Ep. 6 - Steve and Peggy...How we found San Carlos

Expat Experience - Steve and Peggy

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[00:00:24] Work from anywhere set up or hunting for your ideal vacation escape. This podcast is your compass to navigating the exciting journey to San Carlos, Mexico living. Get ready to turn your relocation dreams into sun soaked reality.

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[00:01:13] Steve Leonard: Yeah. I started working on boats and then transitioned into being a manufacturer's rep. Uh, mainly 'cause I wanted to do my vocation and my vocation and that worked out pretty good. 'cause I, my expertise became in Powerboats and my recreation was sailboats. And so I went, did not ruin the sailing experience because I was, you know, working at and playing at it all the time.

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[00:02:04] So we bought a new boat and made plans to sail around the world. And initially to go to Mexico and then to the South Pacific. And then we decided once we were in Mexico that, uh, gonna, the South Pacific was, is, wasn't gonna work for us. And so Peggy found a house in a community called San Carlos, which is in the state of Sonora.

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[00:03:04] And so we wanted to be in a marina year round. And so San Carlos satisfied that requirement. They had a deep enough marina for us to get into. And the San Carlos Marina is a very good hurricane hole. Okay. And the summer we bought the boat, we actually went through a fairly big tropical storm here and the boat fared fine at the marina.

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[00:03:54] In terms of underwater obstructions, sand bars, and, uh, title [00:04:00] shift daily. So I don't know if you've ever sailed in any areas where you had to contend with that. Uh, if you have, how does that compare to the sea of Cortes?

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[00:04:29] And it is actually fairly treacherous navigation. We have, uh, rocks. We have current flow that goes as high as probably six, seven knots. You have to time the passage through, um, rapids and narrow passages, you know, 'cause there that's some of the places that'll push you backwards. They're, they could Wow.

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[00:04:57] Robert DeForge - Host: technical sailing That's [00:05:00] very technical. Very technical, yeah.

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[00:05:21] Pretty much standing watch. And while you're standing watch, you can be reading a book. You know, Peggy would listen to music or podcasts and, uh, you about every 10 to 15 minutes you look up and you take a look around and make sure there's no boats for anything like that coming around. And, uh, it was pretty relaxed.

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[00:05:58] Robert DeForge - Host: I bet. I bet. [00:06:00] So Steve mentioned podcasts, listening to podcasts on the boat.

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[00:06:08] Peggy Leonard: No, that was before starlink and before wifi was available on the day. Oh. So what I would do is I would download a lot of different content. And then I would have it saved on in my PC or in the memory in my phone. And one of the things I'd like to add, in addition to when we do the crossings and when you're in Mexico, one of the things that you did have to look for and be attentive of when you were doing the crossing from La P to Port of Vallarta or LA Cruise was dodging sea turtles.

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[00:06:47] Robert DeForge - Host: Never heard of that before. I know there's a, a lot of wildlife and, uh, what did Jacque Csau say about the Sea of Cortez? He called it the world's Aquarium. He, he said it was his favorite body of water. And of [00:07:00] course he's, he was a person who did research all over the world.

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[00:07:12] Steve Leonard: Uh,

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[00:07:15] Peggy Leonard: Where From La Pa.

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[00:07:21] Robert DeForge - Host: just to get to the other side. Say to, uh, co conception or somewhere like that.

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[00:07:30] Yes. Okay. We would leave, we would leave in the middle of the night from here and, uh, we did that so that we'd arrive over on the ba hog with daylight so we could see where we were anchoring and. Get settled in before it settled down. It wasn't real. It was an overnight sale, but it was, you know, about a 10 to 11 hour sale.

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[00:07:56] Steve Leonard: No, but we were pretty safety conscience. [00:08:00] We, you know, we have a life raft on the boat. We have an e perb, which is a satellite locating beacon, which is like dialing 9 1 1 and it's automatically activated. Uh, we had personal. Man overboard beacons that were activated. Um, when you inflated your life jacket, that would put out a tone signal over the VHF radio and then show up on the a IS on your chart plotter right on the location of that person.

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[00:08:36] Robert DeForge - Host: Did you two ever have any fears of. Let's call it unwanted boardings.

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[00:08:45] Steve Leonard: no.

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[00:09:00] And he wanted gas. Well, we don't have any alcohol on the boat, so we didn't have any gas to give him. So I gave him a couple of bottles of water and sent him on his way. And that was the most extreme of anything. And you know, he went, he thanked us and off he went to get beer from somebody else.

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[00:09:23] Couple gallons of water. 'cause we had a water maker on board for some, uh, rockfish that a couple of divers had gotten, but they didn't have any water and so they gladly gave us two fish for two gallons of wonder.

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[00:09:44] Things like that. I mean, you can't get any fresher than that. I asked the question about, uh, unwanted boardings. 'cause every now and then you'll, you'll see something pop up every few years about a, a person that disappeared, that kind of thing. [00:10:00] And then stories are created around that. But I've never heard anything personally from anybody at the yacht club or.

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[00:10:28] Steve Leonard: Yeah, we haven't, we haven't experienced anything and we have not heard secondhand from somebody that has experienced the boarding in the Mexico area or heard of it, uh, that it does go on. I have personal friend, his, uh, son and um, daughter-in-law. Were boarded in Panama by college and they, they were, uh, pistol whipped and everything was stolen off the boat plus the dog.[00:11:00]

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[00:11:22] Everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

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[00:11:34] Peggy Leonard: Um, well, our first stop in Mexico when we left San Diego was of course, and Sonata. And that's a mandatory stop because you're checking into the country of Mexico.

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[00:11:56] Steve Leonard: Right.

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[00:12:12] We decided to forego Cabo San Lucas because at the time there was some exorbitant marina charges to stay in the marina just to tie up to the dock, and it was just a large and not. Really what we needed. Um, and then from there we sailed up to La Paz, and along the way, Steve caught a beautiful tuna. And then we inadvertently spent approximately two months in La Paz because Steve had fallen down the companion way and dislocated his shoulder.

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[00:13:11] I did some volunteering with the Catholic Orth orphanage. Um, and then from there we had taken a few day trip or weekend trips to go up to Spirito Islands, which is lovely. And once we felt confident that Steve was ready to sail and his shoulder had healed, we had sailed First to Mazatlan, correct?

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[00:14:04] Worked our way to Port of Ata and then we did an another overnight passage down to. Tita Bay, which is just a bay, but it's reasonably protected. And that's a nice sailing community with several cruisers. And, um, they have a, a, a regimen. And you can talk about the, all the activities there.

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[00:14:36] If you wanna participate, you swim ashore.

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[00:14:39] Steve Leonard: And there's a little river that's a, um, a river cruise if you wanna take it near dingy. And it's an easier way to get onto the beach. There's a slight surf break on the beach, and a lot of the cruisers, they'll swim ashore. And once they're ashore, they, whoever wants to play, um, bocce ball [00:15:00] and, you know, they'll get.

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[00:15:29] And so they sit there, you know, for another couple hours drinking and eating, and then everybody goes back to their boat and takes their siesta. So it's, it's quite the lifestyle. That's a rough life, Steve, isn't

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[00:15:43] Steve Leonard: Yeah. Yeah. And then once a week, instead of rafting the boats up, they have a dinghy raft up.

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[00:15:57] Robert DeForge - Host: sounds like fun.

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[00:16:11] A lot of boats anchor in what they call the lagoon, but it wasn't nearly deep enough. We draw 10 feet and so our key, we couldn't get into the lagoon with our boat, but it was nice because you could do some shopping. If you needed to go to a larger community, you could go to Monzano. Uh, Barra. Navada was perfect for.

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[00:16:57] For another week or however long was [00:17:00] necessary before the weather cleared. Right, right. And then we would start adding back north.

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[00:17:18] And so most people wait until late in the um, spring to head back north once the southerly. Flows, settles back in.

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[00:17:43] Steve Leonard: W Well, so after the first year we had a car down here.

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[00:18:21] And there was a house for sale there, and Peggy's always been interested in real estate, and I'm always interested in what his waterfront costs in different parts of the country or on the west coast. And so there was a sign on his house for sale. And so Peggy took a picture of it and called and left a message and nobody called her back.

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[00:19:15] And I. We had decided that we were gonna send ship our boat back or get our boat back to the northwest because it's got some of the best, I consider some of the best cruising. It's least in the top five in the world. 'cause it's, it's great.

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[00:19:31] Steve Leonard: And so Peggy's dropping the laundry off. I'm not with her.

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[00:20:01] And so she talks Peggy to come in and look at the house and meet the owner. And she goes through the house. And she falls in love with the location of the house and the house. And it's, and the pool. And the pool and it's Aza style home. And so she comes back and says, oh, you gotta see this house. Well, I'm more focused on putting the boat away 'cause we've gotta take all the sails off, all the running, rigging, cover all the plastic and the.

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[00:20:56] I'm seeing the location's beautiful. And I'm going, yeah. [00:21:00] Okay. Yeah. And, and then I, but I want to get back, get the trailer hooked up so we can leave tomorrow morning. And so we drive north and we're talking about it and Peggy, oh, this is great house and all this kind of stuff. And I said, well, let's go up to Paston, Arizona.

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[00:21:42] Peggy turns around, goes and gets in the car, and waits for me to get that ton talking to 'cause Peggy does not like snow or cold. Okay, and so then I had Peggy Research finding a real estate agent, and I'll let you kind of take it [00:22:00] from there on.

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[00:22:15] I had this idea. I approached Steve, we were still on the boat, and I said, Steve, I think that we need to consider getting a travel trailer because when we were off the boat, we were homeless. We, when we went back to the northwest and we left the boat in Mexico, our home was the boat. So when we were gonna go back to the northwest for the summer, we didn't really have a plan of where we were gonna stay.

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[00:23:05] And it's, it's been a great decision. It was a great purchase. So when Steve talks about the trailer and getting ready to go after the first season down here, we had the travel trailer, so that was our home when we weren't on the boat. Um, but so there's the logistics of. The boat, the trailer, and now the house.

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[00:23:58] Fortunately, we [00:24:00] understood that before we started this purchase. And, um, there were some complications with this specific property, but they eventually did get worked out. Um, it took a few years, but, uh, so I don't know if you wanna edit that in about the trailer and, you know, and it really benefited us because we didn't have a home.

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[00:24:29] Robert DeForge - Host: Yeah. Furniture and whatnot. Things that you can't get or that you're used to from living in the states, you might have more difficulty. And because we live here in San Carlos and we're only four hours to the border.

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[00:24:54] Peggy Leonard: coincidentally, you brought up the cargo trailer and, let's see. [00:25:00] We bought our house in 2018 and we rented it out for a few years in the summer season, which, uh, was very successful.

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[00:25:25] Steve Leonard: yeah. So if anybody's contemplating, you know, going sailing or going, taking down the RV life and you have this, uh, collection of things that you collect over your life, even though you try to weed out as much as you can, you gotta store it.

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[00:26:15] And we packaged it up into this container and then we didn't look at it for probably three years. Mm-hmm. So this furniture that's in there, and so you gotta store the container someplace. And the company we bought the container from will store it for you for a hundred dollars a month. And so each month you're paying a hundred dollars for this container.

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[00:27:02] Down to here. And the, it was a fairly expensive ordeal. So I decided that I would buy a cargo trailer. And so we ended up with a 24 foot, um, car hauler and we loaded the, so we bought that and then we went down to the trailer. And when we opened the trailer, um, we were very pleasantly surprised. 'cause after, what, five or six years?

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[00:27:31] Peggy Leonard: you had to open the trailer to get your clubs.

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[00:27:42] Robert DeForge - Host: That's a miracle. That's a miracle. Yes.

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[00:27:53] And then, so we put it in that I, we, I had a Tahoe that I was towing it with. And a little side note is that. We got [00:28:00] up to, I weighed and we were at about 6,300 pounds. The Tahoe's limit is 6,500 pounds and we got up to Anacortes and we continued to put things in it to take to Mexico. And so I, the, the Tahoe and I go to position the Tahoe to hook it up and it wouldn't back up to the trailer.

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[00:28:48] And we go, what are we gonna do? And so I called the garage and I knew the guys, and they said, well, if you bring it down, we'll put it on the scope. We'll look at it. We did that. No, no error codes, no [00:29:00] nothing. There's nothing wrong with the transmission the whole time we're driving down, there's no problem with the transmission.

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[00:29:29] And so we ended up buying a three quarter ton pickup and uh, ended up shipping the Tahoe down and I've yet today had any issues with that transmission. The Tahoe just did not want it. Hauled the cargo trailer all the way to Mexico. So we bought to get our furniture down here. And why it's the most expensive furniture in Mexico is that we bought a pickup truck.

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[00:29:58] Robert DeForge - Host: Well, I don't know if Tracy will watch [00:30:00] this podcast or not, but when we met very similar story. She'd gone from a large house to a, uh, much smaller house and had essentially a container full of. Enough furniture to fill this large house that she came from, and we wound up having it shipped to our warehouse for our business and opening it up, and we ended up having an auction to sell off all these things that didn't really fit our lifestyle.

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[00:30:59] But [00:31:00] yeah, coming down people said, what about the cost of, you know, import, you know, customs when you come across the border? And I said, yeah, it was pretty rough. I think it was $21 and 70 cents that they charge me for, for all the belongings in the world that I, that I have So. Anyway, but so you're down here and you've been here for a while now.

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[00:31:30] Peggy Leonard: Typically it's six months a year, but every year it varies depending on what our commitments are. And our summer sailing schedule is in the northwest.

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[00:31:54] Steve Leonard: Oh, yes. At first,

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[00:32:24] Uh, so obviously like everybody, we've seen a significant increase in the cost of everything. Um. We enjoy the, the close knit community and we've made some very good friends. Um, you know, we can't beat the weather. That's, no, that's what you're, and with the location of our house, uh, we're reminded when we go to other people's homes and if they're facing more of a, what would that be?

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[00:33:16] Um, and they all have varying degrees of, uh, food menu options and service and quality. Uh, it's a big benefit to be able to get in the vehicle and like you mentioned before, within four to five hours, be back up into the United States for whether it's an emergency

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[00:33:43] Peggy Leonard: that Yeah.

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[00:33:52] Robert DeForge - Host: Yeah, it's, it's where it really, uh, benefits to have somebody that knows the ropes here and [00:34:00] can kind of guide you and say, you don't want that. This is the direction to go.

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[00:34:23] Steve Leonard: Yeah.

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[00:34:26] I've been there. I'm gonna include some shots of your, your view that you have there when we put this out. But it's a, it's a gorgeous place and I know you enjoy it tremendously. And you're headed north, what, next week or a week after Tuesday? Tuesday. That's coming Tuesday. Okay, so give us your sales pitch for San Carlos.

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[00:34:53] Peggy Leonard: Oh, you're putting me on the spot. Um, I. You know, for, for those that want to live in [00:35:00] Mexico and in San Carlos, it's certainly more affordable than the states. And again, because of the relative ease of access to commute back up to the border, you do have that freedom and flexibility, whereas if you're further.

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[00:35:50] And you know, I get, I get sad when the end of the season comes and it's time to pack up and head back north. But then again, you know, we have a [00:36:00] wonderful lifestyle on the boat and. That's, uh, every much is enjoyable.

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[00:36:16] It's hot, but it's quiet and very laid back, you know, because a lot of the population has left now. We get the Mexicans on the weekends, you know, for vacation, stuff like that. But primarily it's, it's really kind of nice for. For a while, we get a break from the hustle bustle, you know? So anything else you guys want to add to, uh, to kind of let people know about, about the area?

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[00:37:10] I've met some unique individuals that have, you know, history have accomplished a lot in their lives and that are people that would give you the shirt off their back, um, if you needed it, and are very giving people. And so the people is what's kept me here. And a good example of that is that there's probably four individuals that San Carlos Pickleball community was gonna lose the use of their course that they had.

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[00:38:06] And you know, there was a lot of other people involved, but there was probably four people that contributed the 75 to 80% of the funds that were used to accomplish it. And so it's, uh, and it's a great addition. It's probably the second biggest magnet for people coming to San Carlos right now. 'cause our golf course is basically a gravel pit.

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[00:38:38] Peggy Leonard: still, is it still considered the largest pickleball court in all of Latin America?

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[00:38:44] Peggy Leonard: Yeah, it is, I think, has 14 clicks, correct?

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[00:38:51] I meet people all the time that come here that are from, from all over the world, and they come here just to play pickleball on those [00:39:00] courts. It's pretty amazing. Yeah,

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[00:39:16] Another thing, aside from pickleball that I really like, or just the, the attraction, like the, is it called the Miramar, the lookout. Mi

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[00:39:28] Peggy Leonard: the mi door, mi door out by Marina Real, it's just, it's a beautiful place. It doesn't cost anything. There's some stands if you want refreshments, and you can just sit and enjoy the view.

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[00:39:54] Robert DeForge - Host: Yes.

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[00:40:10] Um, some, the locals of course know that the sea turtles migrate and come to shore to lay their eggs in the summer and in the fall. And there's a wonderful community that supports the sea turtles and preserving the eggs so they hatch safely and can swim back out into the sea. Um, there's other marine con cons, conservation.

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[00:40:59] And [00:41:00] I think that's wonderful. Um, there's never a shortage of things to do in San Carlos. If you wanna be involved, if you wanna volunteer, um, we have. Ti, which is an ambulance and a small scale urgent care facility. Um, and that's unique, especially when you compare that to other small town, small town, small communities of Mexico.

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[00:41:27] Peggy Leonard: and we have a hospital here in San Carlos, I think it's called San Jose. Mm-hmm. Hospital. It's a fantastic

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[00:41:52] Quicker than it would've been in the States in terms of trying to see a specialist and that kind of thing. So that's been [00:42:00] wonderful. Well, thank you guys so much for sharing, uh, parts of your story and uh, it's good to see you and we'll see you really soon.

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[00:42:10] Robert DeForge - Host: Thank.

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