Ensenada Days
February 8, 2010 10th Day on the Sea
09:10
Today, a Monday, is supposed to be the day we make landfall. The plan is for Dan to go in, seek out the immigration office, and check us in. He will then come back and guide me to a place where I can kayak ashore. I hope everything goes to plan, it will surely be nice to set foot on land. It may have only been 10 days, but it's felt so much longer due to the alien nature of sailing. The brain familiarizing itself with this lifestyle makes me feel almost as if I've been doing it my entire life. I suppose that's just how it rewires itself. Of course the rational side of my mind can enumerate the number of days we've been at sea and thus refute the concept, but it still doesn't change the feeling.
The lucky thing is I've learned to be quite content with the new lifestyle. A very wise man told me before I ran off (I paraphrase, wouldn't want to misquote anonymous), “Ah, sailing for a year? You'll either absolutely despise it or you'll fall in love with it.” I hoped for the latter and it's proven itself true. I occupy my time by reading and writing and it's all pretty easygoing (then again we aren't sailing anymore). But I can still say it no longer troubles me as much as it did before.
17:43
I made my first venture into Ensenada today. For the past four days we've only been able to look out at the night lights, but today it became a firm reality. We had to do all the check-in bureaucracy for Mexico. It really was an exercise in inefficiency. We started off at one window to fill out some forms, then moved to another windows to continue them. Only to go back to the exact same window soon after. This happened a few times and then we moved onto customs. This is where they decide whether or not to search your boat. Actually they don't decide, there's a button with a big stop light attached to it. If, when you press the button, the light turns green, you're free to go about your business, but if it were to turn red, the Mexican port authorities come down and search your boat. We got the green light and were bothered no further. We wandered our way down to a restaurant which we chose solely for the reason of convenience.
February 9, 2010
11:09
And now to continue that story... We had tacos and beer, which were both rather delicious. While sitting there looking like a couple of gringos, we were approached by every single kind of Mexican street vendor in Ensenada. Even after continued refusals and “Gracias, no”s, they kept coming. We were offered everything they had to sell: flowers, jewelry, hats, sunglasses, live performances, sentimental polaroids with each other, drugs, and even girls. I blame the fact that Dan was wearing an Aloha shirt and he blamed the fact that we were both a couple of blue-eyed Anglos. I've come to believe it was a healthy mixture of both. After we finished, we asked for the bill which amounted to a whopping 103 pesos ($8.50 USD at the current exchange rate). Not bad pricing for two meals and a couple of beers.
February 16, 2010
23:57
Hola! We've spent the last week in Ensenada. During this time, we've hauled the boat out to get new through hulls, enjoyed the change in culture from Los Angeles, and taken advantage of the lowered drinking age. I must confess, I haven't been consistently logging in my little waterproof book, so I won't be able to give a day-by-day account. That little yellow book just looks so much more appealing when we're out at sea and my stimuli are limited to far fewer items. I have, however, been taking copious amounts of pictures, which I just love to share with you guys and I will be able to spell some sort of account for this city.
I'll probably focus it mostly around the pictures I've chosen to share. The first is of... me!
I took this shot shortly after making landfall. That is the original marina we arrived into, Cruiseport Village Marina. It was (oddly enough) stationed right next to the cruise ship port. They had great facilities, and a double breakwater that made any surge completely negligible. Sleep in the slip there was like sleeping on solid ground. We hung around there for 3 nights before going a little bit deeper in the harbor to Baja Naval, the place we reside now. They have equally nice facilities, free (spotty) wifi, and a bit more surge. If you don't keep the dock lines tight, we get knocked around a bit by the big motor yachts hanging around this part of the harbor, but it's not too terrible. The main reason we came here was of course for the haul out.
The workers here were pretty efficient at getting us out of the water. We motored (after adding some more anti-freeze) into a concrete slip and tied up. They brought a mobile crane out (a travellift), dipped it's straps underneath us, and lifted us right out. Then they propped us up on some stands, dropped the straps off, and we were on the hard.
While the worker bees at Baja Naval installed the new through hulls, we had a lot of time to explore the city. A lot of it we squandered sitting around enjoying the free wifi, but every once in a while (when the internet died) we ventured out. My impressions of the city can be easily summed up with this picture I snapped during one of our little walks.
But in all seriousness, it's not a terrible place. The economy (or what part of it we've observed) seems to be very tourist-based. The main street, Highway 1, and the one inland from are slathered with fairly expensive restaurants, tourist traps, and pharmacias. To really experience the feel of the town, you need only to go in a couple of blocks. The people here are generally very kind and understanding. Lucky for us, they are almost always warm and willing to cope with the language barrier. Sure I get a few smiles for bad pronunciation, but I try to think it's just because I'm so dern cute.
Along the waterfront (our main stomping grounds) there's a nicely landscaped park, Three Heads Park. It's well kept, and a relaxing place to read a book. Also along the waterfront is a fish market that we never partook in. That's where you can find the Ensenada freeloaders.
A few days into our stay here, I discovered a wonderful little restaurant. I ordered us some tacos de pescado (fish) and tacos de camaron. Dan and I both agreed that the camaron was off the charts and since then we've visited them everyday for their coveted taco de camaron (shrimp tacos).
As you may know, this weekend (one of those long weekends) was the celebration of Carnivale, with today being the termination. While we couldn't be in Rio de Genaro or anything of that sort, Ensenada was surely not timid in its celebrations. There were parades every single day and parties could be heard deep into the night. Only today did I decide to go out with my camera and try to get some shots, and I managed to get some pretty fun ones I'd say.
It's the gathering on the side of the Pacific Highway minutes before the parade came through. I liked this one because it showed a little bit of the topography of Ensenada. Ensenada is at the most northern end of the Baja Peninsula, so it still has a bit of a mountainous terrain preventing it from being a complete desert.
After staying back on the sidelines a bit, some fellow Baja Navalians recommended that I strap on a wide angle lens and get right in the thick of it. So I did just that. Many floats went by with performers inter spaced. The floats would throw out bags of confetti for the crowd to toss around and it seemed like not a single bag was kept from its scattering duty. This little boy found a particularly unique use for his.
First were the cowboys, exhibiting a stunningly impressive horse and an also-as-impressive lassoist.
Then floats for various companies and restaurants went by. Here's a shot of what I'm very sure was the best float in the parade.
And here's another shot of the impressive gathering this final day garnered.
My last picture for you guys is sort of a puzzle picture. I took this picture... somewhere in the world. Whoever can tell me where in the world I took it gets... 1 peso. Go!
Alright, so we got splashed today and are preparing for our next southerly passage. Our next destination: Bahia de Tortugas (Turtle Bay) with a layover in Bahia Santa Maria, perhaps. This is a pretty lengthy passage that will find us half way down the peninsula by the time we make landfall again. It's about 500 miles to Bahia de Tortugas and Santa Maria is halfway between. It should take 4 days if the wind is nice, but we're packed for double that. We need only get some puro (purified water) tomorrow morning and we'll be ready to go. The wind is looking light, but favorable. You'll be in my mind, loved ones.
February 8, 2010 10th Day on the Sea
09:10
Today, a Monday, is supposed to be the day we make landfall. The plan is for Dan to go in, seek out the immigration office, and check us in. He will then come back and guide me to a place where I can kayak ashore. I hope everything goes to plan, it will surely be nice to set foot on land. It may have only been 10 days, but it's felt so much longer due to the alien nature of sailing. The brain familiarizing itself with this lifestyle makes me feel almost as if I've been doing it my entire life. I suppose that's just how it rewires itself. Of course the rational side of my mind can enumerate the number of days we've been at sea and thus refute the concept, but it still doesn't change the feeling.
The lucky thing is I've learned to be quite content with the new lifestyle. A very wise man told me before I ran off (I paraphrase, wouldn't want to misquote anonymous), “Ah, sailing for a year? You'll either absolutely despise it or you'll fall in love with it.” I hoped for the latter and it's proven itself true. I occupy my time by reading and writing and it's all pretty easygoing (then again we aren't sailing anymore). But I can still say it no longer troubles me as much as it did before.
17:43
I made my first venture into Ensenada today. For the past four days we've only been able to look out at the night lights, but today it became a firm reality. We had to do all the check-in bureaucracy for Mexico. It really was an exercise in inefficiency. We started off at one window to fill out some forms, then moved to another windows to continue them. Only to go back to the exact same window soon after. This happened a few times and then we moved onto customs. This is where they decide whether or not to search your boat. Actually they don't decide, there's a button with a big stop light attached to it. If, when you press the button, the light turns green, you're free to go about your business, but if it were to turn red, the Mexican port authorities come down and search your boat. We got the green light and were bothered no further. We wandered our way down to a restaurant which we chose solely for the reason of convenience.
February 9, 2010
11:09
And now to continue that story... We had tacos and beer, which were both rather delicious. While sitting there looking like a couple of gringos, we were approached by every single kind of Mexican street vendor in Ensenada. Even after continued refusals and “Gracias, no”s, they kept coming. We were offered everything they had to sell: flowers, jewelry, hats, sunglasses, live performances, sentimental polaroids with each other, drugs, and even girls. I blame the fact that Dan was wearing an Aloha shirt and he blamed the fact that we were both a couple of blue-eyed Anglos. I've come to believe it was a healthy mixture of both. After we finished, we asked for the bill which amounted to a whopping 103 pesos ($8.50 USD at the current exchange rate). Not bad pricing for two meals and a couple of beers.
February 16, 2010
23:57
Hola! We've spent the last week in Ensenada. During this time, we've hauled the boat out to get new through hulls, enjoyed the change in culture from Los Angeles, and taken advantage of the lowered drinking age. I must confess, I haven't been consistently logging in my little waterproof book, so I won't be able to give a day-by-day account. That little yellow book just looks so much more appealing when we're out at sea and my stimuli are limited to far fewer items. I have, however, been taking copious amounts of pictures, which I just love to share with you guys and I will be able to spell some sort of account for this city.
I'll probably focus it mostly around the pictures I've chosen to share. The first is of... me!
I took this shot shortly after making landfall. That is the original marina we arrived into, Cruiseport Village Marina. It was (oddly enough) stationed right next to the cruise ship port. They had great facilities, and a double breakwater that made any surge completely negligible. Sleep in the slip there was like sleeping on solid ground. We hung around there for 3 nights before going a little bit deeper in the harbor to Baja Naval, the place we reside now. They have equally nice facilities, free (spotty) wifi, and a bit more surge. If you don't keep the dock lines tight, we get knocked around a bit by the big motor yachts hanging around this part of the harbor, but it's not too terrible. The main reason we came here was of course for the haul out.
The workers here were pretty efficient at getting us out of the water. We motored (after adding some more anti-freeze) into a concrete slip and tied up. They brought a mobile crane out (a travellift), dipped it's straps underneath us, and lifted us right out. Then they propped us up on some stands, dropped the straps off, and we were on the hard.
While the worker bees at Baja Naval installed the new through hulls, we had a lot of time to explore the city. A lot of it we squandered sitting around enjoying the free wifi, but every once in a while (when the internet died) we ventured out. My impressions of the city can be easily summed up with this picture I snapped during one of our little walks.
But in all seriousness, it's not a terrible place. The economy (or what part of it we've observed) seems to be very tourist-based. The main street, Highway 1, and the one inland from are slathered with fairly expensive restaurants, tourist traps, and pharmacias. To really experience the feel of the town, you need only to go in a couple of blocks. The people here are generally very kind and understanding. Lucky for us, they are almost always warm and willing to cope with the language barrier. Sure I get a few smiles for bad pronunciation, but I try to think it's just because I'm so dern cute.
Along the waterfront (our main stomping grounds) there's a nicely landscaped park, Three Heads Park. It's well kept, and a relaxing place to read a book. Also along the waterfront is a fish market that we never partook in. That's where you can find the Ensenada freeloaders.
A few days into our stay here, I discovered a wonderful little restaurant. I ordered us some tacos de pescado (fish) and tacos de camaron. Dan and I both agreed that the camaron was off the charts and since then we've visited them everyday for their coveted taco de camaron (shrimp tacos).
As you may know, this weekend (one of those long weekends) was the celebration of Carnivale, with today being the termination. While we couldn't be in Rio de Genaro or anything of that sort, Ensenada was surely not timid in its celebrations. There were parades every single day and parties could be heard deep into the night. Only today did I decide to go out with my camera and try to get some shots, and I managed to get some pretty fun ones I'd say.
It's the gathering on the side of the Pacific Highway minutes before the parade came through. I liked this one because it showed a little bit of the topography of Ensenada. Ensenada is at the most northern end of the Baja Peninsula, so it still has a bit of a mountainous terrain preventing it from being a complete desert.
After staying back on the sidelines a bit, some fellow Baja Navalians recommended that I strap on a wide angle lens and get right in the thick of it. So I did just that. Many floats went by with performers inter spaced. The floats would throw out bags of confetti for the crowd to toss around and it seemed like not a single bag was kept from its scattering duty. This little boy found a particularly unique use for his.
First were the cowboys, exhibiting a stunningly impressive horse and an also-as-impressive lassoist.
Then floats for various companies and restaurants went by. Here's a shot of what I'm very sure was the best float in the parade.
And here's another shot of the impressive gathering this final day garnered.
My last picture for you guys is sort of a puzzle picture. I took this picture... somewhere in the world. Whoever can tell me where in the world I took it gets... 1 peso. Go!
Alright, so we got splashed today and are preparing for our next southerly passage. Our next destination: Bahia de Tortugas (Turtle Bay) with a layover in Bahia Santa Maria, perhaps. This is a pretty lengthy passage that will find us half way down the peninsula by the time we make landfall again. It's about 500 miles to Bahia de Tortugas and Santa Maria is halfway between. It should take 4 days if the wind is nice, but we're packed for double that. We need only get some puro (purified water) tomorrow morning and we'll be ready to go. The wind is looking light, but favorable. You'll be in my mind, loved ones.
the answer to your picture...ensenada! i win a peso
ReplyDeleteis it the plaza of the three heads though?
A cleaner post:
ReplyDeleteYou're such a derogatory term for an African American, you and your adventures. Also, give me your freaking password to your e-mailz. If I'm not sailin' on the open blue, I might as well be playing competitively against other people on Starcraft and creating false blog-posts of your first Train experiences.
:)