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.