That was a rough night. The wind came up at about 3, and our anchor drug about 50 feet. Then reset. I watched where we were for about a half hour and went back to sleep. At 5:30, I was up again and checked we had drug some more but back in the direction we had come from. Again it looks like the anchor reset, so I don’t want to move it right now. Renee’ is going to get up at 6 and I believe we will be resetting the anchor. We didn’t reset the anchor, I checked the weather and when the other boats checked in, I suggested they come over and look at themselves. Kind of ugly, so we are going to hightail it for the north end of Cedros, about 50 miles away. To get some protection form the wind. We plan to go to the city the tomorrow, and then turtle bay the day after.
So, we had breakfast and got underway by 8:40, with Merry Lee and Lost Pearl following shortly thereafter.
On a side note, last night while downloading the weather, I did not check that the iPad was fully, securely plugged in. As a result it shut down when the battery was drained. No big deal, just turn it back on. Except that I typically take notes in either Excel or Word. Both Microsoft products. The only way to use them on my iPad is to log into Office 365. Which means I have to have access to a server, as in internet, as in something we have not had since last Wednesday. So, I am back to Apple Notes. If I did not have 20 years worth of notes in Microsoft office…..
We are ~45 miles out from Cedros, all the sails are up, the engine is running at 3000 RPM, we have about 4 knots of true wind from about 90 degrees to our stbd. We are doing about 8 knots through the water, about 6 knots speed over ground. The generator is running, the water maker is making water, the washer is running, the A/C units are running to bring the humidity down inside the boat (hopefully the clothes will dry a little faster). Oh, and we just sighted Cedros island. It is that clear. The water is almost flat with a light swell. We have about 80 % in our water tank, so we don’t really need to make water, except we need to wash clothes to get ahead of them, and we wont be able to make water tomorrow (going to Cedros – the city) or the next day (relatively short day to Bahia Tortuga) or for the days we are in there.
Around noon, the wind speed jumped up to about 20 knots. We first took in the Jib, then the Stay Sail, then reefed the Main. When we got done we were about a half mile off course, and as we got back on course we saw some whales! They were jumping out of the water, this went on for a few minutes, we told Lost Pearl.
We also told them about the wind. At 1245 I got the call from Merry Lee, they had reefed when I suggested, and had just gotten done when the wind hit. They were pretty happy to have had the heads up. They are doing 6 knots under a reefed main, and a storm jib. The Lost Pearl is doing 5.5 knots with everything they have, of course their main is torn, so it is always reefed.
Anchorage on Cedros recommended as recently as 2017. We attempted to locate this and were about 1000 ft offshore, small bay, both sides were about 1000 feet away, and we still had 200 feet of water under our keel. Not nearly big enough for three boats.
28 20’21” N
115 11’ 66”W
2nd indent down from village 1.5 NM from light house
45 ft deep for anchorage.
So, we went back to the village and as soon as we had 45 feet of water put down our anchor. This was to leave the maximum room for the other two boats. When They arrived, Lost Pearl anchored in 35 feet of water about 400 feet from us, and then Merry Lee anchored 400 feet from them in 45 feet of water. It will be interesting to see what it looks like in the morning with day light rather than the use of radar for ranging.
It is a calm anchorage, very minor swells, and almost no wind (at least right now). We are about 15 miles north of the city of Cedros on this island. The plan is to go there in the morning, and check in, Perhaps go ashore and see if they have an “Autozone” for the Merry Lee’s alternator issue. Stay there tomorrow night then off to Turtle Bay.
While dropping the anchor, I saw a flying fish! We also heard a bunch of seals on the island.
About an hour after we dropped anchor the Lost Pearl and Merry Lee arrived and got their anchors down. The anchorage is small and we had to share it with anchored/moored Panga’s. Okay, so really Merry Lee wound up with the Pangas. As they were at that end of the anchorage. It was a rather rolly night, with lots of movement.