The Boat Trip

After the 15 cases of beer, 18 blocks of ice, the food and supplies were loaded on the boat, we left the dock early Saturday morning, all in good spirits, ready for an adventure on the sea. We were barely out of sight of the marina, when we had a man overboard situation.
Well, it wasn?t a man overboard(thank goodness) but it was the boat hook which had become detached from its handle and which was essential in getting battens in the main sail up and down past the lazy jacks. Bud was standing on the deck with the handle in his hand, looking decidedly confused. I took the job of keeping my eye on the boat hook, while the rest of the crew started tending to the dinghy, and dropping the sail so we could come around to retrieve it. It was a classic move and we all performed admirably. If it had been one of us, we all saw that we were a good team, knew what to do in an emergency situation, and were definitely ready to sail together.
We had decided that we would skip over Espiritu Santo, since it was the weekend it would probably be more crowded and we were looking for that ?one particular harbor? where we would be alone. We wanted to make one stop on the way and pulled into Ensenada El Cardonal to take a hike over to the other side of the Isla Partida. An easy hike and well worth the walk when we reached the other side of the island with its shear cliffs and rocky beaches.
We had decided on Ensenada Grande thinking that surely with a name like that there would be plenty of room our 42? cat to be anchored with no close neighbors?.WRONG. The bay was full of power boats from La Paz, so we took the only almost private spot and dropped the hook. When the big power boat to our left, moved into another inlet, we were alone. Then in came this sailboat, which we had seen earlier floundering in very light winds with what looked like a lone sailor on board. We watched as he approached painfully slow and dropped his anchor almost exactly where the power boat had vacated. It was fascinating to watch him drop the anchor and sails all by himself. After securing his anchor, he donned his snorkeling gear, dropped over the side, and headed for shore. About that time, some jet skiers came flying by headed for just where we estimated him to be. We started yelling and motioning for them to slow down, fearing that they would run over the poor guy. They came close to the boat seeming to be trying to understand but as they grew closer, they started revving the motor and zigzagging in a pattern that rocked our boat. What a couple of jerks. They are illegal in the park but with no one around to enforce the laws, they were wrecking havoc on all the boats anchored in the area.
We had cheeseburgers in paradise planned for dinner from some Sonora molida and had all the fixin?s. About that time, the wind picked up a little making the grill a challenge to keep lit but we did finally have our burgers and were ready for bed. We were all kinda beat from all the prep work to get the boat ready, so fell into bed early. By 10 we were all up wondering what had hit us?..the corumuel winds. WOW. We rocked and rolled all night long, making sleep a hit or miss proposition. Being new to the boat I, for one, was very nervous not knowing if the anchor tackle was in good shape. Did the anchor alarm work. Fortunately, my husband has an anchor alarm on his GPS and once we set that, I got a little sleep. But all in all it was not a fun night nor a good way to start the trip. Everything that you have read or heard about those winds is true. I would estimate that they were a steady 45mph but that is a lot of wind when you are looking at shore thinking about what to do in the event that you start dragging anchor. We did figure out why the power boat left. It was not because of the ?bareboat? that intruded into their anchorage but the knowledge that it was a bad anchorage for the night. They had tucked into a spot with southern protection.

This is the first day report. It may be a while before I get the rest up as I have so much to do to catch up after being gone a week but I will eventually