Northwest Storm Winds
Last night at about 11:00 pm, the wind picked up from the South and blew directly into Caleta Partida at about 15-18 knots producing a wave swell that made for a rocky night. As we had boats down-wind of us we needed an anchor watch overnight. Today Wednesday, the wind continued while we took in the anchor ready to head north to Isla San Francisco.
After clearing the cove and putting sea room between us and the island we set sail and with a southerly wind and a broad reach we picked up speed quickly to almost six knots. After a couple of hours the wind shifted directly behind us so we took in the Genoa let the mainsail up and continued to motor-sail north. The coastline here resembles the Grand Canyon with its layers of different rock. After four hours, we entered the bay in which there were already four sailboats at anchor and chose the best spot we could laying down the anchor in 25 feet of water on a 7:1 scope. Three of the sailboats were crowded at the base of the rocky headland on the northwest end of the bay and there was one boat between us and the southern hook of the bay upon which a solitary light tower stands.
This is considered one of the choice spots to anchor in the Sea of Cortez as the island provides three different anchorages, each good for different wind directions. From the rocky headland, a sand spit curves to the southern end and another rocky hill with a low hook of land jutting a small way into the bay. During the day more sailboats arrived and took up a selection of positions with at least five boats now south of us. Eventually, there were 14 sailboats at anchor along with two large charter motor yachts.
The calm afternoon was broken at about 8:30pm when the first blast of the ‘Northerner’ wind arrived in a series of very strong 30 plus knot gusts. Overnight the winds blew steadily in the low to mid-twenty knots with sustained gusts in the high twenties and low thirties. Our anchor watch showed that a number of the boats to the south of us were slowly dragging anchors; we along with them. All of us were getting the full blast of the northwestern wind. While ours was a very slow drift, by 5:00 am we were now the most southerly boat in the bay as the others had already taken up their anchors and moved north up the bay and re-anchored. We had drifted almost 250 yards since anchoring in the afternoon.
Thursday 03/08/2012
At 5:00 am Thursday morning with detailed instructions to Anita who, while good at handing the boat for anchoring, had not yet done this at night in 25 knot winds, we were ready. At least we had a full moon. We now also had to contend with a large power yacht that had taken up position close to the beach in the area we had originally anchored. This charter yacht was not at anchor but was moving slowly up and down the beach under power.
The deck light, steaming light and running lights were turned on to signal our intent to move. We nudged up slowly taking up rode and anchor chain until a very large ball of eel grass appeared in which was encased our anchor. We did our best to clear it including dragging the hook through the water to try and flush more off as we moved up to re-anchor. Our kudos to the large motor yacht, it had clearly understood our intention and had moved up the beach to give us space to re-anchor. Down went the hook and we finally played out 125 feet of chain and another 120 feet of rode in 25 feet of water; almost a 10:1 scope as we were not comfortable with the holding. Anita did a professional job handling the boat during this entire maneuver while I handled the business end of anchoring.
By 10:30am we had drifted back down the bay and had to move yet again. As it was now daylight, we were able to clear the anchor of all of the eel grass and moved north up the bay and closer in to the beach. The area closer to the beach had larger patches of clear sand and choosing the far end of one of these in about 17 feet of water we lowered the anchor and dug it carefully into this patch and then laid out the 120 feet of chain and another 80 feet of rode with almost a 12:1 scope. The anchor must have dug in nicely into the sand patch as we had no more problems even with the additional high wind gusts that continued hitting us all day and all Thursday night.
Before dark on Wednesday, I had made a mental note of where the other boats had anchored and as I surveyed the scene on Thursday morning, almost 60% of the boats had moved positions during the night; a veritable game of musical chairs. Clearly we were not the only ones with anchoring problems.
The highest sustained wind gust we recorded was 41.5 Knots or about 48 MPH with many others over 35 knots (40 MPH). The guide book says the bay offers good protection from wind and waves, maybe waves but not wind. I am of the opinion that the guide books refers to a time when there were less cruising sailboats and these few could get the available wind protection at the northwestern headland of the bay. This is where most of the boats tried to crowd however room is very limited. A large portion of the bay is covered with eel grass with a few open sand patches and it is only closer to the shore where we finally anchored, that there are larger sand patches and better holding.
Friday 03/09/2012
After another night and morning of strong winds the weather is finally calming down and apart from a few occasional gusts of 20 or more knots, the wind is blowing at a steady 12-15 knots allowing some people the opportunity to go ashore. The weather is supposed to calm down overnight.