Yo Ho Ho and Blow the Man Down

We ended last time when we finally got the boat into the water after 3 months of hard labor working on boat projects. What a joyful feeling!...even if (quite literally), we put down the anchor just around the corner from the boat yard. We spent a few nights in sight of the yard tuning the rig and making sure that there were no unexpected problems.

A friend still “on the hard” in the yard even sent us a picture of us floating happily at anchor. There we are to the left of the fishing boat fleet.

Not all boats are so lucky. Notice the sunken fishing boat between our boat in the fishing docks that didn’t quite make it home to safety.

After everything checked out on our boat we headed a few miles to Catalina Cove to anchor while awaiting a favorable weather window to head west across the Sea of Cortez.  Ah…she’s a beaut!

One of Lily’s favorite things while at anchor is going to shore. We never get there fast enough for her. Once we are close and it looks like the water is shallow, off she goes to explore!

There too was evidence of a rough season for fishing boats. We were there several days trying to figure out the strategy for whatever they were trying to do. There were divers, a big boat, a few smaller pangas and a couple of big earth moving tractors working on it in the time we were there with very little progress. At first we thought they were trying to drag it to deeper water to flip it right side up and float it, Then, it looked like they were making a road down to the water to drag it up on shore.

In the end, our weather window came before the sunken boat issue had been solved leaving us to wonder what ever happened. Our goal was a small one boat anchorage called Sebastin on the Baja coast Southwest of Guaymas. Sea lions waved wishing us well on our journey across the sea.

We all enjoy a beautiful sunset on the water.

We had some good winds and favorable seas turning the 24 hour sail into a 21 hour sail. You would think this is a good thing right? Not necessarily, we were planning on 24 hours to arrive at sunrise. Arriving at a small and unfamiliar anchorage before first light didn’t seem like a good idea no matter how tired we were. So, in spite of being desparate to set anchor and get some sleep, we held off until it got light enough to see. And what did we see?  There was already a boat at anchor at Sebastin. !!@%#@!! Sleep would have to wait. We set a coarse for about 10 miles (about 2 hours), further south with flat seas and light wind to Punta Pulpita.

As we set anchor a pod of dolphins were rustling up their breakfast in the bay.

Though that was the only picture we took of the dolphins, they were frequent visitors coming by several times a day feeding. Dolphins are serious hunters. When they are hungry they are focused only on the hunt, however, on a full belly they are quite curious. One day as we were headed back to the boat on our dinghy the dolphins came close and put on quite a show for us. Initially they were jumping out of the water gracefully arcing through the air while others were slapping their tails on the water. Each time the three of us were squealing with excitement and cheering them on. As they heard us they became more and more active putting on quite the show for us. As they heard our delight they became curious about us, popping their bodies straight up treading water to get a look at us. Seeing sea-life is always amazing and exciting, but this interaction is one for the books! While there is a part of me that wishes I had my phone with me at the time to get some great pictures, another part of me is glad that I just got to be 100% immersed in the experience and enjoyment.

While hiking on shore we came across tons of interesting “sea stuff” layered in the rock as well as lots of patches of beautiful crystals.

We enjoyed our time in the Pulpito anchorage and may have stayed there longer, however one evening we were forced to leave. In the evenings the winds would pick up causing some fetch and wrap around swell that had our boat hobby-horsing like a mechanical bull ride. But our holding was good (until it wasn’t), and it would calm down enough for comfortable sleeping as it got later. One night after I had gone to bed Jim was watching our anchor because we were dragging a bit. Many times when the anchor drags it will dig in and reset itself. In this case we were the only boat in the anchorage and probably had a 50/50 chance of either dragging off to sea (best case scenario), or dragging onto the rocks at the point (catastrophic). As he watched, he kept renegotiating with himself how far to let it drag in hopes of digging in. It never did. So just after midnight (why do these things always occur in the middle of the night?!), he woke me from a deep sleep to let me know we were dragging and needed to leave.

As I tried to clear the cob-webs from my brain I quickly put on some warm clothes to prepare for fighting the wind and sea to get our anchor up. After starting the engine I took my post at the helm while Jim went forward to pull up the anchor chain. To set the scene: It was completely dark (pre-moonrise) making it impossible to see the land, so I was relying completely on our compass and the GPS on our electronic charts to discern our position and direction. The wind was howling and the waves were slapping the hull making communication through the mere 32-foot length between the captain and myself very difficult. Even in calm conditions Jim pauses between the sets of sea swell to pull up the anchor chain. There are such extremely high pounds of pressure from wind and water pulling the boat away from the anchor in these extreme conditions making it impossible to pull any of the 120 feet (or so), of chain up by hand. Even using the hand crank windlass which gives mechanical advantage we needed additional engine assist by driving forward on the anchor. The anchor chain needs to be directly in front of the boat in order to haul it in, so Jim was using a combination of our typical hand signals (we had our spreader light on which casts a bright white light on the deck so I could see him), and shouting orders to know when to stop, when to go, and which direction to head. For my non-sailing readers, it should be noted that under these conditions the boat is not very responsive to our needs and commands. While not completely left to the will of the seas and winds, they certainly have a bigger influence on the boat than we do.

To make things more difficult (as if we didn’t have a big enough challenge on our hands), a necessary bolt in the windlass decided that it was time to loosen itself from its locking nut and fall out. Jim came back to the cockpit to calmly let me know that the windlass had broken, but that it was going to be okay. Based on nothing more than his calm demeaner I swallowed my instinctive panic to focus on the job at hand—wondering still in the back of my mind why he felt the need to immediately tell me about it if it was truly not a big deal. We fought Neptune for about a half hour before hauling the anchor on-board and heading out to sea.

When not attached to the ground by anchor and when safely heading away from land, all is well with the boat as she can handle almost anything (arguably much more than we can), while afloat. So, with Jim at the helm I headed down below to plot a course to an anchorage called La Lancha on Isla Carmen about 35 miles SSE. After about 9 hours we were safely anchored in calm weather and were ready for some much needed sleep before heading off again. Until next time…thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed!