December 4, 2014 - Goodbye USA

Well, tonight is the night!  We are leaving here for Ensenada tonight.  We wanted to give thanks to some of those who helped us make our vessel a home.  Please do not be offended if we did not include you in this list.  There are many people that have been a part of our journey physically and emotionally.
*    To Frank Liddel who spent many hours creating spaces for us to sleep and to store our many belongings.  Your woodworking skills are incredible!
 *   To Chet and Terry Whitney from Sagle Idaho and the Floorshow store who helped us quickly purchase and choose the right blinds.  When a piece was missing they even got that to us prior to leaving.  These are easy to use and have already helped keep the sun and heat out, and therefore us cool!  I think we could have used some of Terry's interior design skills to bring more color to our salon, we are quite beige!
*    To Carol Lopushok, from Montana, who sewed three sets of sheets and mattress covers for our bunk room.  There is not a normal angle on any of the three bunks and she was able to do it without even seeing the boat!  The kids continue to switch and move around in the beds and the sheets are all working well!
*    To John Hill who gave Steve a generator water pump repair kit.  It has already been used as it was needed here in San Diego.
*    To all of the boaters and worldwide travelers in our circle; thank you for your knowledge, it has helped and continues to help us.

The transit down the coast started with anxiety about crossing ocean bars.  Now we have new ones to make us nervous.  The main two right now are weather and customs.  We will miss the NOAA forecasts as they are only available in the US.  Tomorrow is customs and immigration which I imagine will be fine since we will use the marina staff to help us through it.  We know of 5 other sailboats headed in tomorrow as well so they will be busy.  We are all traveling overnight tonight and everyone will try to keep tabs on one another.  I guess they close by 2:30pm on Fridays so we are preparing to arrive early.   We should have wifi at the marina in Ensenada.  After leaving Ensenada, it may be Cabo before we post again, we are just not sure.  It looks like we will have several long passages ahead with several being overnight.

Happy holidays to everyone.  We hope you are in the spirit of the season!

Attessa coming into dock last night.  Imagine seeing this coming at you!  250ft long and she was backing in.
I noticed it always seem these mega yachts come and go in the dark.  Less attention by people maybe?

Attessa is backing in.  Less than 5 ft from us or so, we could have jumped on board.
They did have crew with a HUGE fender at their stern watching us closely.

This gives perspective.  Kids and I are headed off to Starbucks for wifi this afternoon on our bikes
so Steve took this of us just before leaving.