CHANGES claimed they had paid cash for their berth each month, some as far back as three years. The marina figured the only sure way to determine who had paid and who hadn't paid was to write to each tenant and ask for receipts for their berth payments. Perhaps this wasn't the most diplomatic way for the marina to address the problem, because it resulted in some very angry tenants. In some cases, the timing couldn't have been worse. One tenant received his letter the day before he was to sail to La Paz, where he had prepaid to have his boat put on a Dockwise yacht transport ship for the passage to Canada. Unfortunately all his past receipts were at home up in the frozen tundra. So he reluctantly paid a sizeable lump sum, and in turn was given a letter from the harbormaster assuring him that the money would be returned as soon as the receipts were submitted. I was told this offer is available to all tenants Harbormaster Ruiz says the total number of boatowners originally listed as being in arrears was 24. To date, 11 of these boatowners have shown the marina their receipts, and are now free and clear. There are only nine boats that have yet to be cleared. Of this group, five are up north, and say they will be showing their receipts upon their return. Four have yet to be reached. The marina says they understand, and will wait until these boatowners have a chance to get their receipts. The audit showed that there were also four boats that were so far in arrears that the boats may have been abandoned. The tenants I worry about are the ones such as myself who tend to misplace or not keep receipts for long. Harbormaster Ruiz told me that he understands, so if there is an occasional missing receipt Latta says the last thing Mazatlan — which is much loved by both residents and cruisers — needs is any more negative publicity.
from years back, he's willing to call it even. After all, he knows how important the reputation of the marina is, and he wants to keep clients and not scare potential ones away. The one good thing to come out of the mess is that the harbormaster's office has been restaffed, and with what seem to be some very competent people. In addition, a new computer accounting program has been installed, one that coordinates the marina with government tax and banking requirements. So from now on, each monthly receipt will indicate all the appropriate information. So there you have it. The light at the end of the tunnel is only nine boatlengths away, and hopefully there will soon be no more shadows. As to what started the whole fire drill, which according to the auditors is a missing $67,000, there's a saying south of the border: "IMS. It's Mexico, Señor." — mike 07/15/12 The 'New Ensenada'? Hotel Coral & Marina The Guadalupe Valley Sano's Restaurant Thanks to often inaccurate media reports about narco violence, a bad apple in the Immigration office, a lack of clarity on the new 'offshore visa' law, and a drop in new boat sales in the United States, marine-related tourism in Ensenada has been hurting. So when the folks at Hotel Coral & Marina invited the Wanderer and Doña de Mallorca to see another side of Ensenada, we took them up on it. The hotel's driver picked us up in a sparkling new van at the West Marine superstore in San Diego, and we headed south of the border. The last time we'd done that was on a surfing safari the day after we graduated from high school in '66. We'd thrown the surfboards in the back of a friend's El Camino, bought a carton of Camels for sustenance, and taken off down the road to what back then was a very foreign country. As we'd expected, a lot has changed along the northern Baja coast in the last half century. First of all, the road, which follows a more interesting coastline than that along Southern California, is now excellent. The second big change is the number and style of ocean-view
homes. From the look of things, about 10 years ago half the population of California had a couple of drinks, sketched out their gigantic dream ocean-view home on a bar napkin, then had it built in northern Baja with little or no supervision. While there are exceptions, most of the homes along the road to Ensenada are a powerful argument for zoning laws and architectural review boards. And we're not even talking about the bunch of condo towers that were half completed before the money and developers ran out. The drive was Mexico looking like the stereotype of Mexico — until we pulled into the considerably more upscale Hotel Coral & Marina grounds, which are a couple of miles shy of central Ensenada. We were enthusiastically greeted by our hosts Cinthia, Fito, and Lizette. It seems as though de Mallorca had somehow gotten to them, for they checked us into the luxurious Honeymoon Suite on the top floor. The spacious suite had multiple