The Plan

There is no sense in having a plan if you're not going to pretend to follow it.

We're anxious to get moving again. Sitting at a dock is not what we want to do but we don't have much choice, we need to stay out of the hurricane zone south of 27° N and with the heat we have chosen to stay at the dock so we can run the A/C. The plan now is to leave San Carlos the first week of October and visit the Bay of LA up north on the west side of the Sea of Cortes, 28°56.840'N 113°33.320'W. We've heard that B of LA is a beautiful area with lots of wildlife, like Whale Sharks, and excellent snorkeling. We're getting an diving Hookah soon and we'll be anxious to try it out. After the B of LA we'll head south and hope to be in Santa Rosalia by November 1st for the El Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which is the largest holiday in Mexico. Santa Rosalia is a traditional Mexican town so it should be fun to spend the holiday there. Heading South from Santa Rosalia we plan on being in La Paz for Thanksgiving for 2-3 weeks and then head south and east to Mazatlan on the Mexican mainland.

Once we're on the Mexican Riviera we'll wander south stopping in San Blas, Puerto Vallarta, Iplala, Chamela, Careyes, and Mazanillo. We're not sure if we'll go further south to Acapulco, we hear that it's a huge, expensive tourist trap, so we'll just see how it goes. When we turn around and head back north we're thinking of spending next Summer, the hurricane season, in Ensenada. We spent a week in Ensenada on the way south and it's kind of a tourist town but it has a lot of services and it's close to San Diego so we can go get our car and hop over the border to get supplies and parts. After next summer maybe it's off the the South Pacific, we're thinking about it but that's a long way off and we're not to good at making, let alone keeping, long term plans so we'll see how it goes.

Link: Diving Hookah

6 Months in Mexico

We have now been in Mexico for 6 months. We were reminded of this when our tourist visas expired and we had to go to immigrations to get them renewed. The renewal process is easy and costs just $20 each. We went to immigration office at the airport in Guaymas where there was easy parking and no waiting. The immigration officer did seem a little annoyed that we were interrupting his TV shows but he processed our new visas with no fuss. We have had a wonderful time in Mexico, the people are friendly, there is plenty of stores to get almost everything you need and the weather has been beautiful except for the last 2 months here in San Carlos where it's just down right frickin' hot. The heat index is daily 110°+ with a temp in the high 90° and humidity above 80%. It's just too hot to do anything outside. Hopefully in another month it will start to cool off.

I forgot to mention that neither of us has worn long pants for over 6 months. Short and t-shirts everyday!

Tucson Road Trips

We've now made 3 road trips to Tucson and back. The car trip takes about 8 to 9 hours northbound depending on the wait at the border and 7 hours south bound. The wait at the border into the States can take 1-2 hours, southbound can be much easier depending if you stop to declare items and how long that process takes. Returning to Mexico the first time we stopped to declare a few items and they just let us go with out paying any duty. The second time we had more items to declare and they quickly processed us, we paid a small duty and in 15 minutes we were off. The last time they made us go through 'Small Imports' and while they were very friendly it took us nearly an hour and cost about $75 to bring in $400 worth of items.

The last time we also had some extra excitement when a car pulled up next to us as we were leaving the last inspection point and told us we had a flat tire. We pulled off the road and some young guys quickly ran over and offered to change the tire for us. They were very friendly and did a quick and good job and we gave them a few pesos for their work. They pointed out a small shop just a few hundred yards down the road where we could get the tire fixed, our spare is one of those mini tires and it was low on air so we slowly made our way down the road to the repair shop. The shop only repaired tires and sold used tires. The man did a good job, 3 days later it is still holding air, and only charge a few pesos.

We will have at least three more trips to Tucson before we leave San Carlos in October. We are planning to buy 2 new heads for the boat, that will take one trip, and a Hookah diving system which will take another trip. Then there will be the last trip to put the car back in storage and take the bus back to San Carlos.