A wonderful blend of frustrating and embarrassing.
We spent the week getting ready to leave for Mexico. It started by getting the boat organized. We shopped for Christmas presents and gathered temporary water storage buckets. Without a water maker, having enough clean water is the biggest safety issue going South.
We took Eunice to the vet and got her international certifications sorted out. Lucky for her she’s as healthy as can be!
We also were gifted a 24-hour vacation from boat life. A friend had a free hotel night that expired at the end of the year. Due to Covid, they were unable to use the perk, so he gifted us a night in a high-end hotel downtown. We also got upgraded since no one is in hotels right now. It was AMAZING. The bathroom in this place was literally larger than our boat. The shower had one of those huge rain style heads and was gigantic. So compared to the normal rarely-cleaned-marina-showers we were in heaven. In 24 hours we each took 3 showers. We loved the little vacation and it was our first night off the boat since July. Eunice had a sleepover with her biggest fan Linda. She did ok but we missed each other.
We prepped our fishing gear. Dave Easton took us shopping, gave us a lifetime of tips & tricks for fishing Baja, and loaned us a ton of spare gear. We started the process of getting fishing licenses for Mexico.
We also started saying goodbye to our ‘host’ family Kitsy and Chuck. They’ve taken such good care of us so a few goodbye dinners were in order.
And then reality hit. This morning, while getting our ducks in a row we reached out to the coast guard to check the status of our boat registration. Turns out this was bad timing to buy out Hannah & Joe, because we currently don’t have a valid proof of ownership document. The paperwork is grinding along mid-pandemic, we’re apparently 2.5 to 3 months out to be squared away.
This is both a devastating blow for our plans and pretty embarrassing. We knew we eventually had to push some paper around when we took ownership of both halves of the boat in September but thought our current paperwork situation was sufficient.
Either way, we’re ready for a Christmas on the boat in either country.
