Cruise Log #27, Isla San Francisco to La Paz
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November 30th to December 30th
Settling into Marina Palmira, La Paz
Updated January 9th, 2006
The route south, Isla San Francisco to Isla Partida to La Paz, 50 miles.
We had quite a few reasons for parking at dockside in La Paz rather than swinging on
the hook as originally planned. The most compelling was that our five-year-old
Lighthouse 1501 windlass gave up the ghost at Isla San Francisco. Stan manhandled
our all-chain rode and 45-pound CQR a few more times than he really wanted to; so,
into the marina we went.
Marina life was quite a change from the quiet cruising we'd enjoyed all summer, lots of
social activities plus high drama when a sailboat ended up on the rocks....
Marina Palmira looking north towards La Paz - cock-fight arena, bottom left, the
Magote penninsula on the right. The navigatable channel is obvious between
the sand bar surrounding the Magote, the marina breakwall and the beach.
Shortly after settling into Marina Palmira, Stan and I joined thirty other cruisers
on a sad salvage operation, the result of
really stinky weather. We spent a full day stripping Sea Ya, a disabled Newport 30.
Here's her story, as told in bits and pieces throughout the day by Axel, the owner:
Sea Ya had just completed the run down the Pacific side of the Baja penninsula
with the Baja HaHa. Axel and his crew, an inexperienced elderly gentleman, were sailing
north from Los Muertos to La Paz (60 miles). A wicked north wind had already been
screaming for a full day, so the seas were sizeable. The wind was still roaring straight
at them, gusting into the high 40's, as they pounded up the outside of Isla Ceralvo.
With seas and winds
against them, Sea Ya wasn't able to reach La Paz before dark. When they finally did
arrive, the lights of the city and the big seas confused the two exhausted crew. They
couldn't figure out how to safely enter the La Paz Channel or how to navigate to
their destination, Marina Palmira.
At two in the morning they were driven by large waves across the shallow, unforgiving bar
on the outside of the La Paz Channel. Falling off a breaking wave, the little boat
slammed down onto the
bar, smashing her rudder into a useless 90 degree angle. Subsequent breakers
bounced the little boat across the bar and finally deposited her in the
channel, but they had no steerage, they were tired, cold, wet, and...lost.
Rudderless, at the whim of wind and waves, little Sea Ya blew across the channel towards
the rocky shore. Narrowly missing a jaggedy, rip-rap breakwall where angry waves broke over the top,
they swept towards a rocky beach half a mile south of Marina Palmira. Reaching
shallow water, each crashing wave brought more destruction as the boat bounced from boulder to boulder.
Her keel was ripped off, bolts, bottom
and all, leaving a gaping hole clear through the boat. Tossed sideways to
the swell, a final
breaker pinioned the little boat on a rock. There she stuck, the unforgiving waves
grinding her broken hull on the rocks,
wedged in two feet of water with the surf breaking over her deck.
In the dark and the wind and the waves, the crew had no clue where they were as they
jumped off the foundering boat into the water. Fortunately, they were just fifty yards from
a sandy
beach and a stairway leading up to the main road to La Paz. Both
crew escaped with minor scrapes and mild hypothermia. The boat, however, was a different story.
Sea Ya being dismantled by volunteers after the tide receded - large seas breaking over the bar on the
horizon.
The cruising fleet received the radio call for assistance at 8:00 AM the next morning, by 3:00 PM everything was stripped off the boat...everything. After salvaging load upon load of sodden boat parts and provisions from this little boat that had just begun its cruising career, eight of us left the stripped hull on the rocks, hoisted its mast onto our shoulders and marched it to Marina Palmira for storage. Three more followed with the forestay and roller furler, the last of the salvageable equipment. The boat was a total loss.
Sea Ya stabalized with a pile of rocks while the salvage crew
removed the
headstay and mast.
One good thing about the accident was that no one was seriously injured. Another was that
the cruising community
pitched in to help clean up the mess, secured all hazmat, and prevented a big fine
from the port captain.
Two days after crunching onto the beach, Axel held a sale to off-load most of his salvage,
and then headed back to California to
fetch his pick-up and regroup.
More pictures were posted on the Club Cruceros web site: http://www.clubcruceros.org/SeaYa
/SeaYa.html.
Stan shows up in quite a few of the pics, with the rest of the wrecking crew. I was on
shore doing the not-so-photogenic work of hauling the sodden, mucky, smelly flotsom
to the delivery vans and pickups.
Sea Ya with Axel in the salon, 200 yards from where
she went
aground, waiting for a truck to haul her to the dump.
'Tis the season, and more good deeds kept us busy. The day after Axel's boatyard sale, a local charity hosted their annual rummage sale - subasta. It was a great excuse to clean out our lockers. We donated a bag of stuff, then MJ donated her time, spending the morning behind the counter while the shopping hordes buzzed around in a buying frenzy. The take was pretty impressive. The sponsors totally support a local school breakfast and lunch program. With all-volunteer workers and no overhead, all of the subasta procedes will buy food.
MJ helping at a sales desk during Subasta.
All has not been selfless toil this holiday season. Stan joined a couple other marina
residents across the street in a rickedy tin arena for Torneo de Gallo, cock fights.
Cock fighting wasn't nearly as gruesome as Stan was afraid it would be, and it provided
an excellent opportunity to practice his Spanish. The four sailors were befriended by Juan,
and a
few other locals, who showed them the ropes, explained the wagering and
shared their tequila. Stan placed four bets with Juan, winning two,
losing one and tying one.
Later in the evening, after Juan and his entourage left, a young policemn tapped Stan on
the shoulder. He tapped his chest
and said, "Yo, verde." Then he thumped Stan's chest and said, "Tu, rojo." The fight ring was
divided into a green side and a red side. The policeman, though on duty, wanted
to bet on a match. Stan replied, "Cinquenta pesos?" "Si." Stan won the policeman's
money on that match, paid surrepticiously with a crumpled up banknote exchanged via handshake.
The gambling, the roosters and the crowd provided an interesting new
experience...all in español.
And speaking of español, we both survived our classes at CEC (Centro de Educacion
Continua), four hours a day for three weeks of intense learning. Three teachers
rotated through the classes hitting us with an awful lot of info, but it was great
fun and we both learned alot.
The make-up of the classes was interesting to us, we had thought that mostly cruisers would
be taking advantage of the opportunity to learn the language, but a surprising number of
local residents, ex-pats, also attended. MJ's class was half and half, Stan's class only
had two cruisers in it.
Classes wound down on the 23rd, the same day we
scheduled a caroling party, so we invited our instructors
to join us for singing in Marina de La Paz, and they all did! A very cool collage of our parade around the docks
is posted on the Club Cruceros website, on the home page right below the Sea Ya picture.
