We Get The Boat Back
Back in Ensenada
My cold is still raging, but I committed to bring you more today, so here it is. It looks like we're going to be stuck in Ensenada for a while, so I will combine days together to try to keep you awake while you read.
Thursday, December 20th 2012 – San Diego
The bus drove on through the night. Dawn climbed into the empty row in front of me and stretched out. I did my best to get comfortable and tried to sleep.
I may have slept an hour or two that night, but mostly I was just freezing cold. I went forward to ask the driver for more heat.
“Si, no problema,” he said. The front of the bus was warm and cozy.
No heat came to the back of the bus. I didn’t bring a heavy coat with me, we’re in Mexico. I wrapped my wind breaker around me and shivered for hours.
The bus stopped three times for military road blocks. They were searching for drugs and firearms. I pretended to be asleep and they didn’t bother me.
We arrived in Ensenada for a stop to let off passengers and take on people going to Tijuana. Dawn told me that the landscape was gorgeous on the drive up. I had my curtain closed and hadn’t noticed. We will have to drive Dawn’s car down to La Paz if we’re able to continue on our voyage anyway and I’ll see it then.
We disembarked in Tijuana. The bus station is several blocks from the border and we had two very heavy duffels as well as my computer bag and Dawn’s sail cloth bag. We caught a taxi to the border.
At the border, the taxi driver suggested that we take a shuttle to the crossing. There were thousands of people in line waiting to walk across. The $20 for the shuttle seemed like a bargain.
We climbed into the jam packed van and I found the only seat where I had enough room for my knees. The van was obviously built for short people.
The van deposited us at a line of only about twenty people. We breezed through and soon stood on US soil.
We caught a light rail “trolley” to Old Town where our friends Ron and Tina were waiting for us in Dawn’s car. We took them to breakfast and struck out on our own.
Dawn had seen some hotels down by the beach that took pets while she was walking Odin in San Diego. Of course, Dawn wanted Odin with us.
Have I not introduced you to Odin? He is a one hundred seventy pound fawn colored Great Dane. People often mistake him for a horse or a lion.
Dawn has been a Dane owner for twenty some years. She arranged for Tina to care for Odin while we were sailing to Mexico, but since we were back in the States for a few days, she wanted him with her.
We managed to find a little condo right across from the beach for half price since there were no reservations for the holidays. We moved in, got comfy and crawled into bed.
It had been a long day.
The hole in her side
Friday and Saturday, December 21st & 22nd 2012 – San Diego
We didn’t do much on Friday. We unpacked and got settled in. Dawn took Odin to play on the beach and I took a couple of long naps. We went grocery shopping and generally got ourselves set up for the next few days.
On Saturday morning Bernardo called. They were about an hour outside of Ensenada. I had not expected them until Sunday morning.
We threw on some clothes and headed south. The border crossing INTO Mexico was easier than crossing from Oregon into California. Coming back was something else, but I’ll get to that later.
It’s about an hour and a half’s drive from San Diego to Ensenada. The toll road winds along some spectacular coast line. We sailed down this coast earlier, but we were far enough off shore that we didn’t appreciate its beauty.
From the land you see steep cliffs dive into the sea and long sandy beaches with white water breaking on them. It must be a surfer’s paradise.
Little tourist settlements are sprinkled along the road. Everything from little taquerias to high-rise resorts dot the landscape. This is the slow season and traffic was minimal. The hills are covered in scrub brush.
In Ensenada we easily found the boat yard and made it in time to see the Victory hauled out. The tow boat crew was exhausted. They had bulled their way straight through without stopping to sleep so they could get home in time for Christmas. They were anxious to hand her off to us and go home.
Out of the water, I could see the extent of the damage. There is the point of impact on the port side, just below and in front of the galley window about the size of a dinner plate. The concrete is smashed in, but the hole doesn’t go all the way through. From the inside, you can see where the concrete is pushed out. This is where all the water was coming from.
The keel (the back-bone of the boat) had sustained damage, but it is repairable. Some water entered the keel, but it is sealed off from the rest of the boat and the water didn’t enter the cabin.
The propeller is pretty dinged up. There is no propeller repair shop in Ensenada, I will have to take it up to San Diego to get it fixed. If it can be fixed.
It is a three-bladed prop, a really good one. I have an old two bladed propeller for a spare, but I really don’t want to use it if I can fix the three-bladed one. If not, I’ll have to settle for the spare. Propellers are frightfully expensive. They are more or less custom made. It’s not like buying wiper blades for your 1996 Toyota.
The rudder is not too badly damaged, but there is a stainless steel shoe that holds it in place that was ripped off. The bolts that hold the shoe to the hull sheared off. We will drill them out and fashion a new shoe to go back on.
What really scares me is that the engine was underwater and sat for eight days before I could get a mechanic to look at it. Is it filled with water? Has it rusted up inside? Can it be saved?
The engine is the single most expensive component on the boat. It would cost $25,000 to replace it.
I talked with Guillermo, the yard manager. He said that most of his crew was off for the holiday and that he couldn’t even begin to estimate the extent of the damage. We would have to come back on Wednesday when they re-opened.
There was nothing more that we could do. We climbed back in the car and headed north. As we approached Tijuana, we missed our exit for the border. We took the next exit and doubled back to the south. We followed a sign that said San Diego and got totally lost. We wandered around the streets of Tijuana for a half hour or so, looking for signs that led to the border. Several times we passed landmarks that we had seen on the bus, but we couldn’t find the right streets.
Finally, we spotted a sign that said San Diego so we got in that lane. We were stopped at a guard shack where the woman told us to go to the right. That landed us back in the mish-mash of Tijuana streets.
After some more wandering, we found another on-ramp to the border crossing and got in line. It was a quick line and we waited half an hour or so to get to the front.
There the American border guards were none to polite to us. We were in some kind of express lane where you have to have a pre-approved RFID chip to cross. They told us there was a $5000 fine for using that lane without the chip.
We have never crossed the border by car before. How were we to know? Where were the signs that told us that this was a special lane?
“Well,” the guard finally said, “They’re doing construction work and the signs are all down. We’re going to let you off with a warning. But you have to pull into the next lane to have your car inspected.”
To make sure we learned our lesson, they left us sitting waiting for the inspection for about an hour. When the guard finally came, he didn’t even look at anything in the car, just told us to go on.
I love our Customs & Immigration department, brought to you by those lovely folks at Homeland Security.
Back in San Diego we settled in to our room to spend a lonely quiet Christmas by ourselves.
Dawn’s brother, Duane, called and invited us out to dinner. We went out to hamburgers with him, then came home and crashed.
We didn’t do much on Friday. We unpacked and got settled in. Dawn took Odin to play on the beach and I took a couple of long naps. We went grocery shopping and generally got ourselves set up for the next few days.
On Saturday morning Bernardo called. They were about an hour outside of Ensenada. I had not expected them until Sunday morning.
We threw on some clothes and headed south. The border crossing INTO Mexico was easier than crossing from Oregon into California. Coming back was something else, but I’ll get to that later.
It’s about an hour and a half’s drive from San Diego to Ensenada. The toll road winds along some spectacular coast line. We sailed down this coast earlier, but we were far enough off shore that we didn’t appreciate its beauty.
From the land you see steep cliffs dive into the sea and long sandy beaches with white water breaking on them. It must be a surfer’s paradise.
Little tourist settlements are sprinkled along the road. Everything from little taquerias to high-rise resorts dot the landscape. This is the slow season and traffic was minimal. The hills are covered in scrub brush.
In Ensenada we easily found the boat yard and made it in time to see the Victory hauled out. The tow boat crew was exhausted. They had bulled their way straight through without stopping to sleep so they could get home in time for Christmas. They were anxious to hand her off to us and go home.
Out of the water, I could see the extent of the damage. There is the point of impact on the port side, just below and in front of the galley window about the size of a dinner plate. The concrete is smashed in, but the hole doesn’t go all the way through. From the inside, you can see where the concrete is pushed out. This is where all the water was coming from.
The keel (the back-bone of the boat) had sustained damage, but it is repairable. Some water entered the keel, but it is sealed off from the rest of the boat and the water didn’t enter the cabin.
The propeller is pretty dinged up. There is no propeller repair shop in Ensenada, I will have to take it up to San Diego to get it fixed. If it can be fixed.
It is a three-bladed prop, a really good one. I have an old two bladed propeller for a spare, but I really don’t want to use it if I can fix the three-bladed one. If not, I’ll have to settle for the spare. Propellers are frightfully expensive. They are more or less custom made. It’s not like buying wiper blades for your 1996 Toyota.
The rudder is not too badly damaged, but there is a stainless steel shoe that holds it in place that was ripped off. The bolts that hold the shoe to the hull sheared off. We will drill them out and fashion a new shoe to go back on.
What really scares me is that the engine was underwater and sat for eight days before I could get a mechanic to look at it. Is it filled with water? Has it rusted up inside? Can it be saved?
The engine is the single most expensive component on the boat. It would cost $25,000 to replace it.
I talked with Guillermo, the yard manager. He said that most of his crew was off for the holiday and that he couldn’t even begin to estimate the extent of the damage. We would have to come back on Wednesday when they re-opened.
There was nothing more that we could do. We climbed back in the car and headed north. As we approached Tijuana, we missed our exit for the border. We took the next exit and doubled back to the south. We followed a sign that said San Diego and got totally lost. We wandered around the streets of Tijuana for a half hour or so, looking for signs that led to the border. Several times we passed landmarks that we had seen on the bus, but we couldn’t find the right streets.
Finally, we spotted a sign that said San Diego so we got in that lane. We were stopped at a guard shack where the woman told us to go to the right. That landed us back in the mish-mash of Tijuana streets.
After some more wandering, we found another on-ramp to the border crossing and got in line. It was a quick line and we waited half an hour or so to get to the front.
There the American border guards were none to polite to us. We were in some kind of express lane where you have to have a pre-approved RFID chip to cross. They told us there was a $5000 fine for using that lane without the chip.
We have never crossed the border by car before. How were we to know? Where were the signs that told us that this was a special lane?
“Well,” the guard finally said, “They’re doing construction work and the signs are all down. We’re going to let you off with a warning. But you have to pull into the next lane to have your car inspected.”
To make sure we learned our lesson, they left us sitting waiting for the inspection for about an hour. When the guard finally came, he didn’t even look at anything in the car, just told us to go on.
I love our Customs & Immigration department, brought to you by those lovely folks at Homeland Security.
Back in San Diego we settled in to our room to spend a lonely quiet Christmas by ourselves.
Dawn’s brother, Duane, called and invited us out to dinner. We went out to hamburgers with him, then came home and crashed.