Suicide or murder?

Suicide or murder?

I hate to hex our weather but looks like winter is winding down. We have been experiencing flat seas and water temps have been as warm as the high 70's for more than a week now.

The Sea of Cortez is coming alive. I was awakened last night by the sound of mantas slapping on the water and during the day from our beach deck we can see humpback whales breaching. Dorado are cruising our shorelines busting on large schools of ballyhoo and conditions are heating up. Also yesterday I saw my first carpenter bee of the year. Yes, a sure sign that spring is upon us.

Even with the calm weather there are not many boats fishing. I haven't heard anything about a yellowtail bite for a while but fishermen putting in the effort are scoring on dorado and an occasional striped marlin.

Back in November we were stopped in the Cabo marina by SAT the Mexican equivalent of the IRS and our boat importation documents were checked. It was quick and simple so I didn't think much about it.

A few days later negative press broke out in the US claiming seizures of hundreds of boats. The news spread like wildfire and I was contacted by many concerned boaters from as far away as Florida.

Normally I try to stay away from writing about this type of controversy. In this case my information was from first hand experience. I was compelled to respond and was quoted in several publications. It was a few Americans along with some newspapers that had over reacted.

Now the dust has settled and it appears my take on the situation was correct. Here is a quote published in a recent Gringo Gazette:
Hysteria over boat paperwork over

"Mexican officials have released almost all the boats they never impounded for lack of proper documentation. The truth is the boats were never impounded, but only put on a “precautionary embargo” and left in place. The owners only needed to comply with paperwork that was missing or incorrect. The Log newspaper, the Orange County Register, and Latitude 38 apparently just took the word of some boat owners who slipped into hysteria when they saw or heard of the uniformed and armed sailors coming around checking papers.
Each foreign owned boat must have a temporary import permit (TIP), and the sticker portion must be affixed to the vessel and the original must be on the boat. Additionally, the original coast guard document .A major point of confusion has been the temporary importation permit application form, which asks for a vehicle registration number rather than a hull identification number. Mexican officials mistake the VIN for the HIN, which American vessels are required to display in domestic waters on the right cab rail of their vessel. When Mexican officials see that the number does not match the official number on the boater’s form, agents infer that the boat lacks proper registration.
Because of these three newspapers’ sloppy/lazy reporting, recreational boaters were canceling slip reservations, sailboat race organizers were altering their course to avoid Mexican waters, and others postponed Mexico-bound regattas.
“Mexico wants the nautical tourism and, in the past, they’ve made it easy for boaters,” Richard Spindler of the Latitude 38 online sail boating magazine told the Register. “But this is suicide.”

We say maybe Mexico didn’t commit suicide, maybe the hysterical and ill informed U.S. media committed murder."

It is my opinion the papers named have commited the felony. The real crime is there is no way to hold them accountable for the damage done.



Who said February was the East Cape's coldest windiest month of the year?



Mark Rayor
teamjenwren.com
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