ANOTHER VISIT TO LA CRUZ

Mirador arrived in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle yesterday morning, April 10, about 10 AM after a wonderful overnight sail of 102 miles from Chamela, around Cabo Corrientes and across Banderas Bay.  On Wednesday morning, April 9, the wind in Chamela unexpectedly came up strongly from the south.  The forecast had been light and variable with the afternoon wind settling into a westerly 5 to 10 knots.  By noon on Wednesday all the boats in the Chamela anchorage knew it was time to make tracks north.

As we all know, forecasts are sometimes wrong.  By the time I pulled out of Chamela at 2:30 PM the wind outside the reef at  Punta Perula (Click here to see the reef) was a steady 30 knots with gusts over 35.  The prevailing 3' southerly swell had 4' wind waves on top of it as I rounded the reef with the engine running full speed and the boat making only 3 knots, dead into the wind.  This made for very wet work on the foredeck as I secured the anchors and tied down the dinghy. 

I can't take care of either the anchor or the dinghy until after I get the anchor up from the bottom. But, as soon as the anchor came off the bottom Mirador starting blowing toward shore, only about 200 yards downwind in the 25 knot breeze. So I had to motor out of the inner part of the bay with the anchor locker open and dinghy, which rests on top of the closed locker, loose on deck.  Pulling the anchor in strong onshore wind is one part of single handing that I haven't yet figured out how to deal with.  The Maxell VWC 1200 windlass's 1200 pounds pull is not enough to drag Mirador forward into wind and waves when  the wind is above about 22 or so knots.   That means I have to motor Mirador into the wind, past the anchor, take her out of gear, run to the bow, pull chain as fast as possible and then cleat the chain off with a chain hook before the full weight of the boat is back on the chain. 

It took about 1/2 an hour in Chamela for me to get the anchor up, mainly due to the large waves crashing into the bow.  Mirador was bobbing up and down so much that the bow sprit was going under water about every minute or so.  That up and down motion puts a huge load on the chain once the snubber lines are removed.  Well anyway, I got the chain up with only a few chunks of skin missing from my hands and I was able to keep the boat off the beach so everything worked out OK. 

Once clear of the reef at Chamela I set a single reefed main and rolled the genoa out to 100% and away we went on a close reach at 7.6 knots headed due west for what I hoped would be smoother water once I got past the 200 fathom line which was about 10 miles offshore.  The big southerly swell and wind waves were hitting some smaller NW swells rolling down from the Sea of Cortez.  The result was some very large and confused seas.  There were no breaking waves but some of the piles of water were 15 feet high and coming from every possible direction. 

As I got four to six miles off the coast the seas settled a little and the winds dropped into the high teen range so I rolled the genoa out to it's full 120% size and managed to keep the boat speed above seven knots until after 5 PM at which time the wind had died to about 10 knots.  I took the reef out of the main and pointed Mirador more NW towards Cabo Corrientes while keeping the boat moving at five to six knots over the bottom.  The prevailing current that flows NW along the Mexican Gold Coast was sure helping push us along in the right direction.

Finally, a little before dark the wind had died enough that the boat speed was consistently below 3 knots so I rolled up the genoa and started the diesel. 

As I approached Cabo Corrientes, shortly after midnight, the wind came up again,. This time it was from the North and I was able to turn off the diesel and start sailing again.  The North wind slowly clocked around to the NE but Mirador kept making five to six knots thru sunrise at which time we were about 10 miles from La Cruz.   

What a great way to spend the night - sailing close hauled in flat water and 80 degree, 11 knot winds.  PERFECT!

I had planned on going up to Isla Isabella but the weather forecast for the Punta de Mita to Mazatlan coast, which includes Isabella, was very confused and rapidly changing from Tuesday night thru Wednesday night.  The problem was that a very large high pressure ridge was building from Texas down thru Mexico City.  The forecast was for there to be a 16 Mb pressure gradient between central Old Mexico and Puerto Vallarta.  Depending on the exact location of the ridge; that could lead to 35 to 55 knot winds spilling down out of the Mexican mountains and onto the coast north of Puerto Vallarta.  There was almost no way to predict which direction the wind would blow along the coast since the wind would flow down the canyons and valleys and then out into the Sea of Cortez and Pacific Ocean.  Depending on which canyon and valley you were near you could get very strong and gusty North, East or South winds.

There is no protection on Isla Isabella, which is 16 miles off the Mexican West Coast, in South or East wind so it was not a place I wanted to be Thursday afternoon and night.  When I left Chamela on Wednesday afternoon my predicted arrival time at Isabella was 17:00 local time at Isabella.  It turned out that the predicted high winds never materialized because the high pressure ridge suddenly and mysteriously collapsed.  Thursday night and Friday would have been a perfect time to cruise north to Isla Isabella and on to Mazatlan.  But, I was being cautious about the weather so now I am stuck, again, in wonderful La Cruz with it's great music and good internet sites.

All my friends were headed to La Cruz and I like La Cruz so here I am...

with a DEAD HAM radio!

My three-year old ICOM M710RT radio was working find yesterday after anchoring here at La Cruz.  Then as I switched from one frequency to another the radio went dead.  The display still lights and all the functions work correctly but the S-meter reads no incoming signal and no outgoing signal.  Then suddenly yesterday afternoon it started working again, then quit, then started, and seems to be now finished for good.

The Puerto Vallarta/La Cruz ICOM repair technician who I talked to this morning is a cruiser.  But, Rob is headed back to the States tomorrow morning and will not be back until next November.  He says there is no other ICOM repair facility on the West Coast of Mexico.  I do know there is a good ICOM repair shop in La Paz. 

So, I guess I am going to head directly to La Paz, 375 miles, sometime next week.  I'll take a day to sail out to Isla Isabella and the spend a couple of days exploring the island.  It is a bird sanctuary and is supposed to be beautiful and interesting.   From Isabella I'll head directly to La Paz.

My only concern is that I won't be able to get any weather forecasts once I leave La Cruz.  I imagine there will be some cruisers at Isabella that have SSB or HAM radios that can listen to the radio nets and relay the forecasts to me.  I need a 48 hour window of winds coming from east of north to sail from Isabella to La Paz.  The direct route is on a course of 294° magnetic and the prevailing NW wind is from 330° magnetic.  That would mean a 250 nautical mile beat - something no cruiser wants to do.  I'll wait until the wind comes around to the NE so I can have a close reach across the southern end of the Sea of Cortez. 

If don't get the NE winds I'll wait for light winds and motor or motorsail across the sea.

No HAM radio means no e-mail to or from the boat and that also means no WEB site updates until I get to La Paz, sometime around April 23 or 24.