LandfallVoyages

While Hurricane Paul peters out along the coast of Baja, doing nothing much except pouting big grey clouds across the sky, folks in the marina are bustling about–some of us are heading south in a few weeks, others are hunkering down for what passes as winter in Ensenada, and a few just plain bustle all the time. We call those people freaks of nature.

Here on Landfall, we’ve got a list of stuff that needs doing before we head south and now that we’re knocking hard on a deadline, it’s getting done. You know what your garage looks like when you’re in the middle of a project? Now imagine that your house is the garage, only 75% smaller. With all your stuff in it. And the family. And the dog. All of the hatches and cupboards and secret hidey holes on board have spewed out a deadly array of tool bags, watermaker parts, bulk supplies, the electrical bag, cans of paint, rolls of tape, and other miscellaneous instruments of leisure killing doom. The entire boat is a tripping hazard right now, with projects going on both abovedecks and below.

At nearly five in the afternoon, I’m trying to decide if I should fight with the computer some more or head outside to scrub on a hatch we’re putting in the aft cabin. It’s heavy and old and beautiful bronze and I’d like to throttle the idiot who decided to cover its magnificence in like, 532 layers of ugly paint. If that’s not a cardinal sin, it ought to be. Anyway, as I’m glaring at the computer screen, waffling back and forth between, should I stay or should I go, Steve calls down the companionway, “So…the Navy is here and we need to show them our passports.”

That was unexpected. I grab our Blue Binder of Important Stuff off the nav station and head topsides. It’s moderately waterproof and zips up to keep safe all the documents that keep you out of jail and prevent your boat from getting impounded. We’ve got the passports in a little mesh zippery flap and everything else stashed in plastic sleeves, which is convenient and looks impressively squared away.

Three Mexican Navy guys with M-16’s were strategically positioned on the dock, alongside our boat. Their eyes were serious, but not unfriendly. A fourth man, armed with only a pistol and a Port of Ensenada representative, asked for our papers and permission to come aboard. As if we’d say no. I fished the passports out and Steve handed them over with our boat documentation papers. He looked them over. “¿Hay uno mas persona…?” he said, turning to the rep. “Do you have another person on your boat?”, the rep asked. Steve said yes, while I yelled downstairs, “Eli, come up and meet the Mexican Navy– they need to make sure you’re you.” He popped up for a minute, said hello to the nice guys with the big guns and then, in typical teenage fashion, evaporated back down below. Steve stayed out on deck to entertain the troops and keep everybody relaxed and thinking happy thoughts, and I tried to get out of the way by going back inside.

The man with the pistol examined our papers for a few minutes and then gestured, almost apologetically, that he’d like to look around below. Wander about our labyrinth of partially finished projects. I wondered what would happen if he tripped on the water filter box under the table and landed temple first on the screwdriver sticking out of the toolbag next to the nav station. Would the Mexican courts consider death by boat a punishable offense and are Mexican prisons really as bad as everyone says?

I shouldn’t have worried. He was a pro, after all, and threaded his way around the obstacle course like it wasn’t even there. Until he noticed the dog curled up on the pilothouse settee. “¿No morder? ¿Morder el perro?” he asked, visibly leaning away from Nala. “No,” I said, “Ella es muy tranquila. Ama a todo el mundo.” He gave me a look that said, “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that particular line of bullshit?” Nala raised her head and sniffed the air a couple of times. He actually stepped back into the midberth before asking again if she was going to bite him. “Me llamo Tamiko,” I said, “Ella se llama Nala.” I gave him a couple of pats on the shoulder, “She is very nice. She will not bite you. she loves everybody.” He stuck out his hand, “Me llamo Juan,” he said. “Mucho gusto”

Juan glanced into Eli’s cabin, took a minute to peruse the chaos in the midberth, let his eyes roam about the pilot house, giving only the briefest of attention to the aft cabin. “Gracias,” he said, and then headed back outside, making sure we got all our papers back before he left the boat. We weren’t the only boat that got boarded today, it looked like they inspected all the boats in slips 12 or 13 on every dock in the marina. We’d heard enough positive stories about getting boarded by the Mexican Navy that we weren’t expecting anything bad to happen, but all the same, it’s nice to know for our own selves.