San Diego to Ensenada

There are a series of big left turns that we’ve made on the Southbound portion of our voyage. Tofino to SF, while technically not a left turn, was our first. Sailing out of SF under the Golden Gate bridge was another big left and our left turn out of San Diego was our most recent.

We had the sails up and engine off while still in the Shelter Island breakwater and sailed about 3/4 of the way to Ensenada, overnight, arriving in the morning. We dropped anchor and took our dinghy to our friends who were at Baja Naval and we all trooped up to customs-border-port captain and walked in circles inside one room until we were both cleared into Mexico. We also cleared out at the same time because you can clear out 48 hours before departing and we intended to leave the next day.

The sticky bit is that we were anchored and were only allowed to be at the anchorage for 2 hours so we decided to head to the South side of the bay, out of the Ensenada breakwater, to anchor. Except, that used-to-be-anchorage was filled with aquaculture from rim to rim (and fog) so we headed back to Ensenada and paid our pesos to Baja Naval for two nights. This allowed us some time with Bella Star in Ensenada which was included an appropriate amount of debauchery and ping pong*. Photo stolen from Bella Star.

In case you are curious, we spent $111 at the border for fees including our Temporary Import Permit and Visas. It was an additional $40 each for fishing licenses and $210 for Mexico liability insurance - both which we did online before arriving. A grand total of $400.

*More on ping pong later.