DRAGGING AROUND LA CRUZ

Strange things happen when you stay anchored for too long in the same spot  in Mexico.  Yesterday one of those things happened to Mirador.  Two couples from other boats came over to Mirador about 3:30 Monday afternoon, January 13, to play cribbage and sample some of my new homemade Tequila.  We had just set down to the first tasting when the anchor alarm began it's insistent beeping.  I took at look at the display on the GPS  that plots Miradors position compared to a waypoint I had set when I first anchored.   Nasty Surprise!  The original anchor location was not even on the display which was set with a radius of 350 feet with Mirador in the center.  That meant we had dragged over 350 feet since the last time I had looked at the display; several hours earlier.

That made little sense since the wind was less than 10 knots and there was almost no sea or swell running.  I went on deck to see where Mirador was sitting relative to the other boats around her while trying not to lose sight of the Tequila because there were some serious Tequila drinkers hovering around the open jug.  When I saw that we were 50 yards east of the closest boat I realized that in fact we were dragging and we were over 100 yards from where we had been just a few hours earlier.

How could this be?  Mirador had been anchored in the same spot for over three weeks with winds up to 20 knots and swells over five feet.  We had not moved a bit in those conditions.  My confusion was increased when I saw that our anchor buoy, which sits directly over the anchor, was beside the boat!  Now you've got to ask yourself, "How can the boat be dragging if the anchor is under the boat and the bow is pointing into the wind?"  The Tequila drinkers came on deck and asked just that question.

I didn't have an answer but I did know that I wanted to move Mirador back to deeper water and away from the surf that was breaking about 250 yards astern of us.  We had to pull in the Magma Flopper Stopper before we could haul up the anchor and motor back to the desired anchor location. 

When the Flopper Stopper came to the surface it was apparent why we were dragging.

The line that attaches the anchor float to the anchor was wrapped around the flopper stopper but was no longer attached to the anchor.  There were only 6 feet of frayed line attached to the anchor buoy and that line  ended at the flopper stopper.

It appeared that the flopper stopper and the anchor buoy line had become entangled and then there was enough force applied to break the 1/4" nylon three strand line that attached the buoy to the anchor.  That meant that over 2,000 pounds of force had been pulling on the line that serves as the trip line for pulling the anchor out of the bottom when it gets really stuck. 

It was then no surprise that we had dragged.  The flopper stopper had tripped out the anchor. 

The two pieces of metal in the picture to the left should be held together with two piano hinges that span about half the width of the flopper stopper.  One hinge was torn completely off and the other one was torn out of only one side of the flopper stopper.  It will be a major project to find two stainless steel piano hinges that are at least 8" long.

This must have happened sometime in the early afternoon when the wind switched from NNE 8 knots to SSW 8 to 10 knots.  I guess Mirador swung in such a fashion that the flopper stopper, which hangs 15' below the water surface, had snagged the anchor buoy trip line. 

You can see in the picture below how the flopper stopper line should hang straight down from the outboard end of the reaching pole.

This morning while writing this WEB page I remembered that I had seen the flopper stopper line that extends downward from the outboard end of the reaching pole had been pointing forward toward the bow of the boat.  I had seen this from inside the boat as I was cleaning.  I remember thinking "boy - we must be blowing backwards pretty quickly and the flopper stopper can't keep up.  I guess we are changing position in the wind shift."  I then assumed that we'd settle down and the flopper stopper would resume its normal position. Now,  I am thinking that the anchor trip line had not yet broken at that point but we were in the process of tripping the anchor out of the bottom.  This was just 30 minutes before we started dragging.

We re-anchored successfully, it's easy when you have four experienced, and resumed our Tequila tasting and cribbage game.

How many ways are there for a cruiser to get in trouble when sitting quietly at anchor? 

I am now in the process of getting Mirador ready to head southeast to Zihuatenejo which is about 325 nautical miles from here.  I'll probably leave La Cruz about 5 AM Thursday in order to pass Cabo Corrientes before its infamous afternoon winds and seas build to an uncomfortable level.  Ipala is a decent anchorage about 48 miles from La Cruz so I'll stop there for a day or two.  The next stop should be Chemela, about 52 miles SE of Ipala.  From there I'll head 29 miles to Tenacatita where I'll stop for a day or two before I head SE to Zihuatenejo.  The run from Tenacatita to Z-town is 215 nautical miles with no good anchorages and only two somewhat marginal stops along the way.  So, I guess I'll have at least one overnight sail as I head for Z-town.

I am heading down to Z-town for Zhuat SailFest 2003 which is a gathering of a hundred or so cruisers for parties, seminars, races, and a general good time.  All the proceeds from SailFest will be donated to the privately supported Netzahualcoyotl Indian children's school in Zihuatenejo.  Everything that the cruisers donate will be matched by a private foundation.  Last year $4,000 was donated.

You can read about Sail Fest at SailFest2003.htm

Things here in La Cruz have been fairly quiet and moderately interesting.  Last week we suffered with very large surf for several days.  In fact, the surf was the largest any of the La Cruz regulars can remember, except for that generated by hurricanes. The waves were going over the top of the breakwater.  The surfers were riding the head high waves from the tip of the breakwater all the way into the beach.  One of the boats that has been anchoring here for eight years had to move from his normal anchoring spot since he was taking breaking water over the bow, something that had never happened before. 

The sailboat anchorage at La Cruz is all outside the breakwater so we had no protection from the big swells which were not  too bad to anchor in when the wind was out of the NE or SW which are the normal wind directions.  Those winds kept the boat headed into the swell, either bow first or stern first.  However, when the wind swung around to either the NW or East which it does almost every morning and evening, the boat would come abeam of the swell and we would roll terribly.  One night I was actually sick enough to take some Stugeron to calm the sea-sickness.  The swells lasted about four days and were reported to be coming from big storms in the far NE Pacific, about  2500 NM from here.  The surfers at Punta de Mita were in heaven while the cruisers at La Cruz were seasick.

The 2' or greater breaking waves on the beach where we land our dinghies made life wet and exciting.  Many boats were spun, some flipped, and most everyone got wet trying to land.  My worst soaking occurred when I brought the Portabote in on a nice wave and rode it way up the beach.  Adam was in the bow and he climbed out to pull the boat further up the beach.  I had picked the biggest wave of the set to come in on so I was in no hurry to jump out of the boat after we stopped moving.  WRONG - the next wave which, I had mis-judged, was much larger than the one we had just come in on.  The 2nd wave exploded over the stern of the boat, soaked me from the neck to the toes, and put about 20 gallons of water in the Portabote.   I was meeting several other people for a tourist trip to Puerto Vallarta and had to ride the bus into town for 45 minutes while soaking wet.

At least I didn't draw blood on that landing as I had done the previous day.  I brought the Portabote in on big wave but I knew there were more big waves coming.  I tried to run the Portabote as far up the beach as possible but one of the wheels hung up on a big rock while the boat was still in 2' of water.  I quickly jumped out and tried to pull the bow further up the beach.  But, I couldn't because there was so much water rushing down the steep beach back out to sea that it spun the bow of the dinghy around and started to carry the boat back into the surf. 

I saw the next big wave just before it hit the Portabote sideways.  I jumped as high and far as I could but the wave threw the Portabote at me since I was uphill of it.  The bow caught my shin and peeled about 6" of skin off.  The good news was I kept my balance and the Portabote landed 10' further up the beach where it remained above the next couple of waves.  I saw the same thing happen to several other boats but those folks all ended laying in the sand or surf after they were knocked down by their dinghies.

Many cruisers didn't even try to get off their boats for three days because they didn't want to attempt a dinghy surf landing.

Here is a picture of the internet site where I do these postings and check my mail.  They charge me $1.00 US per hour to hook my laptop to their network.  They have a DSL line.

Yesterday was also the trip to Pemex, the ONLY gas station in Mexico, and the most expensive.  Five boats got together and hired a big van to take four of us to the Pemex station which is about 10 miles from La Cruz.  We filled sixteen 5-gallon jerry cans with either diesel or gasoline.  Diesel is $1.85 a gallon and gasoline is $2.21 per gallon.  There is no price competition since there are no gas stations, other than Pemex.

Life in La Cruz settles into a pleasant day to day existence.  I wake up about sunrise which is 7:30 AM, Puerto Vallarta time.  Time in La Cruz is confusing.  La Cruz is in the Mexican state of Nyarit and runs on Mountain Standard time.  Puerto Vallarta and almost all the marinas in Baneras Bay  are in the state of Jalisco and run on Central Standard time.  The time change boundary is about 12 miles east of La Cruz.  In order to stay in synch with all the PV boats, services, yacht clubs, and parties; all boaters run on PV time, but the La Cruz businesses, taxis, services, run on Nyarit time.  It is easy to be early or late to an event.

I usually spend the morning running or listening to VHF, SSB, and HAM nets, eating breakfast, reading, and working on the computer.  I am Net control for the AMIGO net on Wednesday morning at 8 AM and I am the voice of Banderas Bay everyday from 9:30 AM to 10:15 AM on Chubasco Net.  Sometime before lunch one or more of the 30 or so cruisers anchored off La Cruz will announce a plan for the afternoon.  Typical plans are:

- surfing at Punta de Mita

- diving at one of the many spots around La Cruz

- bus trip to PV for tourist stuff

- bus trip to PV for shopping at WalMart, Sam's Club, marine stores, other big grocery stores

- dominoes or cribbage on someones boat or at Filos

- hike north or south along the beach

- bus trip to visit one of the four marinas in PV

About twice a week I eat dinner on Mirador and spend the evening reading and/or watching either a DVD or VHS  movie.  Several nights a week I go into La Cruz and eat at Filo's or Poposito's which both have good music most nights.  An expensive dinner at Filo's is $7 and Poposito's is about $9.   On other nights; several boats will get together for appetizers on one boat and dinner on another boat.  Inevitably, a game or six of Mexican Train dominoes will follow dinner. 

The weather is always about 68 degrees at daylight, 84 by mid-afternoon, and about 75 at 11 PM when I go to bed.  The wind blows 8 to 10 knots out of the WSW every afternoon, 5 knots or so out of the NE every night, and lightly out of the East during the morning.  We had about 10 days of very cloudy weather but now we are back to the "severe clear" where there is not a cloud in the sky.

This is the dry season in the tropical west side of Mexico and rain will be a rare event until May or so .  I have seen steady rain in Mexico only three times in the last 14 months, twice during tropical storms in September, and once last February.  

La Cruz would be an easy place to get stuck in but I plan to be out of here by week's end at the latest.

Finally, here is a picture of the street leading to the two most important spots in La Cruz - the internet site and the bus stop.

The internet site is inside the door forward and to the right of the red car on the right side of the picture.  The bus stop is on the highway about 30 yards past that car.