18.06 – Mexican border
Right now we are entering in to Mexico once again. We are going to haul out Cubaneren in Ensenada and prepare the underwater hull as perfect as we can before the Transpac.
We came back to Cubaneren 4 days ago and it had been watched for perfectly by the Oceanside members and dockmaster Rick. We are so thankful to Oceanside Yachtclub for helping us out with a slip for the 2 weeks when we were in Norway. The day after we arrived we had to move on again to San Diego and South Western yacht club. It is around 6 weeks since we were here last time and lots of people to catch up with again. This time we came here also to do a safety at sea course, neccesary for 50% of the crew on board for the transpac. Marens safety course expired around 10 years ago and Karl Ottos 3 months ago. We got through and are certified for 5 new years of ocean races.
At Baja Naval we were lifted out of the water on Monday morning. The boat was not too bad under but a bit slimy. South in Mexico when the water was hot we felt that we were moving along in a floating seafarm. We had to clean the boat under every second day to keep it in proper trim. Once we came to this area with lower seatemperatures it has been a lot easier to keep the boat nice and fast. Anyway we had to get on land to get our new propeller mounted too.
To us it is unusual and a bit annoying not to be allowed to do any of the work ourselves but on the other hand it opened up for a day of sightseeing. On Monday evening we were picked up by Jerry which took us north on the scenic highway towards Tijuana. In Rosarito we stopped at a Tequila shop and we were a bit surprised about all the different types and brands which is produced. After this pit stop we went on to Tijuana and met Karina and Rebecca again in their (and of course Jerrys) house. They took us out to a classic Mexican dinner followed by a trip to racecourse for greyhounds. On Tuesday we went to a market and found some nice mexican kitchen devices so we can make more mexican food properly. After this we went to the Guadaloupe valley which has over 200 wineyards. This is a couple of kilometres in to the country and that could be felt on the temperature which was equal to body temperature!
We ended the day with provisioning most of what we need for the transpac and after that a visit at the oldest pub in Mexico.
We will hopefully be back in the water tomorrow morning and will head directly north towards San Diego once again.