Bahia San Pedro

Thursday, June 23, 2011

028-3.120 N
111-14.520 W

Ahoy from Bahia San Pedro!

It's been a long day, so while I still have energy, I'll sit down and describe what occurred today. We decided that we would leave at around sunrise so that we could make the 14 mile passage to Bahia San Pedro before the winds and seas cranked up. Good idea, but Mother Nature didn't seem to have read the memo. The winds started out very light out of the SE (our direction of travel), but the seas were 3'+ on the nose. Fairly quickly the winds picked up out and we were bashing into 3-5' seas and we had 20+ kts on the nose.

We tried to listen to the SSB Sonrisa weather report, but propagation wasn't very good. What Sue did hear was that a low pressure cell would be crossing the area. Shortly thereafter we saw a dark line of clouds working it's way towards us. The winds increased to 25+ kts, but we were only a couple of miles away from the anchorage. Suddenly the engine shut down! I ran forward and got the jib ready to raise. We got it up and began sailing, but between the wind angle and an incoming tide pushing us the wrong way, we weren't making good progress.

I went down and checked the engine. It appeared that we were out of fuel. I couldn't understand this at all, as I keep copious records and know exactly how much fuel we burn per engine hour. I also know out generator consumption rate and per my calculations, we still had 15 gallons left. Not that any of these calculations mattered at this point. The engine was down and we had to make it into this anchorage.

We only had the jib up and you can't point well into the wind with just a jib. Sue hates it when we're heeled waaaay over, but we had to get the main sail up. Thankfully she was aware of this, so when I said that we needed to raise the main, she didn't argue. The problem is that you typically raise the sails with the boat pointed directly into the wind. Without an engine, we couldn't do that. So, with the jib driving as close to the wind as it would allow I let the boom out so that it was dead into the wind and raised the main with a double reef in. Once I had the main up, we were doing 7+ kts and steering much higher than with just the jib. We headed outward for 3 miles until I felt that I could tack and make a single tack into the anchorage.

As we headed towards shore, the low pressure line came through. We saw 34 kts true wind, which even with a double reef in the main, laid us over. We constantly saw 30 kts as we bashed our way through what were now 5' seas. I kept us as close into the wind as I could and got us to entrance waypoint for the anchorage. Now remember, we've never been in here before and the guide says that you have to head down the middle of two rocky points and then swing into the anchorage. Without an engine, I had one shot at this and I hit it out of the park.

While we're doing this, there's a helicopter flying back and forth over us, which is totally freaking Sue out (not that she wasn't worried to begin with). Plus, there was a Mexican Marine Rescue boat in the bay checking out what appeared to be an overturned boat. I tried to ignore all of this and just worried about avoiding any rocks and finding us a sheltered place to anchor. We slid past the windward point and the 3-5' waves died down. Unfortunately the winds did too, so we lost our ability to sail. I coasted as far as I could and then we dropped anchor as the Marine Rescue boat was passing by. We flagged them them down and managed to communicate that we needed fuel. They understood and radioed our need to someone.

Unfortunately we weren't sufficiently out of the incoming waves, so we had to get the boat into a more sheltered location. To do that without the main engine we had to use the dinghy, so we dropped that into the water. Getting the dinghy down was with BlueJacket rolling gunnel to gunnel very difficult, but getting the motor down was much tougher. It's on an arm that's on the port side of the boat, so when the boat is rolling side to side, there's probably a 6' difference between the low and the high side of the motion. The motor weighs 85 lbs, so you can imagine what it's like lower and control such a heavy object that's flailing about. Somehow or another we got it down without any serious injury. I then used the dinghy as a tug to position us out of the swell.

While we were doing this, the Marine Rescue vessel told us that they'd take us to a fuel dock to get fuel. After we moved, I hopped on their boat (basically like any US CG harbor boat) with three (3) 275 HP motors on it. They took me to San Carlos, which was 22 miles away. I'm not sure what we didn't go to Bahia Algodones which was only 11 miles away and had a marina. Let me say, 850 HP is impressive, but can make for a rough passage as you fly over and bash into waves...Anyhow, we got fuel and they delivered me back to the boat...all for free. Nice guys!

Tomorrow we'll probably head to Bahia Algodones, which will hopefully be uneventful.

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser:

We anchored in the SE corner in about 30' MLW over sand. Good holding. Winds are very flaky with the coming from all directions during the night. At various points a good swell would enter. We had a stern anchor out to keep us into the swell. The beach was nice and the shelling was fair.

Log ID: 1460