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After long awaited delays and anticipation #109 finally was ready for its southbound trip to Mexico. We left on March31st very early in the morning for our 20 hour trip to Ensenada. The first item on the list was to get the autopilot and instruments set as long as we had land contact. Weather was damp and foggy at 6am in the morning when we set out to leave Los Alamitos Bay. My then five year old son was still asleep down below when the engines were started and we left. The instruments calibrated, gas filled we roared southbound. Time to have a snack for breakfast. At 8am my little one finally woke up and wanted to help for getting ready for departure. He was not to happy that he missed this one. On our way down south we were told to expect wild life and so my kid set out to watch for fish. Out first encounter were dolphins half way between the US and Mexico. I finally figured out why they seem to accompany ships. They like to SCRATCH their backs on the hulls of boats. Well, what do you do if you got no hands, wings or legs. Another companion joined us during our trip. A small songbird landed on Yang Fan, totally exhausted and about 16 miles offshore. It rested in different places on the boat and even ventured into the main salon to warm up a bit much to the dismay of my child after our feathered friend mistook one of his magazines as bathroom. But both became friends until the songbird left us rested and near a coastline to continue its journey. Our uneventful journey, with no wind, and the main sail up for a smother ride, we arrived at Ensenada at around 1am in darkness. We were all trying to spot the channel lights as our GPS maps did not reflect that harbor very precisely. But Gary had been there before and know his way around. As new arrival one is well advised to enter the Coral Marina north of Ensenada from a southern aproach. But a mile out of the harbor we ran out of gas on our main tanks and had to refill while underway. It is not advisable to enter a harbor in the night on one engine only if you got two :) Luckily we had the distance to run at reduced speed for a fill up on both engines separate gas tanks to and with the smell of gas on our hands entered Marina Coral. Since we did not want to get in any slip yet at darkness we side tied on the longest dock we found. Within minutes a security person showed up to note our arrival and toke some notes. In his broken English he asked for the name of the boat and resulted to "seawind 1000" after he saw the inscription on the hull. This was fine with us as we were just tired and wanted to rest. The morning brought us cool weather as it is usually down there. Gathering all the papers needed we proceeded to the harbor master and customs official Vito (in the background). He was very friendly and professional. Meanwhile, my wife had arrived who then finished the reminder of the paperwork. Yang Fan was finally delivered in Ensenada, Mexico, on April 1st (that's no joke). We afforded us a well deserved extensive breakfast before cleaning up the boat and ourselves. The plan was to rest for the day with some minor chores on the boat and then head back to L.A. where Gary was due for boarding a friends boat Seawind #92 for a trip north. |
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