FOLLOWING THE ELEPHANT TRACKS TO SAN FRANCISQUITO
Mirador is tucked into Bahia San Francisquito which is about 175 miles NW of Puerto Escondido where I last posted a WEB update. We arrived here mid-day, Sunday September 7, after a rousing 123 mile overnight sail from Burro Bay in Bahia Concepcion. It is now about 9:40 PM and the always interesting "elephantes" are supposed to blow again tonight as they did last night.
I'll have to keep a close eye on the anchor tonight which is going to be hard because I've had a total of 30 minutes sleep in the last 40 hours. I did my usual anchor set which involves letting the Bruce 44 dig into the sand bottom with a 3:1 scope while running the engine at about 1500 RPM in reverse. I then slowly increase the power till the anchor holds at 3000 RPM which is equivalent to about 35 knots of wind. The anchor held fine but did feel a little strange as it held. Eventually I let out 8:1 scope with all chain and two 30' 1/2" nylon snubber lines.
After I cleaned up and dried out the boat I took a nap and then swam out to the anchor. It was on a sand bottom in 15' so I could get down to it very easily. I discovered that one fluke of the Bruce was dug under a big rock which looks to be 10 times the size of the Bruce. I have swum and dove in most of this bay and have never seen a rock anywhere, except where I dropped the anchor at 1:00 PM.
I set the anchor while backing NW because there was 17 knots blowing from the SSE. My concern is that the wind will reverse and blow from the WNW. Mirador will be held solidly if the chain wraps around the rock . Otherwise the Bruce will have to reset itself as Mirador swings to the ESE when the elephantes come up tonight.
An elephante is a down slope wind coming from the mountains to our west which is caused by the nightly cooling of the Baja mountains . These winds start several hours after sunset and increase in strength until about 4 AM when they start to diminish and then finally die shortly after sunrise. The nighttime elephantes, (some occur during the day when the mountains are cold and the Sea hot), are caused by the cooling of the landmass, particularly high up in the mountains. The cooler denser air sinks down the canyons and arroyos and then rushes out into the Sea of Cortez where the water temperature is a constant 85 to 88 degrees.
Last night as Mirador was sailing northwest, about 12 miles off the east coast of Baja, the elephantes started blowing 15 knots out of the SW about 10 PM. By 4 AM the wind was steady in the high 20s with sustained gusts over 35 knots out of the WNW. Since the wind is offshore the seas can't get all that big. At 4 AM they were about four feet and breaking regularly. Mirador was riding a strong tidal current going NW and was tooting along at 7.7 to 8.2 knots over the ground for about three hours with a single reefed main and a 90% genoa.
The elephantes are never steady and last night were dropping to about 12 knots for 15 minutes at a time. Each time they did I thought they were dying and would shake out the reef and then have to put it back in when the winds came up again. Naturally, the strongest wind came a half hour after moonset (4:03 AM local time which is equivalent to MST or Zulu -6)so I had to put a reef in the main and then try to reef the genoa with only starlight to see by. The starboard rail was under water and the waves coming from the port bow were splashing all the way to the cockpit. The 120% genoa was fully extended so I had to roll that big rag in some while the wind was gusting to 30. A lot of work for an old man.
That was the first time I have not been able to roll in the sail using the tiny little Harken #6 winch that is dedicated to the roller furling line. Many years ago I set up the furling line so it can be let to either primary genoa winch. The Lewmar 44 made short and easy work of furling the genoa down to 100%. That really settled the boat and reduced the heel from 32 degrees to about 15 degrees, and the boat speed stayed close to 8 knots over the bottom, I do love a favorable tide!
Things didn't go so smoothly about 15 minute later when I decided to roll in some more genoa as the wind built to about 30 knots with some bigger gusts. Actually, they are not gusts but periods of several minutes where the wind speed is 25% higher than the long term average. When I released the lazy sheet from it's winch the boat suddenly heeled way over and started really thrashing. I had forgotten that the furling line was on the lazy winch (the one that was not controlling the genoa) AND I had forgotten to close the big sheet stopper on the furling line. When I released what in the dark I thought was the lazy genoa sheet; I had actually released the genoa furling line and the sail was out to it's full glory at 120% in gusts to 35 knots. That led to one more wrestling match to get the genoa furled to 90% while the wind stayed above 35 knots.
After easing the main a little and getting the genoa down to 90% the wind steadied and Mirador really hit her groove. I was actually able to sleep for five minutes at a time on the low side cockpit seat as we drove NW at 8 knots on a close reach. A spectacular and satisfying way to travel! Although the workload when single handing a 40 foot boat in near gale conditions at night is a little higher than I need on a daily basis.
The reason I had to clean and dry out Mirador after arriving here was that last night while sailing hard I forgot to close the forward port light in the head and then didn't realize that water from the waves crashing over the bow was running across the cabin top and into the big center hatch over the main saloon table. I also forgot to put restraining straps around several bookshelves. By the time the sun rose there were dozens of books on the floor, the rolled up drifter was lying in the main saloon, the carpet in the sleeping cabin was soaked, and the forward head was very wet.
During one of the periods when the elephantes dropped from 25 to 12 knots I dropped the rolled up drifter into the main cabin hatch. That sail flys on it's own internal halyard about 6" in front of the heavy genoa (here is a link to the Drifter page show me the drifter). Even when it is tightly furled it creates a lot of windage and disturbs the airflow around the luff of the genoa. I really didn't want the big drifter out there in 25 knots so it came down and into the main cabin.
The trip north to San Francisquito was timed to take advantage of the big tides that flow in the Sea of Cortez north of Santa Rosalia. I had wanted to be nine miles off of Cabo Virgenes at about 3 AM to catch the beginning of the north going tide that would carry us 60 miles to Punta San Gabriel which forms part of the Bahia San Francisquito anchorage. My main concern was to arrive at San Gabriel no later than 1 PM which I thought would be high slack water. Last year at this time Mirador was pooped and I was scared witless at San Gabriel when I tried to round the point in a SE wind blowing against a SW flowing current. You can read about that episode at Pooped due to Impatience.
The north going tide did work just as planned with Mirador making 7 knots or more over the bottom, even sailing downwind with just the main up. The mystery was that the two to three knot beneficial push from the current began early in the afternoon when my tide program (WXTide32- freeware from the Internet and absolutely fantastic) said we should feel a moderate adverse tidal flow. Corazon was about 10 miles ahead of me and experienced the same mysterious but beneficial current. Their Nobletec tide program also predicted we should have a SE flowing tide that should have been slowing us by a knot or so. But, somehow we ended up having a favorable current pushing us NW for 19 hours. Strange but fortunate.