On the move again

We’re at it again. Looking at another boat in Mexico, this time in San Carlos on the sea of Cortez. This might be the one, we’ll get to look at it in a couple of days. It’s a Cooper Pilothouse 41.5’ sloop. The guy has lowered the price to $32K from $49K so we made an offer and for the first time in our lives drove down to Mexico. San Carlos is a little over 200 miles down into the country and we were a little nervous going through the border and trying to do everything right.

We started from home, then went to Durango, CO to get the oil changed in the Nissan Versa. They even got us in early so we could get on our way. That night we stayed at an AirB&B in Tucson, AZ with a couple fellas that are retired (for 20 years) and used to run a restaurant in Portland. They were very nice, even agreed to let us check in late. That was a good thing since I tried 3 other places and got turned down on all 3. The night surprise was Carl and Archie made us omelettes in the morning!

That morning it was off to Mexico after breakfast. I’d done a fair amount of research for our first trip and thought I had it all figured out. The truth is no plan survives first contact. It was a little confusing the first time. We almost missed “KM21” where you get your tourist visa and make sure all is set up for your car. Luckily we figured that out or we’d have gone a hundred miles and ended up having to come back. Everyone at the check in spot was nice to us too, and we got pesos there. 

Those were the toll gates. The first one comes up well before you have a chance to swap dollars for pesos, and they only take pesos. Luckily Crystal had some in her purse and got us through there. Then there was about an hour of driving through small towns and construction. The last few hours were all on good roads and went well. No army checkpoints and smooth sailing. Then we were getting to Guaymas to find our room......

We found the room just fine (lots of potholes) :D and the friend of our host let us in and got us as set up as we could with her no-English and our crappy Spanish. OK, Crystal is pretty good. I suck. The funny part was the stray dog that let itself into both the yard and the hosts house. They finally corralled it and got it back outside the gates. The place has a big gate we park the car behind and feels pretty safe. And it all looks nice too. There are tortoises in the yard, kinda cool.

After settling in we went for a drive for some dinner and a few groceries plus a look at the marina where we’ll go to meet up with the boat broker. 

Upon our return “home” we’d locked ourselves out and there was no one home. So I jumped the gate, what else would a retired lineman do? :D Now we’re settling with decaf and some quiet in a place that isn’t moving. This was  the most scary thing we saw today on the drive down:

Nice tie down job don’t you think? 

Tomorrow we’ll hit the beach, perhaps find a place to eat one meal and generally bum around. Updates as conditions warrant.