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Customs and Border Patrol arrived about 30 minutes after we called from the Police Dock in San Diego.  There were two in the team,  as seasoned officer and a rather large woman that seemded most interested in her cell phone calls.  We had given away all the fresh fruits, meats, dairy and vegetables and the mostly empty liqour bottles to our neighbors in Ensenada before leaving, all but one full bottle of Mexican Contory and a partial bottle of Almond Tequila.  When asked if we had anything to declare I advised we had a few cases of wine on board, mostly purchased in the US and brought south.  After looking in all the lockers and opening a few suitcases, and confirming we had no illegal immigrantts stored in the large deck cooler the fun began.   We had to line-up all thirty wine bottles and sort by country of origin.  The US items were ok, but those from other countries were suspect “because we did not have receipts”, even though purchased in the US.  I offered to pay whatever duty applied.  We had seven bottles of Mexican wine with Mexican tax stamps..  The allowance is only one per person – of any alcohol.  The “duty” calcualtion would be quite complex, since each foreign wine had a different fee associated with it.   Stephanie had left a package of unmarked diet supplement pills in the refer that were also an items of concern.  And we had a thorough review of the frozen package of ham slices, turned out it was packaged in the US and not opened so it was ok.   Eventually the more seasoned officer convinced the woman that it would be a lengthly task to calcualte all the various applicable duites and they waived any duty fee  and only $27.50 (processing fee) and sixty minutes after arrival we cleared customs.

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