Stuck in La Cruz

La Cruz isn't the worst place to be. However, when you are trying desperately to get out of a town and meet up with your cruising friends (we miss you Ceilydh!) and instead you get held back due to this thing or the other - well, let's just say  it can get tiresome real fast. We are still in Marina La Cruz, a lovely but expensive marina. Food and restaurants are fairly pricey here. Laundry, however, is cheap so I am paying to have our clothes laundered. Oh joy!

Reason #1 why we are still here:                                                                                  Our radios. They are terrible. The VHF and SSB/HAM have no power it seems. Jim has worked countless hours on them and we have spent much money just to troubleshoot the problems. Finally today we think he had a break through! We plan to test the SSB/HAM on the Southbound Net tonight and see if we can transmit. It's so powerful, in fact, that we are attempting transmission in the marina. Hopefully, we won't catch fire. Rich off Third Day brought us our repaired tuner from the states. I think it's made a difference. Thanks, Rich!

We met Ron on Encounter. He is the radio Guru here in La Cruz and was extremely helpful to us. His rate is reasonable: 500 pesos per hour. I don't personally begrudge one penny to him and he has had equipment and parts that we needed. He is a wealth of knowledge and we appreciate his help.

Reason #2 we are still here:                                                                                          My tourist Visa. It expired in December. I planned to apply for a FM3 prior to the expiration, but Immigration was closed FOR THE ENTIRE WEEK over Christmas in Mazatlan. Oh bother. So, I schlepped to Bucerias where they opened a IMS office a couples years ago. Everyone says it is so much better than the IMS office in PV. Unfortunately, I have made three trips to their office in the past week and now they say that this Friday I will be done. Fingers crossed! They are super nice in the office in Bucerias, but they are the epitome of "Latin bureaucracy"... very slow and lots of red tape. Being illegal in Mexico and getting your documents other than at the border has become easier... sort of. Mexico is now internet functional in some of their government offices, but those with internet accessible forms and such are still not savvy. I will write a post of how to get 'Regularized' (as they call it) soon. Speaking a little Spanish helps tremendously.