Ocean Echo 1: December 2010

Dear friends

I wish you all Happy Holidays - Merry Christmas and all the best in 2011.
At this moment Ocean Echo 1 is tied to the dock at marina Baja Naval in Ensenada Mexico. I have cleared into Mexico couple of days ago after an easy over night motor sail from San Diego Cal.. Dolphins visited again during the night several times. Ensenada harbor has been closed day after I arrived due to higher winds. Hopefully it will be re-open tomorrow, to allow me to continue on the way south to warmer destinations. I am eager to get moving after spending last 5 weeks in S. Diego harbor, waiting for important documents/shipments. The only pictures available for upload at this time are from San Diego and Ensenada.
I have visited S. Diego's Sea World, but it was little disappointing to see, what they have turn it into since my last visit many years ago. It used to be the best marine park and aquarium in the World. It is now Disney and Universal Studios style tourist attraction, which is quite different from the old days.
San Diego is a nice city and I enjoyed staying there. I would like to thank to San Diego Yacht Club for helping me out with some issues and reciprocal privileges. SDYC has nice facilities including tennis courts, swimming pool, whirl pool, sauna, gym, ham radio - HF station and upscale clubhouse. Silver Gate YC was also very helpful. I have spent 6 days at S.D. harbor police dock, which is the best deal in the town for short-term moorage.
Entering Mexico is a little different and it takes some time to learn, how everything works. City of Ensenada is a contrast to San Diego, but people are friendly. It requires some adjustment in dealing with situation without knowing much Spanish.
My next leg is Baja California peninsula down to Cabo San Lucas and Sea of Cortez. I am planning to sail towards Puerto Vallarta, since La Paz and Mazatlan seem to be cooler this year due to La Nina weather pattern.

Maintaining this blog could by complicated time to time, because Internet signal/connection for uploading pictures, will not be as good/fast as it is in large cities/communities. Please, excuse my poor writing skills and grammar. Google translate does good job converting text to other languages.
I hope, that you will find something interesting in this blog – enjoy.

Jara (JJ) Holcman sv. Ocean Echo 1