Paul: now you see him, now you don't

October 16, 2012

Heading in to port for "last meal"

It is 1:30 p.m.; I think it is Tuesday. We have spent the last several days watching Paul, a late hurricane which at the moment may be headed straight for us. The reports have been wild and varied but no matter what, we are at this moment receiving a big blow and can expect more in the next few hours.  Larry and I are exhausted. We’ve been talking about what we would do if Paul came this

.Pedro's tortilla soup...mmmm

way and now we are as prepared as we know how to be. Wow, a very different feeling being on a mooring ball in the middle of Puerto Escondido with big winds predicted from being in a house with the shutters up and nothing to do but eat snacks and get ready to move to a safe room.  There is no safe room out here.

Ready for anything

We spent several hours this morning (coffee, no breakfast) tying off extra lines to the buoy, then removing deck level canvas, taking loose objects below and tying down all three sails and the larger items which had already been semi-secured to the deck…all in the pouring rain. At least it isn’t cold.

Larry on the bow during Paul

Now we sit below decks…or rather I do.  The Captain (and make no mistake, he is definitely the Captain) is in full foul weather gear, on the deck observing how the boat is moving about on its mooring. I am angry that he is above decks at all as the wind whips about ferociously; it seems we’ve done everything possible. My heart is pounding as I anticipate the next few hours and I keep reminding myself to breathe deeply---this would be a bad time and place to have a heart issue.

Waterfalls spring from the mountainside

Larry taps on the companionway door and tells me to look out; we are surrounded by waterfalls! Amazing! Water pours out from and down the sides of the mountains surrounding us. I peek out and try to take a picture or two from the companionway.

The worst part is the waiting. Every so often as the wind eases for a few moments I feel relief; but I know there will be another gust momentarily.  There is a driving rain which doesn’t abate, even for a moment. This area of the Baja suffered a 7 year drought until this summer; Then in just a few short months they fielded a number of drenching storms which has caused the desert to turn green, the arroyos become rivers and the roads to be either washed out completely or so full of potholes as to make drivers feel as though they are running the Baja 1000. The radio reports keep coming in from locals and we’re not sure what to believe.  Paul is going to make landfall here…or there...at 11:00 a.m. or at 2:00…winds will reach 80 knots in the port…or 25 to thirty. I know we are tied very well to the mooring ball, but the question is how well the mooring ball will hold during hurricane force winds.

Gusts get stronger and some boats report 45 – 50 knot winds. We rock about during those gusts and hear the boat groan as it strains against the lines. For me it is a heart pounding, adrenaline rushing experience. After 4 or 5 hours the gusts diminish somewhat and Milagro is no longer heeling 30 degree as the wind whips out of the west.  Oddly, the water within this port is not  very rough. The bay is surrounded on all sides by land, with just a 200 foot wide entry to the bay itself;  two “windows” to the north help prevent the fetch that occurs when seas build for a long way,  and there is relatively little wave action. I guess that is why Escondido is known as THE hurricane hole on the eastern side of the Baja.

After the storm...beautiful!

Evening falls. The wind diminishes although it continues to rain heavily. We now hear that Paul made landfall somewhere around Bahia de Magdalena and we find out several days later it was a severe hit: a boat belonging to friends of friends was wrecked there…no details, but a sad story nonetheless.

Heavy rains continue through the next day and we continue to have gusts which whirl us around on the mooring ball. As I go on deck periodically to see what is happening I observe a crazy dance of boats, maybe 50 or more, each bobbing and weaving as though performing an ancient tribal dance.

The calm after  the storm

The next couple of days everyone tries to regroup. We learn that roads between here and Tripuli and Juncalito are washed out and between the port and Loreto at least two bridges have been undermined.  There is no fresh water available…nor diesel…nor gas. The store and the restaurant run by a, garrulous young man named Pedro, a strangely six foot tall Mexican, are temporarily closed. We see lights in the port but they are probably run by generators.   Fortunately we filled our water tanks a couple of days ago and we don’t need either gas or diesel. So we just sit here,  like a houseboat on a lake, and enjoy the scenery and the calm weather for the next few days.

On to Puerto Escondido

October 12, 2012

We arise in the morning around seven. After coffee and listening  to morning net out of Loreto, we pull up anchor and  leave the AguaVerde, knowing it’s a place we will want to come back to. But business calls and we need internet and/or phone service and the closest place is Loreto, or the port 14 miles to the south, Escondido (hidden port). We expect a breezy but uneventful sail north but within an hour of our destination both winds and seas pick up reaching 20-25 knots and 8-10 feet. It is a best an uncomfortable ride as we are heading straight into the wind and it feels like catching a ride on a giant rocking horse.

But it gets worse. As we make the turn to go into to Escondido the wind is now blowing directly across the beam and we are heeling more than thirty degrees.  I can tell that Larry, who always handles situations with calm, is concerned as he stands down in the cockpit to steer from a safer position.  Buddi’s cage has been taken down from its hanger and moved below after bouncing across the pilothouse during one large wave. I go below too, quite frankly scared we will breach. We were woefully unprepared for this weather and items are careening and crashing below. Books bouncing out of book cases, boxes of medicine and extra shower supplies flying out into the galley, wine glasses crashing together: I try to grab things between rolls and stuff them into safe places. My biggest problem is one of our very heavy swivel chairs which had not been tied down and now crashes from side to side.Each roll is followed by a brief moment of calm before the next one hits us. My heart beats like crazy and my imagination goes wild.

It seems like an eternity but is probably no more than 45 minutes before we make a final turn, the seas calm dramatically and we glide into the port and begin looking for a place to anchor.

Agua Verde

October 11, 2012

Buddi enjoys the ride

Calm sea ahead

We slept in this morning then make the decision to head north to Agua Verde as norther was predicted for tomorrow. We were hoping to get to Escondido within a few days as we have business we need to conduct by phone and/or internet and we were concerned the norther might prevent us from getting there in time. If we get to Agua Verde this afternoon we should be able to make the 4-5 hour trip to Escondido before bad weather sets in.

The wind is already dead on our nose and only a few knots at that so we motor along at about 8 knots, enjoying the scenery and the cooler temperatures. We have seen very little sea life so far, a few sea turtles and fish “cooling” themselves in the shadow of our hull. This morning Voyager, who is somewhere ahead of us, announces they spied a pod of dolphins moving southward at a fast pace and showing no interest in playing with the sailboat as they often do. We scan the horizon hoping to see them as well but the dolphins must have veered off in another direction as we do not see them. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but not boring. The color of the water, the surprising green on these desert mountains (still seeing the Sierra de la Gigantia range to our west on the Baja), and the peacefulness of just being out on the water, away from everything and everybody, is wonderful. Larry isn't feeling well and goes below to take a nap. Or maybe he just wants to give me some  time and experience at the helm.

The desert is soo green after rare heavy rains

Pyramid rock at entrance to Agua Verde

We pull into Agua Verde around three in the afternoon and I am immediately won over. May I live here, pretty please?  The water in this cove is not nearly as pretty as Isla San Francisco's, but the surrounding hills, bright green  with some sort of red flowers sprouting here and there, are gorgeous.  There is a small fishing village here and a little tienda where you can get a few basic supplies. Ian, from the anchored boat Kasasa, dinghys by and we chat for a few minutes. He tells us he’s heard there is a fresh supply of fruits and vegetable at the tienda which sounds good to me, but as we will be leaving early tomorrow for Puerto Escondido we don’t want to bother putting our dinghy in the water.

Larry relaxes on deck

This was a difficult anchoring and it took us two tries as we were concerned about being too close to the  rock wall should we drift at all during what was predicted to be a night of strong northerlies. We sit on the deck for a bit then Larry goes below to start the water maker. After nearly a week off the dock we have used most of our bigger tank and will soon have to move to the smaller.  I fix dinner and we sit on deck enjoying the slight cool breeze. Our buddy boaters are complaining of noseeums and mosquitoes but we are, thankfully, bug free. They got into the anchorage before us and chose prime spots, better protected from the northerlies. Hah, the laughs on them. Tonight the breeze is minimal and the sea nearly flat but our position makes us less susceptible to insects.

Just before going to bed and the last (sniff) episode of Deadwood, Larry calls me on deck: phosphorescent jellies surround the boat, glowing bright green in the water. It is a magical, unearthly  display;  I could sit up here and watch all night.

More island fun

October 10, 2012

Another lazy day. I marvel at how we manage to burn a day doing practically nothing. I chide Larry regularly for being a workaholic, not being able to relax. But I find that I too have trouble leaving my New England work ethic behind.

Today is, apparently, visitor day. Sometime during the evening Copernicus pulled into the anchorage with Brian and Carrie, a couple from Vancouver, aboard. Brian dinghys over with a guest, ostensibly to introduce her but I’m pretty sure it was so Brian could play with  Buddi. Brian seems to be an all-animal whisperer and Buddi actually permits tummy rubs. Actually, she has become friends with several other cruisers (all men, I might add); it pleases me that others get to see her as we do.

Before Brian left Nickie paddled her new kayak to Milagro and I agreed to join her on the beach for some shelling. I picked up a few really lovely small shells and spotted a couple of other interesting things. There were thousands of dead grasshoppers in the shell line, obviously washed in from somewhere. I also spotted the skeleton of what was more than likely a moray eel. The skeleton was maybe 3 feet long and the head, with rows of needle like teeth, was intact. The head was shaped like a miniature Tyrannosaurs Rex. Local lore has it that there is a free swimming 10 foot!! Moray eel that lives in the bay and some of the other boats were hoping to encounter it. Uhhhh, not me. I was satisfied with snorkeling near the boat where we saw big fat pencil fish and several others I have not yet identified.

This afternoon Larry and I rested, then he completed attaching the hoses to our hooka system and trying it out with his weight belt after some advice from Bill on Voyager.

That evening we were invited aboard Voyager for wine and a viewing of the space station as it moved past us, close to the horizon. However, we had the time wrong (trying to account for info out Arizona which is not on daylight savings time) so missed it entirely but nevertheless had a good time talking and eating (Julie writes a blog on marine cuisine and fixed fresh spring rolls…yummo), dingy back to our boat around ten and off for a good nights sleep.