Our time in the Bay and back in Auburn passed rapidly.  While we were in the Bay, we had Passage Yachts do all the warranty work and things that needed to be repaired from our first onboard inspection.  We also had our Yanmar diesel engine given its 50 hour maintenance.  This was done by Bill Peacock of KKMI.  Bill spent several hours giving us Diesel 101.  When he left, we both had notes on all the systems and his recommendations as to additives, spare parts and needed tools.

The week end before we debarked, Jennifer flew down from Seattle for a few days.  We were so excited to also have Hank’s Uncle Bill and family come to see the boat.  We had asked him to help us with the naming ceremony since he was a retired commander in the Navy.  They arrived in the afternoon just in time to go to a local restaurant for lunch and then to come back to the boat for the ceremony.  Uncle Bill read the naming ceremony and several poems.  We whacked the official bottle and then toasted the four winds with good champagne.  Finally we even got a taste.  All too soon the afternoon was over, for the family had to go on to meet up at Craig’s house and we had to get Jennifer back to the airport.

Finally we did the last provisioning that we would do in the states.  We loaded the freezer with things from Trader Joes, got two Ikea pies, and purchased several more large plastic containers.  We had a printer, scanner, fax combo, a new photo printer and several other things that we believed we couldn’t live without. We were organized with list after list but still the time got short and things seemed hectic.  Of course I wanted to have my Christmas cards ready to mail before we left and that put more pressure on us. 

  We had stayed at the Richmond Yacht Club next to our friend Ollie and she was there to wave goodbye as we left.  It was October the 20^th and the day was bright and sunny as we motored out to the gate.  The gate is so beautiful especially when passing under it and looking up. As soon as we were outside the gate, we put up the sails and sailed at a broad reach for the next 7 hours.  We were about 30 miles or so off the coast so we were pretty much by ourselves.  The wind quit at 8pm, so we started the engine.  The stars came out and in the early morning we saw many shooting stars.  Rotating watches every four hours again works for us.  We passed the early morning, or late night watches by checking the radar, being entertained by dolphins, and writing our hourly log.

 Hank started to troll a fishing line as we sailed.  He anchored the rod to the rail and let out line for about 50 feet.  We pretty much forgot all about it until about 2 o’clock in the afternoon when the line started to sing.  Upon reeling in the line we saw that it was a small Skipjack. We decided to bring it along side and release it, hoping to get something a little bigger and possibly a yellowtail. It was time to start preparing for dinner since we tried to make sure that we ate before it got dark.  It is so much easier to do all the preparation in the late afternoon.  This was going to be a pressure cooker meal so it would not take a lot of time.  This is important because you don’t want to spend much of your four hour off watch time cooking.  Resting is very important, so I prepared 5 Decker Dinner which is bacon, hamburger patties, potatoes, carrots and spices.  It is a great quick meal.  The night was clear but by 6 o’clock in the morning Hank came up to watch in a very dense fog.  We traveled in this fog with our fog horn blasting.  The pangas became more frequent as we got closer to the harbor at Ensenada.  We knew that there was a huge flag at Baja Naval but we couldn’t see that flag the fog was so thick. We crept into the harbor and finally it cleared up enough to see where we were going.  Baja Naval sent two guys to help us tie up temporary while Hank went ashore with our papers.  After he checked in at Baja Naval, we were given a slip and tied up securely.  Next Hank grabbed our check in portfolio and went to the customs building.  Ensenada has really streamlined the process by allowing you to do all the check in process in one building.  The only problem was that their copier was not working and the other offices said that they didn’t have a working machine either.  Finally the customs officer gave our passports and papers to a young man who hurried out of the building.  We waited anxiously until the young man returned with the copies. We were checked in with all our papers completely done.  Now we had time to look around the town.  It has made some positive changes since I had last been there.  The tourist part of town now has wider sidewalks and they were painted red.  There were many more side walk cafes than I had remembered.  The cruise ship dock was quite near our boat and we realized that there was a ship or two anchored there almost every other day.  It was also best to only go to town when the ships were not at anchor.   

 We were in Ensenada for a week, when finally we rented a car to drive to San Diego for the Captain’s meeting of the Baja Ha-Ha.  We would be attending the meeting, picking up Ollie at the airport and then driving back to Ensenada to start the rally the following day.  We were excited to be going forward with our dreams.  We gassed up using the Baja filter, got Ollie check into Mexico and were ready to take off by 12 on October 30^th.