Woke up: Underway

Went to sleep: Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico

Immigration

Cabo San Lucas is amazing. Steep, rocky mountains rising up from warm, aqua water.  Blue sky.  Light breeze.  The Baja Fleet filled every available slip in the marina and many spilled over into the bay to anchor.

Our first order of business was to visit immigration. The Mexican government was threatening to make our lives complicated.  It’s particularly stressful not knowing what to expect.  Alex and Krista needed to immigrate before they could get on their plane to leave.  We needed to get Alex and Krista off our crew list, lest we be accused of throwing them overboard somewhere between here and San Diego.  Penelope needed to be checked into the country to validate her temporary import permit (TIP) and Peter and I needed to clear in to validate our long-stay (4 year) resident visas we worked so hard to obtain while still in Portland.

We all showered and the boys shaved. When you visit immigration in a foreign country, it’s respectful to step it up a notch from swim suits and flip-flops.

Victor, a fluently bilingual man, whose business is to assist helpless gringos, like us, check into Mexico had set up shop at the dinghy dock. After a brief wait for our turn, Victor had us legal within minutes.  We were so grateful and relieved we headed to the cantina for margaritas.

Having gotten very little sleep through our overnight passage, we went home for naps. I woke to the smell of barbecued marlin.  Alex and Krista had dinner on the table.

At 8:00 pm the Baja Fleet gathered at El Squid Roe.

We took over the place.  I usually despise loud bars where you can’t speak to each other over the ruckus.  But, this time the DJ was playing really fun 60’s, 70’s and 80’s music, the kind we all knew the words to, we couldn’t help but dance every dance.  I danced and clapped and whistled and hooted until I couldn’t do it anymore.

About midnight we drove the dinghy home.