Friday, 30 March 2012

It was gusty in the afternoon on our sail north. We left San Juanico at 4:10 am and threaded our way out of the cove and between the rocks in pitch darkness using our chart plotter and Radar. The chart plotter map of the cove was a figment of someone’s imagination as it showed islands where there were none and was wildly inaccurate. In fact, we had sailed through one of these imaginary islands on the way into the cove! Fortunately, during our arrival, we had recorded and plotted our route into the cove and we used this with Radar to retrace our way out to the open sea. Once we were clear of San Juanico, we set course for Punta Pulpito, a very large, tall, round rock; a prominent landmark along this part of the coast and about two hours away.
With calm seas and no wind, we were once again motoring at just over five and a half knots and at sunrise we were just off Punta Pulpito. It continued to be a warm, windless day with a glassy sea as we continued north. While crossing St. Nicolas Bay we were treated to two large Blue Whales who were sounding. There is a steep underwater canyon in this area and this is where they were probably feeding. Anita saw them first and they made a great display as they splashed back into the sea it was quite a sight to behold, even if we were quite a distance from them. We believe they were Blue Whales just from the size of their Flippers which they swished through the air as they lay on the surface.
We finally rounded the headland leading into Conception Bay at noon turning into the actual bay about 45 minutes later. As we had picked up some wind, we managed to sail for about an hour into the bay before the hills on either side blanketed the welcome breeze.
At 2:30 pm., we anchored off Santispac cove in the area generally called Coyote cove on the north side of the bay and about 200 yards off the beach with lots of campers. There were already a number of other boats in the cove and sailing into Conception bay, we had shared our trip with two other sailboats also headed to the same cove. Coyote Cove actually consists of a number of individual coves and beaches, many protected by small islands all with their own anchorages. Santispac being the best known of all the coves is also owned by the Indians so there are no houses on the beach which is why it is ‘the’ hot spot to camp. It is quite a pretty area.
The afternoon was still and hot, over 90 degrees. We no sooner anchored than we were invaded by lots of pesky flies so we had to close up the main companion way and open all the hatches with screens. Fortunately, all of our hatches have screens; surprisingly, the interior of the boat remained quite cool. While we were doing this, our electronic barometer issued a gale warning! A quick check of the barometric pressure indicated that it had dropped over three millibars in the last hour and was still going down.
Sure enough, about 3:30 pm we had sudden sustained winds of 20 knots out of the north that escalated to gusts over 30 knots. This lasted for almost two hours during which time, one of the 36′ sailboats in the bay dragged anchor and began sailing itself out of the bay. Fortunately, it did not entangle other boat anchor lines during its progress. It had moved more than a quarter of a mile before the owners, who were ashore, managed to get to the boat and rescue it. When they did finally get back to the anchorage, they put out two anchors for added security.
There are clumps of weed in the bay and we had to anchor twice as the first time the anchor did not hold to our satisfaction. While we did drag a little way during the squall, about 40 feet, some of this was normal anchor stretch. As soon as things calmed down, we added 40 lbs of weight (Sentinel ) to the eye thimble between the anchor chain and anchor rode. This dampens the movement of the entire anchor line, adds springs to line and helps keep the anchor at a better angle to the seabed for holding. We have not moved since and have been sitting out some good wind gusts.
At least all of this wind got rid of the flies and after 6:00 pm, things became quite calm.