Night Terrors: Charlie's Worst Fears Almost Come True

The nasty potential of a lee shore proved irresistible to weather gods at Amortajada.

April 12

This has been the longest stint without internet since we came down from San Diego to La Paz.  I’ll just fill in a few highlights. In some ways it’s been the most bittersweet part of the trip, as we are sort of knitting up the last ends of places we didn’t get to on the way north, most of which are niche anchorages with big open mouths, maws, from Charlie’s perspective, just waiting to let in night winds that will blow us off the anchor.

CMS self portrait painted in dream state.

Indeed, on our second night out from Ensenada, back in Aqua Verde, but anchored on the south side with only two boats, Charlie expected wind from the south and hoped the hillside would protect us a bit. Unfortunately, late in the evening, a few more boats joined us, one, a behemoth powerboat that anchored on short scope and immediately launched a jetski specially fitted with a chainsaw motor. The young sport raced around kicking up waves and doing wonders for the evening tranquility. Well, it’s obvious where this story is going. We soon had another big neighbor, a ketch, also too close, with an anchor light from Master and Commander swinging in our faces.

As we went to bed, Charlie pointed out that I was still skipper of the day.

Actually my greatest fear, a Spam Attack!

When we ran out of food, I made bread.  Charlie found

 Spam at San Evaristo's store. Will the stench of fried

Spam ever leave the galley??

Sure enough, by midnight it came on to blow, woke me up and I went on deck. The wind had veered to the southeast, and one of the powerboats was drifting near us. He had dragged and was getting the anchor up while his boat slid between us and the cliff ahead. He tried to back and fill for a turn, but only managed to place the boat squarely over our anchor chain.  As he drifted down on our bow, Charlie put on the deck light. Running to the foredeck I gestured for the helmsman to reverse while expecting to have to somehow fend off a horrible collision.  Finally he revved to full throttle and backed down our starboard side.

Even when our pulses returned to normal, the howling of the wind and swinging of the boat defeated attempts at sleep. The next morning we noticed our jetski neighbor anchored out in the middle of the bay. On our dinghy ride to shore, we talked with the very young skipper. He said that the wind had also woken him. He looked out to find his boat being carried away between our boat and another sailboat, fortunately missing both! I guess it was just as well Charlie was in the bunk for that. Later, exchanging notes with other boaters, we found that everyone on this section of the coast had had a sleepless night, but no one else had dragging neighbors.

Abandoned Salt Works toys.

On the way up we’d tried for a day trip to the south end of San Jose Island where the lagoon was supposed to have good birds and clamming. With a light southerly breeze blowing, we anchored in a calm spot north of the mangroves in time for a dinghy excursion into the lagoon channels. It was a pleasant ride, though the birds weren’t many or varied and it was too late for clamming. 
Charlie’s fears of open anchorages were confirmed again when a northerly blow set in and gave us a very rolly ride in 10 feet of water on a lee shore. At midnight we pulled the hook and moved to Punta Salinas, three miles north. At least that beach was great for a morning walk. Good shells too. A funny thing about this point is that although it has two tall lighthouses, one with red and white horizontal stripes that’s visible for miles, neither has a functional navigation light on it. We could have used that as we bashed our way up to the point.

Yellow legged gulls going steady. Lighthouse lovers, a jaded pair, not even a single night light still aglow.