything else!!!   We finally fired up the engine again to motor sail at a better angle.   The wind finally settled just as we were approaching the harbour and we were able to motor in and get the main down in the relative calm.

We radioed the Cruiseport Marina to confirm our arrival and had a tense few moments while we waited for them to confirm our slip assignment – we had had a bit of difficulty reaching them to book a slip and had to delay our reservations because of the delayed part in San Diego so we were a tad apprehensive that we were going to be told we didn’t have a slip!! Luckily, the worrying was for nothing and they came back to confirm our slip and to let us know they were waiting for us.    We got tied up and were told to come on up to the office whenever we were ready and they would assist with everything else.

The marina staff truly could not have been better – Octavio got us checked into the marina and then finalized our check in paper work.   He then had another staff member, Oswald, drive us to the Port Captain’s office, where he walked us around to the various departments, filling in the paperwork for us, telling us to read this, sign here, pay her…    After about an hour, we were all checked into Mexico with 180 day visas, the boat was issued a 10 year TIP and we were ready to explore!!! 

We went for a short walk around the marina area that afternoon, stopped at an Italian restaurant for dinner (I know, I know – but I was dead on my feet and wanted my first Mexican taco of this trip to be one I would actually remember eating!!)  We did manage to find a Churro cart on the way home and even though we were stuffed from dinner, couldn’t resist the temptation!  We were back on the boat fairly early and both asleep by 8pm!

We spent our first morning in Mexico hosing down the boat – it was covered in a thick crust of salt thanks to the early morning surprise we had while coming into Ensenada!!  After that we had to head out to get phones set up – I had bought a phone in the US and set up a (thankfully) pay as you go phone plan that guaranteed unlimited calling, text and data in the US, Mexico and Canada.     Once we arrived in Mexico, I discovered that my phone would not connect to the local network.  I had to on-line chat with US Cellular using the marina wi-fi to try to figure it out (because of course I couldn’t call or use data!) and was informed that while my plan was good in Mexico, the phone they sold me, knowing I was headed to Mexico, was not considered a “global phone” by them and would therefore not work.  I asked if I could put the SIM card in my old Samsung (that she had already confirmed was a “global phone”) and have them activate that and was told that they would not activate a phone that they had not sold me – awesome – so I had a phone, but no way to use it.   We headed to a Telcel location where we were lucky enough to find someone to assist us in English.   She was able to confirm that my phone would work just fine with their sim card (as would Owens) and after a short while we both had Mexican phone numbers and what we hoped would be enough data (maybe not?) – all for less that the cost of the one phone number in the US!

We then wandered around a bit more, found a boat store and Walmart.   We started to get stocked up on groceries, having let the boat go nearly empty in anticipation of an inspection when we came in to Mexico (they never came near the boat!), and headed back to the boat for another early night!

In our wandering, we were able to get a grasp of the size of the city – while not huge, it is a bustling city – with almost no crossing lights!!!   With the exception of a few major intersections, there are a bunch of stop signs – if we were lucky, they were 4 way, giving us a chance to dash across the street at the same time as a car going that way – most of the time they were only 2 way and we just had to wait for a break in traffic and make a run for it!!!    The city appears to spread out quite a way and as we would see later in the week, a new area has built up that could be in any Canadian or American City – a complex with a movie theatre, Home Depot, Walmart, McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Costco…   definitely not the sleepy Mexican village we are looking for – but a great stop to be able to restock the boat and get ready for the far more desolate Baja coast.

Neither of us had any idea what a busy cruise port Ensenda is (I guess the name of our marina should have tipped us off).  On all but one of the days that we were there, there was at least one, and usually 2 cruise ships in.  As a result, there were always booths set up on the Melacon selling all manner of touristy trinkets and always someone calling to you to come and buy here, check out my store, see what we are selling.  You had to just push through, politely saying no, gracias, and move along…

When we were going to the Port Captains office on the first day, Owen was excited to see signs announcing the start of the Baja 1000 – and lucky me, the start was on Friday.  I will let you google what the Baja 1000 is – but suffice it to say that it is a long, mostly off-road race that includes all manner of vehicles from modified motorbikes, atvs and dune-buggies to souped up vw bugs, trucks and suv’s.   Friday morning, we headed over to join the crowds lined up to watch the start, and were lucky enough to see vehicles start from several of the classes – they are LOUD!   Owen was thrilled and I have to admit to being pretty entertained!  

When we initially checked in to the country, we had been unable to complete the final step with the Port Captain as his system was down.   As we were now intending to check out on Sunday, we took advantage of being able to check in and out at the same time.   Again, the marina prepared the paper work and drove us over.   An hour later the process was again complete – we had another 48 hours and then needed to check out of the Ensenada port.

We then had some more shopping to do – lucky us.   We had a cab called to take us to Home Depot and then walked over to the Costco.   After completing our restock of the boat, we asked them to call a cab to take us back to the marina.   We waited outside for quite some time when, finally, someone came out of the store to tell us that there was not a cab available.   Umm – problem – we were 5km from the marina and had a cart load of groceries and it was now dark!!!   We were quite panicked!!   I called the marina and explained our dilemma and they shortly had a cab on their way to us (did I mention that they were amazing there!?)

The next morning, I pulled Owen up the mast so that he could install the new windvane, and while he was up there, he resecured the spreader boots and installed new Dyneema running backstays.    We ran around to find the final fruits and veggies that would get us through our next passage and went back to the marina to do laundry.

Sunday morning was our last day – we went on a mission to find my lime Fritos (need to get stocked up on those!), ended up wandering all over Ensenada again, found ourselves at a Revolution Day Parade and finally made it back to the boat with sore feet!   We filled up the water in the boat, grabbed last showers and headed out to start to explore Mexico!