Wish We Were There

San Carlos Marina

 

Winter is close and we should be heading to Mexico now, we want to, but our efforts have been foiled by the documentation process. We have paid for Gitana but we don't own her.

Its a long and complicated story full of ineptitude and deception. Now six, almost seven months, after our offer was accepted, we still don't have a boat or our money! The documentation service, an established and well-respected company which I will not name, released the funds to the sellers before the documents were verified and accepted by the Coast Guard. The sellers don't have any motivation at this point to cooperate so who knows if the necessary documents can be obtained.

You might say, "Well that's what you get for buying a boat in Mexico". But - the sale was completed in the United States by a US company and the sellers are in Southern California. This shouldn't have been all that complicated.

We contacted the Coast Guard to see where the boat was in the documentation process last week and they returned our email in less than 24 hrs. They informed us that it had been rejected back in August. Apparently the agent overseeing the process at the unnamed company had dispersed the funds prematurely and hadn't given the situation much attention since;  her boss didn't know what was happening. Once we brought it to his attention he had an "oh shit!" moment. He took over and is now "giving it my full attention". He assured us yesterday that he should be able to clear this all up - when? who knows. Not good enough. We gave him two weeks to either get acceptable docs to the Coast Guard or return our money (which will come from his own pocket or his insurance company).

I want the boat. I want to be in the Sea of Cortez. Hopefully, this will all work out and we will be leaving soon. All the other boats we considered have been sold so I would have to start all over again and spend another cold winter in Washington.

 

What I have to look forward to. Another Washington winter.