S/V AEOLI: Recap: Passage Preparations in La Paz and Cabo San Lucas (w/pics!)

The past few weeks has been a push of boat projects, chores, provisioning, and preparations for our passage to Hawaii. We are expecting to be at sea for somewhere between 21 and 26 days to make the 2600nm voyage, so there has been much to get ready.

We did the bulk of our preparations in La Paz, since we are so familiar with the city and enjoy the laid back atmosphere. We bought our canned goods and dry provisions at the Mega, which has some great finds: shelf-stable tofu, TVP, canned roasted red peppers, canned pulled pork, and a wide selection of cheeses not requiring refrigeration. We also took care of a long list of little boat projects to get AEOLI ready for the passage. We were finally through with most of our preparations on 10 April and (sadly) departed the Costa Baja. No more infinity pool sunsets for us...

Cataloging all provisions in an Excel spreadsheet (yes, we are still engineers at heart)

Handwashing laundry every morning

Matt in the access hatch doing a fiberglass reinforcement

Being overwhelmed by the choice of canned vegetables (do we want peas/carrots, peas/carrots/corn, or peas/carrots/potatoes/green beans??)

Two full shopping carts leaving the Mega

Now how do we store all this food in the boat...?

Juice compartment

Saying our final goodbye to the Costa Baja...

... and its ridiculous mega-yachts

We took our time getting to Cabo San Lucas, taking day hops and anchoring in Caleta Lobos, Ensenada de los Muertos, and Bahia los Frailes. Our final cruising experiences in the Sea of Cortez...

We arrived to the craziness of Cabo on 13 April and couldn't believe that it was one of our first Mexico cruising experiences. The volume of tourists and boat traffic make it feel like a completely different Mexico. We were glad to have done most of our preparations in La Paz, since things are more expensive and less accessible in Cabo. We did our final freshies run at the Mega/Chedraui/Soriana trio and now have a ridiculous amount of produce aboard AEOLI. Being filled up with potable water, fuel, and 40 days of provisions, AEOLI is sitting heavy.

AEOLI looks like a produce stand

15 water garrafones of purified water delivered to the boat by the fuel dock market

40 gallons in our main tank plus 35 gallons in our auxiliary containers

Checking out of Mexico turned out to be more of an ordeal than we had originally thought, mostly because we are trying to leave during La Semana Santa (Easter) and the government offices have reduced hours. We had called the Port Captain in Cabo from La Paz and were told that we should go to the Port Captain before Immigration, and that the office would be open until 2:30PM. But when we actually went to the Port Captain in Cabo to check out, we found out that they were only open until 12:30PM and that we were supposed to go to Immigration first. By the time we were checked out of Immigration (a time-consuming procedure at the unhurried pace of a government office), the Port Captain was closed to the public, so we were forced to use a port agent (recommended by the marina) to process our checkout from the Port Captain. In the end it all worked out, other than that we had to pay a port agent for the checkout service (our total checkout cost was $120 USD, I think if we had done it ourselves it would have cost $50 USD). My advice for others checking out of Mexico: go to Immigration first and bring photocopies of all passports, tourist cards, and boat documentation; allocate an entire day of business hours to go back and forth between the different agencies; and make sure you have your checkout papers from the last port of call.