We sailed 14 hours from Avalon to San Diego, and another 12 from San Diego to Ensenada. Both trips were delightfully uneventful, although the stretch to Mexico was pretty rolly.

San Diego is the epitome of California living. The weather is perfect, the people friendly, the entertainment accessible, and we were able to handle our business efficiently. We were told that we needed to stop here for exit paperwork (turns out that wasn’t necessarily the case, but the marina insisted on it in case we had an existing and therefore dreaded TIP — temporary import permit — on our dinghy). We had originally planned to sail straight to Mexico, but made the San Diego stop per our Ensenada marina’s request/mandate. We know people who weren’t able to enter the country because of an uncanceled TIP, so we were OK with taking the precaution.

So Cal makes you realize just how small San Francisco is.. We rented a car since San Diego is huge, which turned out to be a great decision. We did all of our exit paperwork, saw Nosferatu on the big screen, soaked in the decadent marina hot tub, provisioned (including the fiercely addictive Trader Joe’s cheese puffs and cheese crunchies, along with the mandatory chicken I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to find enough of in Mexico). I got a great mani/pedi and played some excellent pickleball at Waterfront Park, both a short distance from our marina. We finally got my critical puzzle deliveries (missed the drop off in Avalon), and put an exclamation point on our last day with a large order of Five Guys french fries (plus a double cheeseburger for T). Suffice it to say that our fitness journey is currently not a linear one.

We arrived in Mexico without incident and ultimately found our marina and slip. A little bit of confusion post docking when they hadn’t reserved us for 50-amp electrical, but we were exhausted and really didn’t; want to move. Luckily they finally let us borrow a 30-amp and all was well. We successfully handled all our business with the port captain the following day, and met up with Rodd and Shelly (S/V Tasi) for some fish (shark!) tacos and gab. T beat the pants off me at pool (it’s OK, he has to be able to win some game against me.

Got an excellent body scrub and 80-minute massage at the hotel spa. I usually request men since women tend to give wimpier massages, and when this tiny little Mexicana showed up my heart sank. But sistahood put a hurt-so-good deep tissue massage on me that left me muy, muy satisfied. Then my buzz was killed by the Texans losing to the cheater Chiefs in the playoffs. We hosted a sweet couple — Judy and Gene, who came to Ensenada four years ago and never left — for cocktails. One thing that’s great about living in a small space is how little time it takes to clean up before you’re expecting company. So even if I’m feeling like our place is not presentable for socializing, it doesn’t take long for it to be (excuse the obvious pun) shipshape.