Haganes – In Conclusion –  26^th October 2011. – 20 40N – 105 17W

2 days out of Manzanillo, a company representative who had been sent out as scout from Florida advised that Manzanillo was not he most suitable place for us to consider a destination and that we’d be better off to head for Puerto Vallarta. The facilities there were more likely to be able to provide for our repairs and the refit the owners were hoping to do.

And so it was on the evening of 25^th October at around 11.30pm we steamed into a very dark and narrow entrance to the Nuevo Vallarta Marina, and tied up to the pre appointed dock, where under normal circumstances, we would have had a self congratulatory beer and retired for the night before going to report to the port captain in the morning. Having been advised however, that we had a Filipino crew aboard, we were met by no fewer than 15 officials from Customs, immigration, drugs enforcement, agricultural quarantine and whatever other government official decided to have a crack at us. Apparently coming into the country unannounced with a Filipino crew is not the way to endear yourself to the Mexican officials.

They, having satisfied themselves that we weren’t smuggling large quantities of whatever people smuggle into Mexico (I asked the guy who was trying hard to look like a navy SEAL, if he’d heard the _expression_ “Taking coal to Newcastle”, but apparently he hadn’t), then told us we had to leave Mexico immediately. This was my queue to declare the stop an emergency due to mechanical difficulties, and by 2 in the morning we had a double guard on the marina to ensure we could not leave the boat, and permission to stay only to effect repairs and leave.

After a few days John and I were given Visa’s and allowed off the boat and a few days later, the rest of the crew were given short term visas to enable them to leave by plane. The marina guard packed up their beach umbrella and went back from whence they came.

Before their visas ran out, Joel, Enrico and Carol flew out to San Francisco to catch a connecting fight back to the Philippines. Carol conveniently missed her connection and wound up back in Mexico with John. His help got her a Mexican residents visa and an American B1/B2 so she’s all set and John’s got himself a dependent who can talk under water!

I’d gone back to New Zealand by this time and Haganes was taken to Mazatlan where the owners commissioned Seni Ship Yard to do a major refit and give the old girl a new lease of life.

It was a shame that it ended they way it did for Enrico and Joel. I had a feeling all along that it might end in tears as I don’t think it would have mattered whether we went to Mexico, Panama or the US, the result would have been the same. Still they had their ocean crossing, 12,000 plus miles, and an adventure to boot. They say they wound up with some valuable experience and sea time which will help them to get a berth on another vessel. I wish them well, I enjoyed their company.

I'll update this with a couple of photos in due course.