During the night....

At about 2:00 in the morning I was awakened from a really good sleep by a rather loud and jolting thump.  As I lay in the bed trying to figure if I were dreaming or not, another bump shook the entire boat and I was up and in the cockpit in a flash.  I leave the GPS system running at night so that I can check my position whenever I need to at a moments notice...and with only a moments notice. I saw on the depth finder that we only had 18 inches of water under our keel.  As the boat bounced with the wave action we were hitting the bottom.  Holy cow: this is unacceptable.  As I began to process the scene I also noticed that the wind was blowing very hard, 25 knots on the wind speed indicator.  Sharon had arrived in the cockpit about the same time I did as the bump had awakened her also.  I fired up the engine, immediately put it in gear, and eased our way in the direction of where I thought the anchor might be;  I knew that deeper water would also be there.  I asked Sharon to take the wheel and to hold the heading as I worked my way forward to the windless and began to take in the anchor chain.  I noticed immediately that the snubber had come loose from the anchor chain and with the force of the wind had pulled a great amount of chain from the locker. We had drifted back on the anchor until we were in very shallow water.  As we took up the chain and Sharon eased us forward with the engine we soon returned to a proper depth; we both breathed a little easier.  I had originally thought that we had dragged our anchor and slipped along into shallow water  But after it was all over with I did not find that to be true.  The anchor seemed to be in close proximity to where we placed it which made me feel a little better.  I needed to look a little more closely as to why the snubber came loose.  This was totally unacceptable.

As we were busy dealing with our own problems we had not noticed how close the big sailboat had moved toward us.  As we got ourselves all sorted out and felt secure it became obvious that the big sailboat had dragged it's anchor and was now not more than 150 feet away.  The wind continued to build and we could see the whole underside of the big blue underwater lights of the sailboat as it bucked and pounded up and down in the churning water.  The wind seemed to be coming from all points of the compass. At one moment the wind would be from the North and we would swing to go head into the wind. The boat actually does that by itself; I don’t really participate in the boat's turning on the anchor, but I watch it very carefully.  Then the wind would shift by 90 or 120 degrees, and suddenly we were facing in a whole different direction.  When the wind blew in just the right direction Milagro and this big sailboat lined up with one another...way too close together to be comfortable.  I kept thinking that if he dragged anchor before, then he would likely drag anchor again, and there were no tolerances left for that.  I called the captain of the big sailboat on the VHF radio and I received an answer from another boat located in San Evaristo.  He said that he was on anchor watch also and was experiencing winds of 46 knots in Evaristo.  Wow, was I glad that we did not anchor up there.  Finally the captain of the big sailboat answered on the radio, and I voiced my concern to him.  He said he was aware that we were much closer now than we had been, and that he was watching it closely.  We agreed to watch one another and for the rest of the night I was on full time anchor watch.  I watched the wind build to 36 knots, and I watched the big sailboat as it pitched and pulled and looked ever threatening to my little Milagro.  But near dawn the wind began to diminish, and by the time the sun was up over the mountains the wind was calm, the water flattened, and I went to bed and slept like the dead.
 When I woke up near midday, the big sailboat was gone.

Salt flats, Isla San Francisco

We took that whole day, and explored Isla San Francisco.  We hiked all the way across the island to see the bay on the opposite side.  It was quite rugged and beautiful.  We crossed the flats where the accumulation of salt is cultivated in salt pits.  The fishermen cultivate these pits, and harvest the salt to cure the fish that they catch.  We had heard that people collect this salt and give it as gifts back home.  It is an unusual salt with a pinkish color.  I don’t know how my family would take to getting salt for a Christmas present.  I need to think about it some more.

Still tired from the previous night's excitement, I went back to the boat to rest and take a nap while Sharon hiked virtually every trail on the whole island, climbing every mountain, and taking great pictures of the bay and Milagro at anchor.