No More ‘Waiting Room’ in Mexico

At the end of March, boats in the so-called ‘Waiting Room’  — the anchorage just outside Marina Puerto Escondido — were given 48 hours to move out. Lots of rumors have been circulating regarding the reason(s), so we asked the Marina directly what was going on. This is their response:

This is what happened at Marina Puerto Escondido on Monday, March 28th. API (Administraciones Portuarias Integrales, the Mexican Port Authority) is the legal owner of the concession for all the water in an area outside of Puerto Escondido, which came to be known as "the waiting room." There have been approximately 30 vessels moored or anchored in this area for many years. API has decided to vacate the area in order to undertake some environmental studies and determine if it is viable to keep boats moored in that area.

API asked Marina Puerto Escondido for support and we agreed to give all the waiting room boats a special rate if they moved to the MPE mooring field. We also have helped some vessels that needed assistance and towed them into a mooring ball. We gave them, for a limited time, a very special rate of only $100 USD monthly rate, which includes access to all of our services (showers, security, parking, dinghy dock and moorage at one of our mooring balls).

Our policy states that we cannot have any boats inside our marina without all their legal documents (temporary import permit, insurance, registration, etc). Many of the boats that were in the waiting room do not have their documents in order, but we still allowed them in for a limited time while they get their documents sorted out. Unfortunately, some of these boats do not have a holding tank so we won’t be allowing them to live aboard if they are inside the Marina. (This is a very strong policy for us, as we are dedicated to improving the environment in the Puerto Escondido area).

To clarify, Marina Puerto Escondido had nothing to do with [the eviction]. It was API’s decision and they simply asked us for support and in the spirit of being good neighbors, we have done our very best to accommodate everyone.

— Stenson Hamann, Marina Puerto Escondido

We will have more details on the Waiting Room situation in the May issue. If you have any thoughts on or knowledge of the situation in Puerto Escondido, please let us know.