//WL2K Ensenada to Bahia Santa Maria

As I’m sure everyone is aware, we left San Diego and got to Ensenada just fine.

We had two reasons to stop in Ensenada. The first was paperwork. We had to officially clear Mexican customs and get our 6 month tourist visas, and some paperwork that allows us to bring in parts for our boat without having to pay a huge import fee.

We got all that done very easily. Ensendada has everything in one small building. No need to run all over town, taking all day to do it. We were done in thirty minutes or so. Maybe a little longer.

The other reason we stopped in Ensenada was to get a new bottom job done on Palarran. Which I think I mentioned in a previous post.

All the work was completed under the estimate and 3 days faster than they had planned. That included a day and half rain days too.

While we were in the yard, the owner of the boat next to us was a man from Panama. His name is Jeff. We called him “The most interesting Man in the world”.

This guy works for the University of Panama. I never found out if he was from Panama or Brasil. Either way, he was on his way back to Panama on his boat that he had bought up in L.A. It was a steel hulled sailboat.

He is heading back to Panama to pick up crew and heading down to Antartica. The crew he is picking up is University of Panama Maritime students.

I could do 50 blog post on some of the stories and places Jeff told us about.

He was waiting there at the marina for a crew member to show up to help him get the boat to Panama. Of course when the guy showes up, he is a one armed Panamaian named Octavio. Of course he only has one arm. The most interesting man in the world does not need a crew member with two arms.

After leaving Ensenda we headed to Bahia Tortuga (Turtle Bay), 295 miles way. This would be our first multiday passage with just the two of us. Sleep wise, the first 24 hours were the roughest, but after that you get into the rythm of it. By the time we pulled into Turtle bay 3 days later. I could have just kept going.

As we were pulling into Turtle bay, the Baja HaHa fleet was leaving. It’s pretty cool to see 150 boats all sailing out of a bay.

We talked with our friends Paul & Carol on s/v Unleashed over the radio briefly and also spoke with our buddy Erlin on s/v Ventured as he was pulling up anchor to leave.

We dropped the hook near some other friends of ours Brad & Joanne on s/v Loukia that we’ve been traveling with and hung out in the small town of Turtle bay for a few days. Not much really happening there, but is was nice and warm and felt good to stop moving and not be working on the boat for a few days.

At the time of writing this was are underway from Turtle Bay to Bahia Santa Maria. Should be there sometime tomorrow afternoon.

We have sailed close to 300 miles total so far and not turned on the engine but a few times to run the water maker, and motor for a few windless hours the other morning.