Laughing All The Way To Mexico

Well, we hope we will be laughing a lot. We have officially signed up for the 29th Annual Baja Ha-Ha! There’s no turning back now.

What is The Baja Ha-Ha? -You ask. It’s a yearly boat rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. -That’s approximately 750 nautical miles! Every year, at the beginning of November, 130 - 200 boats sail “together” down the coast of Baja. The trip, in this instance, takes about 2 weeks. -There aren’t a lot of places to stop on the way down & some people can only take the 2 weeks out of their life to do such an amazing trip. -Thus, only taking 2 weeks to do this.

Last autumn, on our coastal voyage, we met a lot of people sailing down to the Ha-Ha. In fact, since we were basically going along the coast, as they were, many told us we should just continue down with them. I was ready to say, “Hell yes!”. However, Matt brought me back down to earth to remind me that this probably wouldn’t be the best idea at the time. So I just told them all that we would see them next year! And here we are, getting ready to go!

To find out more about the Baja Ha-Ha, go to https://www.baja-haha.com/index.html I’m sure I’ll be bringing it up constantly over the next few months. But if you’re too intrigued to wait, go check it out.

Paperwork! It’s times like this that it would be nice to have a chip on our body that officials could scan to see all of our official paperwork. There seems to be a never-ending list of forms that we must have on hand for our entry into Mexico. Documentation of our boat - which we need to switch from state to federal. Alas, I noticed after filling out this paperwork that the form I used expired at the end of last month. TIP - Temporary Import Permit. Passport. -(Glad that is are already taken care of.) Mexican fishing license. Visa to be in Mexico for up to 180 days. Boat insurance for Mexico. Dog vaccination papers. And, and, and… I will have to get a proper list together to show all of you. Glad I can take on this task, as Matt already has his plate full. Believe me, I am being very thorough. There’s no way I’m sailing to Mexico to be told that we need to turn around & go home because I don’t have one piece of properly filled out paperwork.

Okay, so it’s not quite like this, but…

Got to the boat this week to do some cleaning up & checking on what we do & don’t have for our upcoming voyage.

Matt went through our designated safety compartment to organize it & make sure we have what we need. -I’ll definitely do a blog later on about all the safety stuff you should have on board to really be prepared for most anything.

He also got our solar panels organized & hooked up efficiently. For some reason, I thought one of us got photos of this. -It’s pretty impressive! Unfortunately, they were either accidentally deleted or I just imagined taking the photos. I’ll be sure to get some for next week.

Matt checking on our safety gear.

Started taking out food & spices that we have stored on the boat to change them out with canned & dry goods that are a bit newer. And I’m buying some of the goods that we’ll need for the trip now instead of later. It’s better that we spread out the depletion of our finances over a few months rather than all in September.

Zephyr is wondering when we’re going to clean up this mess!

I started the process of making panels for the cockpit! Very excited about this! It will up the warmth factor in the cockpit -especially needed at night. My motivation for finishing this soon is high!

Laying out the clear vinyl to to get ready to cut.

We were able to make progress on prepping up our house to rent out. Matt’s just about ready to install the new hood for the range. In addition, he’s going to tile the countertop where there was nasty looking butcher block. -My advice, don’t get a butcher-block counter top unless you want to re-sand it every year & seal it. Otherwise it will look dirty & sad & will be begging you to put it out of its misery.

I was able to clean out our bedroom enough to photograph some photos for the ads. Not sure what room I will tackle next but it’s just nice to be getting stuff checked off our “home” list.

Getting ready to install a hood for the range & a new countertop.

One room is ready to be placed in our ad for renting out our house.

Feeling better about getting so many things done in regards to our upcoming voyage. It’s well-rounded progress. -Boat work, house work, paper work, etc.. I’m trying to focus on accomplishments instead of the fact that we leave in 4.5 months! If you keep busy enough, you don’t have to think. Right?

Cuddle break in the cabin.

Thanks for reading! The plan for this week is to take MerSea out by our pier for a night. But we all know how that plan may go, being the world of sailing. So let’s hope the stars align to allow that to happen. We have a few things that we want to figure out while anchored out. I’ll let you know how that goes next Wednesday. Until then do something fun this week!