We took Tack to the vet today to get his International Health Certificate. This is something we tried to do in Portland, not realizing that you have to do it a short time before you travel. This led to two unnecessarily traumatic experiences for Tack in Portland (lots of poky things stuck in uncomfortable places). Fortunately, the Portland vet, realizing the IHC would no longer be effective by the time we reached the Mexican border (seeing as we travel really slowly), gave us a refund and offered us a bilingual health certificate instead.
We decided to go to the vet today in Marina del Rey since it is within walking distance (about 1 mile) from our dock and it’s called The Cat Practice (it’s like it was set up just for us). This is much easier for everyone involved, since it doesn’t involve a dinghy ride with a hydrophobic cat. Tack was incredibly chill the whole ride there and back despite the less than glamorous mode of transportation (however, I think he prefers the wheely cart to our car).
Nice ride.
A couple of things to think about if you ever decide to take your cat on your boat out of the country:
- You need to have an International Health Certificate within 10 days of setting ground on foreign soil. For us, this got the timer ticking. We have to be in Ensenada by the 6th of December for this certificate to be legit. The certificate says that it is valid for 30 days, but the USDA says 10. Several friends who have traveled across international waters with their cats (at least on the West Coast) have told us that no one even looked at their paperwork, but we don’t want to risk it with our little guy.
- Most paperwork we have filled out on behalf of Tack requires a destination address, which is difficult if you don’t have a destination and they weren’t gonna be loosy goosy and say something like “the Sea of Cortez.” We just used the address of a marina in Acapulco, since it’s pretty far south.
- We have a domestic micro-chip, but it may not be readable everywhere we go. The Portland vet recommended that we get the international/universal micro-chip. We decided that this was probably overkill given that most people don’t obsess over their pets nearly as much as we do in the United States and won’t rush to scan his microchip…plus, what will do once they’ve scanned it? We hope that his tag will provide sufficient identification.
- We got a bilingual health certificate, but I’m not actually sure what it does or if it’s necessary. I figure that more paperwork won’t kill us (though it’ may sting the checkbook). We also have three pieces of paper saying that he got his rabies shot.
- I guess California and some parts of Mexico have superfleas that have become immune to regular Advantage. If you let your kitty off of the boat (and back on the boat) in an area with grass, it’s probably best to equip them with Advantage II (the new and improved formula). We have no interest in cultivating a flea colony in our tiny home.
International Health Certificate 
Bilingual Health Certificate