Cruise Log #35, BLA
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Ducking chubascos and tracking hurricanes
Updated October 1st, 2006
SolMate's stomping grounds during hurricane and chubasco season.
Of the ship's cat and other gales...
Gale's been aboard SolMate over two years; he joined our cruise at the very beginning. He has
experienced all facets of the cruising life, and during our little jaunt up to Gonzaga Bay, he
also experienced all degrees of weather, which, like a true ship's cat, he's taken in stride.
SolMate sailed up the west coast of the Baja to Bahia San Luis Gonzaga in July. Our first night we
discovered why that particular bay is notorious for wild weather. Right at sundown the lazy southeasterly breeze shut down, the humidity dropped 30 tics, and
the blast furnace doors on the western slopes clanged open. SolMate nosed around into the heat, and
Stan and I, sitting on deck, felt like a couple of bikers riding through the desert.
Gale, who doesn't like having his fluff ruffled, ducked below. That westerly hairdryer blew off and
on all night, gusting to 35 knots.
Lightning flashes lit the boat at 1AM the next night. By the time I had my wits about me,
Stan had already dogged all the hatches and ports. With help from a full moon, we eyeballed
the black cloud headed our way and counted between lightning and thunder - this chubasco was getting
serious. For some idiotic cat reason, Gale insisted on cowering out on deck as the sky crackled and
popped. The storm roared down the ridge from the SW. Suddenly, a full-blown chubasco was
on top of us. A 50-knot blast slammed SolMate onto her
side and shoved her off toward the northwest, parallel to the beach. Horizontal rain struck with the wind,
and Gale finally hightailed it down below.
The anchor let loose - those 50 knots, broadside, pushed SolMate
down the beach, dragging her anchor behind her. We started the engine, but didn't need it...the anchor
reset 200 feet later and
held like a rock for the remainder of the storm. Securely stuck, SolMate swung her nose into the wind
and stood back up. It was around this time that Stan, pelted by rain and spray and wearing his snorkel
mask so he could see through the onslaught, saw the anemometer clock 67 knots.
Sixty-plus knots of wind set off a
wicked sea. SolMate was bobbing and weaving like a prizefighter. Kitty, tucked away in the
V-berth, hung onto the mattress with all fours as the boat lunged and bucked,
scrunched into a corner
with dislodged hatch screens and books strewn around him.
I cowered on the companionway steps monitoring the GPS. Stan hunkered down in the cockpit, fascinated
with the fury.
An hour and a half later, the cell had
passed, the rain quit, the seas settled, and Gale tentatively poked his head out to survey soaked decks
and pressure-washed rigging. No casualties on SolMate other than the frazzled nerves of man and beast.
On land, storm damage was a different story. Roofs
and solar panels of the vacation homes on the beach took the biggest hit. A couple of Hobie Cats
flipped and were wedged at odd angles
between houses, one standing straight up on its nose. A 35-year resident told us that the storm brought
the highest wind he'd ever seen in Gonzaga Bay, close to 100 mph, he reckoned. He called it a 30-year
storm. Good!
Then I won't see another one like it in my lifetime, nor will Gale...but it certainly created a healthly
respect for weather aboard SolMate, and set the tone for hurricane season.
Back down in BLA, our summer hangout, Emilia was our first hurricane threat of the season,
sending us to the protection of Puerto Don Juan (PDJ) to sit out
some high winds and to analyze the weather data. Twice a day we received grib files via our trusty
SSB radio. Although notorious for low-balling wind speeds, the grib usually provided a good
picture of
where tropical disturbances were and which direction they were "expected" to travel.
Screen shot of a grib file showing Emilia's wind barbs
(left center) circulating
counter-clockwise to (hah!) 25 knots.
Emilia crept up the outside of the Baja and left us alone - big sigh of relief. But then
John jumped up
as a tropical storm and we hastily resumed our hurricane readiness stance, downloading weather
faxes three times a day and pulling up SailMail weather notices twice a day, tracking his growth
to a full-blown
hurricane and keeping a close eye on his destructive progress up the mainland coast, headed
straight toward the Baja penninsula.
In-between weather faxes, Stan and I started crossing off items on our hurricane-prep checklist
- lashed things down, dug extra lines and an anchor out of lazarettes, and stored
extraneous deck stuff below. Simple stowage tasks involved unpacking and then re-warehousing
lockers and lazarettes. John was still hundreds of miles away, so we still had days
to prepare for his arrival.
Stan (left) and Gale (right)
digging out the extra anchor and snubbers.
John marched at half-time up the Baja. With his eye only 180 miles SSE of us and our preparations complete, all we could do was watch and wait. Officially, BLA was in the tropical storm warning area, but John's intensity was decreasing. Not only was this a waiting game, but a guessing game as well: where would he go and how hard would he blow? As he inched northward we received radio reports of 23- to 30-inch rainfall and massive flooding to the south of us.
Stan waiting for John's pre-soak cycle.
Thankfully, John dissipated before he reached PDJ, at least his winds did. We enjoyed a calm cleansing from residual moisture. Stan scrubbed and scrubbed, then sat back and waited for more rain and a good rinse cycle. Lines and rigging wept mud onto the deck. As the drizzle and John dissipated, we raced the sun with our mop-up rags in hopes of preventing the kiln effect, baked mud on the deck.
Between hurricane threats and runs to PDJ, we experienced almost daily thunderstorms. Mostly, the
storms rumbled past along the mountains, washed the desert and provided a good light show, but
we were caught by a couple of the downpours, causing panics to slam hatches, unplug
electronics, and sometimes make a mad dash for friendlier skies. After Gonzaga, we were pretty gun shy.
SolMate leaving a Ceilidh-ville chubasco in her wake.
Hurricanes were not finished with us, however; Lane and Miriam were yet to come. All eyes aboard SolMate were glued to our weather products.
Screen shot of tropical weather discussion for Hurricane Lane.
Using all of the tools available to us, we scoped out the next couple of hurricanes and gleefully watched them fizzle out, at least as far as we up in the northern Sea were concerned. As of October 1st, no more disturbances have reared their ugly heads. Hurricane season in the Eastern Pacific officially lasts through November, but with no tropical disturbances reported, we're starting to breath easier...for the time being.
Screen shot from Eye of the Storm,
the hurricanes we tracked in the eastern Pacific this year.
I'm thinking this is going to be Gale's last exciting hurricane and chubasco season - the SolMate crew is going into risk-avoidance mode. More on that, next time....
