I thought I was done with sailing for the season but a trip
to Los Angeles for my aunt’s memorial service turned into another delivery from
Ensenada to Redwood City. My friend’s
cousin, Rick, had bought the boat in Ensenada and needed to bring it north. Since I knew both the buyer and the seller,
offering to help seemed like the thing to do.
I was banking karma for the day I needed to bring a boat of my own north.
I drove to L.A., went to the memorial, then headed for
Marina del Rey to spend the night on Scout and visit with Greg. In Friday rush hour traffic, right in the
middle of Watts, my car overheated despite my having had the oil changed and
fluids checked after I arrived in Southern California. I barely managed to limp off the freeway and
into a nearby garage. Luck was on my
side. The Hispanic mechanics were
lovely. They diagnosed the problem as a
cracked thermostat housing and promised they could have it fixed by noon the
next day. I had to call Greg to come and
fetch me, which he kindly agreed to do.
By the time we got home, ate dinner, and returned to the boat, it was
time to go to sleep.
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| Helpful Mechanic in Watts |
I was scheduled to be picked up in San Diego at 15:00 on
Saturday and feared I wouldn’t make it on time.
I called and managed to postpone my ride until 18:00. Greg had a charter that day, so he left me at
the mechanic’s about 10:30, where I passed a pleasant morning chatting with the
other customers in a mixture of Spanish and English. My car was ready to go at 12:15. Parts and
labor came to $420, which was less than my mechanic in Benicia had quoted just
to diagnose the leak.
I immediately departed for San Diego where I had called in a
favor from my bash buddy, Blair, to leave my car at his house for a couple
weeks. Traffic was horrific and I didn’t
arrive until after 16:00. Rick, the
skipper of Scrimshaw, the boat we would be taking north, had sent a
driver to pick me up and deliver me to the boat in Ensenada. I would fly back to San Diego to collect the
car when the delivery was done.
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| Rosarito |
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| Gargantuan Flag in Ensenada |
Being Saturday night, everyone was out in the plaza where
there was music and a night market happening.
After dropping my luggage at the boat and saying goodbye to Mario, Rick
and I walked up to town for dinner. I
had always enjoyed eating calamari steak in Ensenada and Mario had recommended
a seafood restaurant, since I couldn’t remember where I had always gone in the
past. We followed Google Maps, which
took us to the parking lot and back door of the restaurant. Once we got inside, I realized it was the
same place I remembered. I got exactly
what I wanted and we had an enjoyable meal, serenaded by probably the worst
troubadour in Mexico.
June 16, 2019
When I first saw Scrimshaw, I was a bit
dismayed. The boat was very
traditionally designed and appeared decades older than it actually was. The previous owners had never cleared it of
their belongings and it was cluttered.
It quickly became apparent that we weren’t going to leave on Sunday. The weather looked better for Monday, anyway,
so we elected to spend Sunday readying the boat and leave on Monday.
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| Scrimshaw |
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| La Ensenada Restaurant |
We hoisted the dinghy off the deck with the windlass, worked
it around to the stern of the boat, and hung it from the davits. With the dinghy gone, I was able to clear the
foredeck of the many lines that had been used to secure the dinghy in
place. Once the deck was cleared, I
scrubbed it free of dust and mud. The
boat suddenly looked much more attractive.
We stowed all the debris leftover from various projects and then, worn
out from working all day, strolled up to the main drag and ate dinner at La
Ensenada Restaurant. The food at La
Ensenada was prepared from local ingredients and served with local wines. I had shrimp tacos “governor” style, which
came in a cheese sauce. They were
excellent.
More stowing of loose items followed dinner. We also attempted to download U.S. Customs and
Border Protection’s mobile application for entry but, due to the fact that one
had to set up a Login.gov account on a separate website before using the app,
were unable to accomplish anything. We finally gave up and went to bed. The boat was ready to get underway.
June 17, 2019
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| Leaving Ensenada |
We got up at 5:30 on Monday morning and left the dock by
7:00. I pulled in all the lines and
fenders and secured them for the duration of the passage. Things went smoothly enough for the first
hour or so. Suddenly, just as we were
heading out of Bahia Todos Santos, the anchor slipped off the roller and every
bit of the rode flew out, leaving us accidentally anchored in about 225 feet of
water. Two hundred fifty feet of chain
and another fifty or so feet of line weigh a lot. The rode was so taut that we couldn’t even
begin to pull it up. We were anchored
and rolling badly. When we loosened the
chain clutch to use the windlass to raise the dinghy, we had neglected to
tighten it again. That, alone, would not
have caused our situation but, like all good disasters, there was a second
cause. Our helpful boat neighbors had borrowed the line securing the anchor to use as a springline when securing Scrimshaw to the dock.
After a couple of tries, I managed to get a prussik knot to
hold on the anchor rode and ran that line back to the winch on the mast. We very slowly pulled up enough rode to load
it onto the windlass. Unfortunately, we
were unable to raise the rope rode with the windlass because we got an override
instantly when we tried to do so. After raising it literally inch by inch and
prying the coils apart after every pause, we reverted to pulling up a second
line bent around the rode with the manual winch. Once we pulled in enough rode, we were able
to put the rode on the winch but it took ages to haul in all fifty feet of the
rope rode.
We were overjoyed when we finally saw the end of the
chain. Tying the second line around the
chain and hauling in a few feet using a second winch gave us enough slack to
secure the chain in the gypsy. Finally,
two hours later, we were able to secure the anchor on deck and get back
underway.
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| The Weather Was Dismal |
The rest of the trip to San Diego was fairly
uneventful. It was misty and overcast
the whole way. I had on my warmest
clothes and kept making hot beverages.
We arrived in San Diego about 19:00 but spent an hour circling outside
the harbor while Rick cooked all the produce so we wouldn’t have to throw
anything away at the customs dock.\
It was 20:30 when we arrived at the customs dock. We called customs. They tried to walk me
through setting up their app, CBP ROAM, on my phone while they talked to Rick
on his but, not having a Login.gov account, I was not successful, either. They finally sent agents. Because the boat had been registered in
Canada, entry was not straightforward.
We would have to visit the customs office downtown the following day.
It was probably 22:30 by the time we were done with customs
and then we decided to pump out the holding tank while we were at the dock. The holding tank, which had been pumped out
only a couple of days previously, had somehow become filled with water. We pumped and pumped until it seemed like we
were just pumping water out of the harbor, which we may have been doing. We experimented with different valve
configurations until it seemed to be working properly, which took us until
after midnight. Then we had to fight
with the mooring kiosk to acquire a transient slip. It was 1:00 in the morning by the time we got
to sleep.
June 18, 2019
The customs agents had told us to report to the customs
office first thing in the morning but we weren’t in the mood to get up early
after our late night. By the time we
took Uber to downtown San Diego and arrived at the office, it was nearly noon.
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| 610 West Ash St. Where Customs Is Located |
The fellow we had been told to see looked through our
documents and told us we would need a customs agent to initiate a formal entry
because Scrimshaw was a Canadian flagged vessel. He gave us a list of customs agents to
call. We called them all, but only got
through to a couple. The rest were out
of business or didn’t work with boat entries.
Between waiting for people to call us back and trips to West Marine and
Kaiser, the rest of the day passed without securing a customs agent.
June 19, 2019
Wednesday, we went back to customs to ask if we could just
enter as a foreign vessel under a cruising permit. Because Rick was the owner of record and he
was a US citizen, we could not. We then
proceeded to the offices of Charles Dorsch Ship’s Agents, Inc. There, we spoke with Bruce and Rachel who informed us that, because the boat had originated in Shanghai, Rick would be charged a 25% tariff. They tried their level best to think of a loophole to get us out of paying the tariff. Nothing seemed to work. While a tariff had been paid when the boat was originally imported into the United States, when it was sold to a Canadian in Mexico it became subject to import duty again. The agents took copies of all the
papers, told us they would research the situation further, and promised to call
us by the end of the day.
The office was in Barrio Logan, where we ate lunch at the
prepared food section of the local Mercado.
Then we went to Trader Joe’s at Liberty Station and purchased a few
groceries to replace what we had disposed of hurriedly on entry into the USA.
Rachel called us at the end of the day to tell us that she
had failed to find us a loophole and suggested we consult a maritime
lawyer. We became very discouraged. Rick decided to return the boat to Mexico and
be done with the United States.
June 20, 2019
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| Back at Customs |
We got up and made our daily pilgrimage to the customs
office downtown. Seeing no alternative
to paying the tariff other than not importing the boat, we checked out of the
country for departure the next day. We
made another trip to Kaiser and then stopped at the Home Depot for insulation
to wrap the stand-alone freezer in the boat.
Rick hoped to check out of the country and then cruise
illegally for a week or two before returning to Mexico. I was against that plan because, if anything
went wrong, we couldn’t enter a marina or call the coast guard without being
caught in violation. We called Rick’s
cousin for his advice and he concurred.
He counseled Rick to just pay the tariff and be done with it. By that evening, that seemed to be the plan
of action.
June 21, 2019
I got up early to run off some of my frustration. I did a few miles around Shelter Island. I had been there a few times before but had never noticed the Gaudi-esque landscape architecture.
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| More Gaudi Tile |
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| Was Gaudi Here? |
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| Rainy San Diego |
Bill Dysart was eighty-one years old and had been practicing
admiralty law for fifty-one years. He
immediately suggested forming a corporation in Delaware and, using that entity,
registering the boat in Jamaica which was trying to establish itself as a
hailing port and offered fast and cheap registry. Once Rick had obtained Jamaican registry in the corporation's name, he would be able to bring the boat into the USA under a cruising
permit. This would only be good for a
year, but could be renewed once or twice and we were willing to bet the 25%
tariff would be cancelled by then.
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| Old Town State Park |
Rick hired the lawyer to handle the process and we left his
office feeling much more secure. We
would still have to return to Ensenada, but only for a week or so. We took the Trolley to Old Town, looked around a little, picked up a bit more produce at Sprouts,
bought sandwiches, then took Uber back to the boat.
We made a reservation at the marina in Ensenada, filled the water tanks,
and stowed things in preparation for an early departure on Saturday morning.
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| Returning to Ensenada |
Scrimshaw had a brand new mainsail that was so stiff we couldn't flake it properly. I suggested we put it up to let it flap around while we were motoring back to Ensenada. Eventually, the wind came up enough to do us some good and we motor sailed along at seven knots under sunny skies. It seemed that things were looking up for a change.
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| Entering Ensenada |
We arrived in Ensenada about 17:00. The new sail folded without a hitch. The slip we had been assigned was next to a catamaran that was occupying both slips. There was no way Scrimshaw could fit in the remaining space. It was windy and difficult to maneuver in the narrow fairway. We turned around and docked at a vacant end tie. The boat in the next slip was Cricket, a boat I had fallen in love with in La Cruz in 2013. She looked a little worse for wear, but it was good to see her again. Unfortunately, at forty-three feet, she was more boat than I currently wanted.
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| The Cal 43, Cricket |
We spent the night on the end tie and then got up very early to move Scrimshaw back to her previous slip before the wind arose. Rick got her into the slip alright, but stopped too far from the dock for me to disembark. We sat there for a few moments, assessing the situation, and gradually drifted forward. When the bowsprit poked over the dock, I slithered over the edge, hung from the bowsprit, and dropped onto the dock. I felt very thankful for CrossFit that I could manage that move with confidence. Once on the dock, I was able to haul the boat sideways and secure her to the dock. After that exertion, we returned to our bunks.
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| Rick and Scrimshaw |
I broke this news to Rick after breakfast and he took the news very graciously. I packed up all my belongings in case another crew member needed my bunk, but left all but a daypack with a change of clothes and toiletries behind. Rick was kind enough to walk me the mile inland to the bus station where I caught a bus to Tijuana for 205 pesos (about $11.) The ride took about an hour and forty minutes.
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| On the Way to Tijuana |
The bus didn't go to the border, so I took a taxi to the border for another 170 pesos. Then I got into the long line to walk across the border. Taxi drivers were telling us the line would take four hours but they could get us across much faster. I figured they were exaggerating. The line did take about 90 minutes, but I bought some churros and shared them with the fellow behind me in line. Everyone was patient and friendly and we chatted while we waited to reach the agents checking passports. Once through the checkpoint, it was a quick walk over the border and no wait at all at passport control.
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| The U.S. Border |
Once in the United States, I took the trolley downtown and transferred to the green line to take me to El Cajon where my friend, Blair, picked me up. He fed me a ham sandwich and some coffee to keep me awake and I set off for Marina del Rey where I planned to spend the night on Scout. Highway 5 was closed through San Diego and I got stuck in traffic for an hour. Thankfully, my car didn't overheat but I was exhausted by the time I reached the marina and it was after midnight when I woke poor Greg up to let me into the garage. It was good to be back on familiar turf. Scrimshaw could wait.
