There is still no reported case of H1N1 Flu in Baja, but yesterday all the schools were closed in the state.

Yesterday morning Gone Native left again, headed for San Diego. After they left, we went for a ride down south to the end of the main drag. That is yet another place we hadn’t gone before and it kind of surprised us. For the first few blocks it is commercial and looks like the rest of the city. Then there is a military area that is blocked off. Beyond the military area, the road parallels a beautiful beach that is lined with single family houses. In the US, the homes along the waterfront would be zillion dollar mansions. There were a couple nice homes, but most weren’t very nice, maybe so-so at best. A lot of the houses were actually trailers, and several of them were scary looking. There were even a few vacant lots, and one lot in particular looks like there was once a home on it that was destroyed. After several more blocks the road comes to an end and opens out into a public beach. The first picture is looking south and the second is looking north, towards downtown.

While it was sunny and gorgeous out, it was still cold, so we didn’t walk on the beach. We enjoyed the view and headed back to Kosmos. What is so odd is that just a few blocks inland from the public beach is the neighborhood of expensive mansions. We just find it funny that the really high dollar houses aren’t on the water.

Yesterday we also hired someone to clean the bottom. We couldn’t believe it already needed to be done again! He scrubbed really hard on some of the more stubborn areas and completely removed all the bottom paint in those places. Sigh. We were hoping to put off the bottom paint a little while longer, but now we can’t. We’ll have to make that a priority when we get home.

Eric ran wing engine and generator for a while to keep them exercised. And we socialized like crazy. Eric went out to dinner with a group of cruisers last night. Christi’s allergies were bothering her so she stayed home. She knew that everyone in the restaurant would freak out at her sneezing and assume she had the flu.

Yesterday, the Mexican federal government announced a nationwide quarantine that starts tomorrow. We were planning to leave tomorrow night for a Saturday morning arrival, but since all the government offices are going to be closed tomorrow, we realized we needed to check out today and leave tonight, which will get us in a day early. Bummer. We have decided not to tell anyone. We don’t want to spoil our planned homecoming with this inconvenient little wrinkle.

It may be a blessing in disguise for a couple of reasons. With all the H1N1 flu hysteria, it is possible that we may have issues at customs in San Diego, so now we have all the time in the world to clear customs without worrying about being late for our own party. The other is that after doing an all night run we will likely be tired and out of it, so we will probably have a more enjoyable time with friends and family after a full night of sleep.

First thing this morning, we headed over to the Port Captain’s office to check out of the country. Then we checked out with the marina. Then we dug out the dress flags and got them all ready to be hung, which is a fairly big project. There is a particular order they go in. We attached to a rope and spaced them out just right to display all the flags.

Then we worked on getting the boat ready to go to sea. The longer you stay in port, the harder it is to get ready for sea. The longer we are in port, the more things we pull out of various lockers, disturbing the careful packing system. Repacking each locker so things don’t shift in motion takes a long time.

Eric noticed a bit coolant in the bilge water. He searched for the leak and found the culprit was a loose hose clamp. Fortunately, it was an easy fix. Eric washed out the bilge afterwards. Eric also rinsed the boat and put the bikes away.

Christi cooked most of the day. California confiscates just about everything fresh, so she cooked up food everything we had around that was likely to be taken, and froze all the meals.

By the evening, we had everything pretty well ready to go, except for the things that can only be done at the last minute. We went out for a farewell to Ensenada dinner and at 2200 took a two hour nap. We got up at midnight”¦.