Cruise Log #26, Isla Carmen to Isla San Francisco
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November 15th to November 30th
Updated December 25th
The route south from Isla Carmen to La Paz, 130 miles.
Puerto Gatos - four boats were already sitting in the Los Gatos peanut gallery, ready to critique,
when a Moorings charter arrived. The anchorage wasn't a tight fit, but we four were already
cosily tucked up next to the beach. The new arrival, following their
herd instincts, headed for the pack.
Right away we smelled trouble. Nosing past SolMate towards skinny water
near the beach, we caught a voice from the cockpit say, "I don't think this depth sounder
is working." Hm, the judges thought, a grounding could be entertaining....
Turned out, bumping the bottom was the least of their worries. They started their
anchoring adventures by almost bumping another boat.
They dropped their anchor upwind of the pack, between us and the beach,
blew off and settled practically on top of Steve on his little pocket cruiser.
Steve politely asked them to move; it was pretty blustery and nobody likes having a boat
anchored upwind, especially that close. Well, the Moorings couple would have gladly obliged,
except now their engine wouldn't run, and as the sun dropped towards the hills,
they couldn't figure out why.
Moorings charter anchored on top of a pocket cruiser in Los Gatos.
Moorings provides their charters with little dinghies, towed behind on a bridle and a
floating polypropylene painter. The charter crew finally noticed the bright yellow line
disappearing underneath the mother ship that had the dinghy shored up tightly against
her stern, and they deduced that their painter was wrapped around the
prop. It took a little time, but once discovered,
the guy gamely donned a mask, armed himself with a
sharp knife and determination, and dived under the boat to free the prop.
Surfacing with an armload of yellow line, problem number two was solved. Their
engine was back in commission; however, they still had a few more difficulties to face.
Slightly chagrined about their first anchoring attempt, they raised anchor, and resumed the
show-in-progress as those of us in the peanut gallery again settled back to watch.
Searching for another place to drop the hook, the charter revved up the engine
and snaked around, between, and among the anchored boats as if their only throttle setting
was fast-forward. They zoomed back into skinny water and dropped the hook, again.
Then, still throttled up,
they proceeded to drive the boat over and around their anchor...not surprisingly,
it didn't stick, so they hauled it up, again, and drove around
some more (at this point, Stan and I were a bit worried that they'd drop upwind of
SolMate, so we both walked up to the bow and acted concerned).
Whether it was our presence on the bow or not, the Moorings' third attempt was
behind and downwind of us, with a good, solid set (even though they
still employed their drive-around-the-anchor setting technique) and we were all ready to
settle down to enjoy an orange Baja sunset, when yet another problem reared its ugly
head - in the form of a powerboater.
The motorboat jockey behind and a little to starboard of the Moorings
charter whipped out his loud hailer just as we were breathing a sigh of relief, and rudely
yelled across the whole anchorage at the poor charterers, "Hey,
you've got too much line out, you're coming back on me,
pull in some chain." Well, the Moorings boat wasn't even close, but the exhausted
crew, already really frustrated, conferred,
looked around for options, and, for the fourth time, pulled up their anchor
and made another circuit of the anchorage looking for an acceptable spot
to spend a quiet night.
Back in toward the beach they motored, this time to the left and in front of us.
And finally they got it right, to everyone's satisfaction; they stuck just fine, not too close to Steve nor to us. The curtain
fell on the evening's show just as the sun dropped over the hill.
Returning to our cabin, Stan fired up the SSB and tuned in the Southbound Net
just in time to hear
Mike on Amazing Grace joke that he had just turned loose a whole bunch of charters
for the
entertainment of us cruisers. He went on to say that if anyone had stories to tell on
Moorings boats, he'd
love to hear them. Stan obliged with the short version, about the boat whose name was "Island Ho"....
Los Gatos wasn't the end of our Moorings experiences. After a rollicking
sail down to Isla San Francisco, we experienced another up-close-and-personal encounter.
Again, it was that crazy herd mentality that caused a Moorings catamaran to ignore
acres
and acres of wide-open space and shoehorn themselves in-between Zester and SolMate.
(from left) Zester, SolMate and Nakia in the anchorage at Isla San Francisco.
Not wanting to be too rude, I waited until dark to take a picture of the cat in my lap. As the wind shifted during the night, we were positive that they'd swing around and join us, side by side, but they never did.
