We left Caleta San Juanico two days ago, on August 16. After the rocky night I last wrote about, things got nice and calm again. We took off for Bahia Santo Domingo, a 44 mile sail. That is a bit longer than the usual day sail, so we made it a point to leave early so as to reach the anchorage in daylight.
The sailing was pretty good - although the wind was right on our ass, requiring us to use a point of sail called wing-on-wing. I really don't like it that much. Believe it or not, having the wind at your back is not the most efficient way to sail. You want your wind just off the side and a little bit forward, at least for Magda Jean. Wing-on-wing is when you have the mainsail out on one side and pole your headsail out on the other side. Although we made good speed, the headsail tends to luff and make noise, and the ride is not as comfortable. But - we were making good speed, which is also often not the case with wing-on-wing. So I did not complain about it as much as I usually do.
As usual, we were towing fishing rods. But there was a problem in the form of brown boobies. I am a big fan of seabirds in general, and these are usually some of my favorites. But these guys were causing big problems by diving for our lures. So we did everything we could think of to scare them away. We yelled, waved our arms, and even blew an obnoxious air horn. Nothing helped. We took the lines in for awhile, hoping they would go bother another boat. They did leave, but as soon as we put the lines out again, back they came. And of course when they did get tangled up with the lures, it happened with both rods simultaneously. One set we were unable to pull in and had to cut the line - I have no idea what happened to the birds but I doubt it was good. Did I mention that two birds were caught on each line? We were able to pull the second line in, and one of the birds sort of fell off and took off. But one was still stuck. So Mike reeled him in (I know they were males, no self respecting female would get herself in that situation) and yelled for me to get a towel. I wrapped the bird's head in a towel, so he couldn't bite us while Mike got the hook out. It was a total bummer - the bird was struggling and I was really afraid I was going to strangle it by accident. Finally the hook came out and the bird flapped away. He looked okay to me, but maybe that was wishful thinking.
After a period of time had gone by and no more boobies seemed to be around, we put out the lines again and this time we hooked a fish. And not another skipjack - this was a dorado, about 10 pounds. We reeled him in and Mike cleaned and fileted him right there on the deck. I did ruin yet another white tee shirt with fish blood, but oh well - almost all my tee shirts are stained with either fish blood, sweat, or something.
When we got to the anchorage, we were delighted to find our friends on Sundancer already there. In fact, they called us on the radio when we were still about an hour out. (I love having people call us on the radio. In fact, we have gotten more radio calls than we ever had phone calls before we took off.) We made plans to have them over for dinner on the 17th to help us eat the dorado.
After a wonderful day of swimming and snorkling - the sea life is amazing in the Sea of Cortez - we had our friends over for a great party. I poached the fish and everyone liked it. We were up until after midnight just talking and laughing. The three of them killed off Mike's fancy tequila that he has been saving for just such an occasion.
We made plans to go on a trip to the Copper Canyon in October together. It was a truly wonderful party and it is great to have new friends.
We went to bed and I slept well, even though it is really hot, as I have talked about many times. When we got up, it was cloudy and Mike said he thought it might rain. I said "I will believe that when I see it." Then a bit later we heard some people a bit south of here talking about some bad weather in the making, and Mike expressed serious concern about the way the clouds looked. He told me he thought we needed to put the dinghy up on deck and get ready for whatever might be coming. We got the dinghy up in record time, I battened things down securely in the cabin, and we waited to see what would happen.
In about 15 minutes tops, it went from a gentle breeze to an extremely strong wind. We could see the wind blowing across the water towards us, and then it hit. The wind was so strong we felt the boat go over sideways. The waves kicked up, with spray blowing off the tops. Then it began to rain really hard. Luckily we thought to close all the hatches and windows, or the cabin would have been soaked. We could barely see our friends' boat which was only about 300 yards away because of all the flying water. We had to go below and monitor whether or not we were dragging anchor by watching our position on our chartplotter. It was really scary. Before they stopped working, our wind instruments showed winds of 50 knots. Mike kept saying he had never experienced anything like this, not even in the Navy. That was not reassuring to me! I am now living proof there are no atheists in foxholes, because I was praying we made it through without running aground into the rocky shore. The wind just screamed through the rigging, and the canvas protectors around the cockpit made this really angry sound I can't even describe. When I looked outside, everything was grey - water, air, rain, clouds - you couldn't tell where one stopped and another one started.
The storm lasted at that degree for about an hour, but it seemed a lot longer. Finally, we realized the wind was abating, and the seas seemed to calm a bit. Within 45 minutes, things were pretty calm again, and we were able to relax a bit. The only casualty seems to be our wind instruments, which us the wind speed and direction. If they don't come back up it will be a bummer, but not the end of the world.
I hope I don't have to go through that again, but we did not drag, we did not lose anything important, nobody got hurt, and our friends were okay too. We didn't even argue. I now know a little more about what the boat and I can handle. Hopefully I won't be so scared if there is a "next time" for this. I can really live without going through it again anytime soon, that is for sure
So that brings this blog up to date. We plan to leave tomorrow for Punto Chivato, which is about 20 miles away. After a day there and a meal at a wonderful hotel, we will leave for Santa Rosalia, where we will stay for few days while we reprovision. We are out of eggs, beer, and fresh produce except for a couple onions. The beer is the really important part, after all.
Since I am posting this by radio, I can't post any pictures, but trust me, we have some great ones taken while underwater and some pictures of the dolphins that swam next to the boat for quite awhile the other day. Right now Mike is installing some new LED lights our friends gave to us. They also gave us a new fan. I can hardly wait to experience the new fan! They have one like it and it works really well. I hope to have a more boring post next time!
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