Arriving in Mexico by Boat During COVID

Before Leaving for Mexico

We left San Diego for Mex­i­co on South­ern Cross, our 50 foot Hud­son Force 50 sail­boat, not know­ing for sure the cost or pro­ce­dure for check­ing into Mexico. 

We’d done plen­ty of research through web­sites, blogs of oth­er’s sailors, and Mex­i­co sail­ing Face­book groups in our plan­ning stage. But every­one’s expe­ri­ences varied. 

The best infor­ma­tion came from the Face­book Sea of Cortez groups, which we high­ly rec­om­mend you join. Here’s what we got right and what we’ve learned for next time.

What do I need to do before leaving the US for Mexico by boat?

Before arriv­ing: 

1. Bank­ing Set up trav­el with your bank if you want to use atms.

2. Fuel Make sure you have enough gas to weath­er any seas on the way down. For ref­er­ence: Ense­na­da is about 70 NM from SanDiego. 

3. Pre­dict Wind Com­plete sev­er­al weath­er checks using the Pre­dict Wind app. 

It was rec­om­mend­ed that we focus on the Gust Map for a more accu­rate prediction. 

We screen­cast­ed the video as it played so we’d have it dur­ing the trip. Pre­dict Wind has a 7‑day fore­cast so check it again before you leave for any changes. 

*Boaters in our groups also rec­om­mend­ed the Windy app.

4. Navion­ics We have used Navion­ics for many years sail­ing the Atlantic Coast. 

Navion­ics worked well on the Pacif­ic side, although we have heard that in some of the bays, visu­al dili­gence and paper charts are necessary. 

I love the com­ments left by users on the charts about spe­cif­ic anchor­ages. I’m not sure if it’s a new fea­ture, but we are using them to guide the next leg of our jour­ney from Ensenada.

Please make sure to run the route before­hand and expand map as you go, so the lev­els of detail you need can download/update; oth­er­wise, if you lose data on the jour­ney, you’ll be with­out charts.

While we had wifi, I chart­ed and ran the course for Ense­na­da. This prompt­ed a chart update that would have kept the pro­gram from start­ing, so check your route with a good inter­net con­nec­tion as close to leav­ing as possible.

5. Mex­i­can Lia­bil­i­ty Insur­ance for Boaters is manda­to­ry if you are stay­ing in a mari­na. We used Nova­mar. (See side column)

Things To Know

• Get­ting pesos in USA takes around a week
• Make sure to pur­chase a Mex­i­can cour­tesy flag & yel­low Q flag
• Save your­self a headache. Bring cash for your 180 day visas.
• You must have Mex­i­can lia­bil­i­ty insur­ance for your boat. We rec­om­mend Nova­mar because they have an easy, quick, and inex­pen­sive online process. You can print out your insur­ance forms right away!

Fees for Checking into Mexico

• FMM 180-Day Vis­i­tors Per­mit: $35 each person
• Tem­po­rary Import Per­mit (TIP) for your boat: $55
• Port Cap­tain Fee: $483 in pesos. Your boat ton­nage is incor­po­rat­ed in this fee.

Other Important Fees

• Fish­ing License. Every­one on your boat must have a fish­ing license if there is any fish­ing gear at all on your boat. It’s about $45 each per­son. Buy online and print out.
• Con­ser­va­tion Pass­port. You will need this to stop at cer­tain anchor­ages. About $18/person. The web­site is a lit­tle dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate, how­ev­er one sailor on the Sea of Cortez Face­book group rec­om­mends get­ting it direct­ly from the parks office on 2nd St. in Ensenada.

Where in San Diego should I prep for Mexico?

This depends entire­ly on how far out your trip is and your bud­get. Here’s the best course of action for a lim­it­ed bud­get or for those that want to spend their mon­ey in Mex­i­co instead.

Timeline:

3 months out from Mexico:

San Diego has an anchor­age you can stay with your boat for 90 days for FREE, as long as you are not a res­i­dent of San Diego. This anchor­age is right in the mid­dle of the city nightlife and is close to the dinghy and pumpout docks. 

You’ll have a great view of the city sky­line and pro­tec­tion from the winds if you tuck in behind the restau­rant. There’s great hold­ing in about 15 feet of water. 

You can eas­i­ly renew the 30-day A9 per­mit two more times over the phone for a total of 90 days.

 To ini­tial­ly get the per­mit, you have to go the the police dock and have them inspect your boat (basi­cal­ly bilge, fire extin­guish­ers, gray/black water col­lec­tion, abil­i­ty to move under pow­er and anchor) and con­firm you are not a local res­i­dent and that you are the own­er of your boat. 

We had trou­ble with one offi­cer in the per­mit process because we were await­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion, but he called over his super­vi­sor, who told us it’s not uncom­mon to get the per­mit with­out the doc­u­men­ta­tion done as it can take 3 months to come back. 

We had the email con­fir­ma­tion from the Coast Guard to show the doc­u­men­ta­tion had been applied for, as well as paper­work show­ing our pur­chase of the boat, which they made copies of.

If you need to fly home dur­ing that time, as we did to pick up our boat doc­u­men­ta­tion once it came in, this anchor­age is in walk­ing dis­tance to the airport.

2 weeks out from Mexico:

There are three oth­er free anchor­ages in San Diego. 

You can stay for 3 nights at each of them, but you must reserve both the Glo­ri­et­ta Bay and the La Playa anchor­ages ahead of time on the San Diego Port Authority’s website. 

Glorietta Bay anchorage

The Glo­ri­et­ta Bay anchor­age has 7 day/week avail­abil­i­ty and is about 7 NM from the police docks. It’s very pro­tect­ed, and in walk­ing dis­tance to restau­rants, a gro­cery store, the post office, a pub­lic pool, and the beach.

In high winds, we were con­cerned about drag­ging as we’d seen a cou­ple of boats ground­ed on the beach when we arrived there the first time. Although the water is deep enough to anchor (I believe we anchored in 15–19 ft), you are very close to shore. 

By the way, there is a dinghy dock in Glo­ri­et­ta Bay with a few boat slips that give you 4 hours to have a meal or load a gro­cery run onto your boat. Our boat has a 6.5 ft keel and we could have pulled up along­side the dock and tied off with­out a problem. 

Watch your charts get­ting into the bay and stay between the mark­ers and you’ll be fine.

The La Playa Anchorage

Although we have nev­er stayed at the La Playa anchor­age, it is a week­end anchor­age and hard to get, so reserve early. 

We reserved a spot more than a month in advance, but end­ed up pay­ing to stay at the city dock instead. Oth­er times we tried were all unsuc­cess­ful for our boat size.

*The La Playa anchor­age is inside the same bay as the police and city docks.

Please note: dur­ing advi­sories, you can seek safe har­bor at either of the anchorages. 

Both of these anchor­ages can be reserved for a total of 3 times per cal­en­dar month. 

You may not stay con­sec­u­tive­ly at any sin­gle anchor­age, but you could go straight from one to the oth­er if you plan it right.

The Mission Bay Anchorage

The third 3‑day anchor­age is in Mis­sion Bay. 

You must leave San Diego Har­bor and come around the penin­su­la, tak­ing great care to avoid kelp beds and crab pots. Boats get eas­i­ly fouled if they don’t stay at least 1–3 miles offshore. 

Depend­ing on the weath­er, we have made the trip in 45 min­utes or in 3 hours as we stay fur­ther out from shore in rough weather. 

When it’s calm, it’s eas­i­er to see and avoid the kelp, although we still man­aged to get some wound around our rudder.

Be mind­ful of the seas enter­ing the between the jet­ties to get to this anchorage.

 It’s beau­ti­ful and total­ly calm, but we entered dur­ing an advi­so­ry and surfed a wave across the bar between the jet­ties. We had to fight to main­tain course as the water tried to turn our boat broad­sides to the wave which would have crashed us into the rocks.

Under nor­mal con­di­tions, you won’t have an issue. Please note that this chan­nel is around 20 ft deep in the cen­ter, around 15 ft on your port side and only 5 ft on your starboard. 

This anchor­age is in a nice park with a huge play­ground for the kids. 

If you leave the park, you can cross the street to the beach with a long board­walk. There are shops, piz­za places, ice cream par­lors, and a surf shop with great prices.

This was the flat­test, most peace­ful anchor­age of the three. You can stay here for three days out of every sev­en and you don’t need a reservation. 

Get here ear­ly as there are many pri­vate moor­ing balls for small­er boats and you have to carve out a space between them.

We stopped here after the city dock instead of head­ing straight to Mex­i­co because of prox­im­i­ty to a dive shop for spear­gun bands (a 5 mile walk instead of 12). *A fel­low sailor sold us a very nice spear­gun for $100 at the city dock. We just need­ed to replace the bands.

One Week out from Mexico:

The City Dock at Shelter Island

A week before we left, we made reser­va­tions on the Port web­site for the city dock. They accept large boats like ours, and catamarans. 

Reser­va­tions are $1/ft per day and include elec­tric­i­ty, potable water at the dock, and showers. 

There was one inci­dent of theft there and keep in mind that the show­ers require a code that is changed month­ly so peo­ple not stay­ing at the docks, includ­ing the home­less, might get the code and use the showers. 

If you choose to use them, you’ll prob­a­bly have a long wait time.

While you wait, you can get wifi at the out­build­ings near the shower. 

With all that being said, you are sur­round­ed by police, the docks are well lit, and close to many of the busi­ness­es you might need to vis­it before you leave for Mexico.

 Unlike the A9, you rarely encounter home­less per­sons want­i­ng to inter­act with you. 

In fact, many peo­ple uti­lize the park/playground and walk­ing path or use the fire pits on the beach for small gath­er­ings at night. 

Plus, the stat­ues in hon­or of our friend­ships with for­eign coun­tries and the sea are not to be missed!

Shopping for your Mexico trip on Shelter Island

 If you make it to San Diego and real­ize you don’t have your Mex­i­can cour­tesy flag, you can pick one up for around $14 at the Shel­ter Island chan­dlery. They will give you a “local” dis­count on what­ev­er you buy. We priced a water pump there com­pa­ra­ble to Ama­zon, but they were out of stock. 

If you spend your last cou­ple of days at the city dock ($1/ft), you can walk there, as well as the following:

West Marine

We had to replace an anten­na on our portable VHF

Boat Fuel Dock (Propane refills)

A fuel dock that refills your propane tanks $4.99/gallon (our tanks were almost twice as full as what we got when trad­ing in at the gro­cery store), it’s a cheap­er alter­na­tive to fill up on gas too; at the time we went, diesel was 3.75/gallon and less than 3.40/gallon at the dock. 

Ralph’s (a grocery chain store)

We took a wag­on to Ralph’s to fill jer­ry cans and get gro­ceries at the same time. We were wor­ried about whether to pro­vi­sion ahead of time because we’d heard a lot of con­tra­dic­to­ry infor­ma­tion about gro­ceries being con­fis­cat­ed in Mex­i­co. At the mari­na where we checked in, we wouldn’t have need­ed to wor­ry. Our rec­om­men­da­tion is to buy every­thing once you get to Ense­na­da. Prices are good, the pro­duce is excel­lent, and you help local busi­ness­es. Still, we might have bought chick­en breast with us as the tex­ture of the larg­er breasts in Mex­i­co is a lit­tle tougher. Def­i­nite­ly wait to buy your seafood in Ense­na­da. The shrimp are to die for!

Fresh doughnuts

A love­ly dough­nut shop in the same plaza as Sub­way offers morn­ing shop­pers mas­sive soft and chewy dough­nuts and deli­cious cook­ies (try the peanut but­ter and get there ear­ly because they sell out of every­thing by 11). They open at 5 am.

A laundrymat

A friend­ly local place a few blocks from Sub­way. Wash and dry a large load of laun­dry for under $4.

Oth­er local busi­ness­es: marine elec­tron­ics, welders/fabricators. Can­vas, sail­mak­ers, rig­gers, sign mak­ers, and more!

Leaving for Mexico by Boat

We left around 10 pm from Mis­sion Bay. The seas were calm and our weath­er win­dow was planned. We cleared the jet­ties with­out issue.

We motored through the night in hopes of reach­ing Ense­na­da early. 

As the night pro­gressed, the winds picked up. I was clutch­ing the line hold­ing me to the boat to remain in my seat. 

The San­ta Ana’s had us bash­ing through the waves so hard our pul­pit splin­tered. At one point, my hus­band sent us down below for our safety. 

Once the sun came up, the seas became more man­age­able. I was able to take a shift at the helm while my hus­band got some much-need­ed rest. 

It seemed like we’d nev­er get there as we crept down the final miles of the Mex­i­can coast­line look­ing for the entrance to Ense­na­da bay. Luck­i­ly, the sea had calmed after 12 hours into our voyage. 

Sev­er­al times, we’d turn a cor­ner expect­ing the entrance or at least the green chan­nel marker. 

The jet­ty is posi­tioned at an obtuse angle, which gives the appear­ance of a row of rocks con­nect­ed to land at both ends. Not until you get much clos­er can you tell that the open­ing is hid­den behind this elbow of rock. Even­tu­al­ly, you can see the green chan­nel mark­er and the puz­zle solves itself. 

Arriving in Mexico By Boat: Now What?

We docked at Baja Naval mari­na around 1:30 pm and called them on chan­nel 77 (our phones stopped work­ing once we crossed bor­der so get­ting that info was impor­tant). Vic­tor came out to meet us.

The line that holds our flag was com­pro­mised so we zip-tied our yel­low Q and Mex­i­can flags to a stay.

COVID check-in for boaters

We were not allowed to leave our boat until a doc­tor cleared us in.

 Vic­tor arranged for him to come to our boat that day although we couldn’t offi­cial­ly check-in until the next. 

The doc­tor checked our tem­per­a­tures and O2 lev­els and had us fill out a form with ques­tions such as whether we’d come straight from a farm. He left us with a clear­ance doc­u­ment to give Vic­tor, but no oth­er offi­cials board­ed our boat at Naval.

The next day, Vic­tor came to our boat ear­ly and we head­ed to the mari­na office. 

He filled out our crew list and all the oth­er paper­work we need­ed to check in and made copies. 

He asked us if we need­ed to get cash for our FMM visas. You could use a card, but the fee was more. In order to save time, we select­ed the card route so we didn’t have to stop some­where else on the way. That deci­sion cost us half a day. 

We walked a short dis­tance to the build­ing that holds the offices we need­ed in one place. 

The first win­dow was immi­gra­tion. We wait­ed for a tour group to be checked in and then it was our turn. 

Vic­tor hand­ed in our forms and the woman at the win­dow told him their card read­er wasn’t work­ing and we didn’t have enough cash with us. We’d have to go to an ATM and return. 

We were able to pay cash for the TIP for our boat at the next win­dow before we left in search of cash. 

About a ten minute walk from there are a 711 and a phar­ma­cy with ATM machines. The phar­ma­cy machine was down, so 711 was our last chance.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the machine was in Span­ish only and I tried many times to fig­ure it out before I gave up. 

When Vic­tor met back up with us, he showed me how to use the machine but they did not have cash. We walked to a dis­tant 711 and were 0 for 3 ATMs. 

I asked if we could try to take out pesos and con­vert them. 

We returned to the first 711, took out pesos, and walked to an exchange store. He didn’t have cash either, but the sec­ond one we tried did. Finally!

Sev­er­al hours since the start of this adven­ture, we returned to Immi­gra­tion and paid cash for our 180-day visas. 

We could now move on to the Port Cap­tain and pay our ton­nage fee. Final­ly, we were done. Had I brought cash, we would have been in and out in no time. Les­son learned.

Baja Naval Marina

Benefits of Making Baja Naval Marina your 1st stop in Mexico

• friend­ly service
• check-in assis­tance (cre­ate forms like crew list & walk paper­work through)
• hot, high pres­sure showers
• fast wifi in lounge, lounge also has desks for busi­ness work and a phone you can call the states for a free 5 minute call,
• 24 hour secu­ri­ty, key card entry
• loca­tion (in town so walk to check in, shop­ping, not only fenced, but also back side access to shops, din­ing, boat tours,
• Com­fort­able (We’d heard the mari­na was rol­ly, but we did not have a problem)

Shopping in Mexico:
What do I need to know?

Worried about provisioning ahead of time?

Ense­na­da has sev­er­al near­by gro­cery stores that we patron­ized for spe­cif­ic items. We liked one mar­ket for fresh, warm baguettes and ground beef. Anoth­er store had great dough­nuts and ele­phant ears. We found a dis­count gro­cery store for almost every­thing else. There are oth­er spe­cif­ic mar­kets for tor­tillas, meat, and fish. 

Conversions

Here’s what you must remem­ber: Quan­ti­ties are in kilos not pounds. To com­pare to Amer­i­can prices, you have to do a dou­ble con­ver­sion from kilos to pounds and from pesos to USD. And gas is in liters, not gallons.

For ease, we approx­i­mat­ed a kilo to a lit­tle more than 2 lbs. Cur­rent­ly, 19 pesos is $1. We round­ed it 20 to 1. 

Some sam­ple prices:

A gal­lon of milk costs 40 pesos, or $2 for example

A kilo of lemons costs 17 pesos

20 tacos at a stand cost 150 pesos

A kilo of shrimp costs 150–220 pesos, based on size

We bought 4 dough­nuts for 21 pesos. I’m notic­ing a theme here. 🙂

What are the COVID shopping procedures in Ensenada, Mexico?

 In every store, you must test your tem­per­a­ture, and use hand san­i­tiz­er. Some sores have you wipe your shoes on a mat with paper on it.

 Because of COVID require­ments, only one mem­ber of a fam­i­ly can go into a gro­cery store at a time. One store got tired of me going back and forth ask­ing my fam­i­ly if they want­ed cer­tain things so they let my daugh­ter in. 

You must leave your back­packs at the door, or in one instance in an out­door lock­er with a key.

How do I get drinking water?

You can get fresh water at a water store, but at this point we are buy­ing 10 liter jugs at 711 inexpensively.

Please Note:

We found only one store that had prices in both pesos and dol­lars or the prices weren’t labeled at all. In that case, you just have to clar­i­fy with the vendor. 

We had one ven­dor tell my hus­band one price in Span­ish and a high­er price in Eng­lish, so be aware of your num­bers in Spanish. 

Every­one we inter­act­ed with was help­ful and friend­ly. So go out with­out fear and take advan­tage of the won­der­ful things Mex­i­co has to offer!

What can I do in Ensenada?

We were told about a blow­hole about an hour’s dri­ve away that you could visit. 

There’s a Nation­al Park that has the high­est peak in Baja California.

You can take a har­bor tour for a cou­ple of dol­lars to see fur seals and sea lions. Or you can kayak there.

We tried the choco­late filled chur­ros peo­ple raved about. 

There’s a fresh fish mar­ket a few min­utes walk from mari­na Baja Naval.

You can hear mari­achi music from your boat or stop in for a meal at the restau­rants for a clos­er experience. 

If you stay at Baja Naval, you can watch the night­ly danc­ing foun­tain show from your boat after the board­walk is closed for the night.

Walk the local streets and check out the many jew­el­ry stores, leather goods stores, fresh fruit and taco stands.

Departing Ensenada by boat.

You must check out with the port cap­tain one day before you leave. Vic­tor will mark your final port of call and note that there will be sev­er­al stops in between which cov­ers you wher­ev­er you go. 

Do this ear­ly as it takes a few hours to process and you use come back for it. Vic­tor at Baja Naval helped us with this. He walked us there and han­dled every­thing. Hen he sent some­one back to pick up the forms lat­er in the day.

Make sure to pur­chase your fish­ing licenses.

Get phone sim card and a phone to use as a hotspot if you need it

Get con­ser­va­tion pass­port to anchor in many spots like Cabo

What’s Our Next Stop?

Where can you go after Ensenada?

We head­ing to Tur­tle Bay or Cabo. What do I need to do before I leave my first port of call?

Fair Winds,

Elyza (SY South­ern Cross)