Figured out last night that there are one, maybe two, storms brewing south of Baja that could be a problem for us so we are heading north quickly. Skipped Isla San Francisco and stopped at San Evaristo which is a small fishing, goat herding, and salt drying town of 300 on Baja proper.
Long sail tomorrow to Puerto Escondido, 65nm north, where we can weather whatever is coming.
We left San Evaristo a little after 5 AM in pitch black dark. Thank God for instruments and our inbound track! Shortly after we were out in the channel a whale surfaced and blew within a few feet of the boat and Theresa about had a heart attack! We couldn’t see it of course but it made quite an impression.
Made good time to this excellent hurricane hole. Some very large, very nice boats in the marina and about 20 unattended sail boats on mooring balls. As we came in we saw that SV Delos, the original sailing channel and YouTube royalty, is anchored just across the way. Tropical depression 11 E (as of this moment) is going to pass by to the west of us hitting us with just the outer bands so presumably should not have more than 35 kn of wind. This anchorage is extremely protected with 5000’ mountains between us and the eye of the storm. We are completely enclosed by 500 foot hills on the other three sides so should not have any swells or surge of significance in here. The entrance is wide enough for only one boat at a time to go through. I have strapped down our solar panels, removed all remaining canvas, flags and anything that could fly away. The dinghy is up, drain plug is out, engine is secured and there is nothing left to do but wait. As the sun went down we saw some incredible anvil clouds over the mountains and the lightning show is most impressive. Probably won’t feel much here until around daylight tomorrow but really not expecting a whole lot just planning for the worst.
Speaking of the worst, “Disturbance 1“ is following this storm about four days later. It is expected to be a full blown hurricane and to cross Baja at this exact spot on Wednesday. So as soon as this one passes, we are going to hightail it another couple hundred miles north beyond what any of the weather models show “disturbance 1” reaching.
In the interim, we are again sleeping naked in the cockpit – bugs be damned! It is too hot to care.
