I awoke at 1:30 AM because there was a strong wind blowing from the south. It was producing 2 or 3 foot waves that were sweeping the anchorage at Isla San Francisco. Had I know that south winds were expected, I would never have picked this anchorage because it is completely exposed to the south. One weather report did not mention south winds. The other called for very light south winds of 5 to 7 knots.
Instead, I was seeing wind gusts of up to 37 knots. That is quite a lot of wind. I spent the next three hours in the cockpit watching the situation to ensure the boat was safe. At one point, I heard the anchor windlass letting out chain. I went forward to discover that the nylon “anchor snubber” had failed. The anchor snubber is vital because it absorbs the shock loads that happen each time a wave or wind gust strikes the boat and the boat pulls on the anchor rode. The anchor rode on Barlavento is a 300 foot length of 5/16” High Test chain. Cruising boats use all chain anchor rode because chain is tough and it can survive encounters with rocks and coral that a nylon rope could not survive. The problem with an all chain anchor rode is that it has no ability to stretch to absorb the shock loads from wind or waves. To cope with this, we added a relatively short length of nylon rope between the boat and the anchor chain. This nylon rope is called the anchor snubber. It acts like the shock absorber in a vehicle which handles shock loads to the tire and wheel of the car. I tie the anchor snubber to the anchor chain with a rolling hitch. Last night the strain was so great that the rolling hitch let go. Now only the anchor chain was left to absorb the shock loads. Each time a large shock load happened, the chain pulled strongly on the anchor windlass that I use to raise and lower the chain. The windlass is not designed to take these loads, so each time a large wave hit the boat, the anchor windlass let out a little more chain. That is hard on the windlass and at some point, you could run out of anchor chain. Once I found the problem, I reattached the anchor snubber to the anchor chain more securely.
With the anchor snubber problem fixed, I was still concerned that something else might go wrong. The wind and waves were coming from the south. The boat was facing into the wind and waves with the anchor out in front of the boat. Behind the boat was about 200 feet of water and behind that was the shore of the anchorage. If the anchor let go, the boat would very quickly be carried on the beach and that could seriously damage or destroy the boat. You pick an anchorage based on the winds you expect exactly to avoid the situation I was now in. You want the anchorage to give protection from the wind and more importantly the waves. You want to be positioned in the anchorage so that if your anchor fails you are blow into deeper water not on to the shore.
At about 4:30 AM the wind changed direction by 90 degrees and the wind speed dropped. I was now in a much better situation. The anchorage provided some protection in that direction, and I had much more clear water behind the boat. I was finally able to get a little fitful sleep, but I got up periodically to check on the situation.
At 7:00 I gave up on getting any meaningful sleep and left the anchorage for La Paz. The wind blew strongly from the west all day at between 15 and 30 knots. That made for a fast passage to La Paz. The boat was sailing between 7.3 and 8.3 knots. Frequently I was moving at hull speed and was occasionally doing a little surfing. I arrived in Pa Paz at 1:00 PM.
I returned to Marina Palmira where I had stayed during my last visit to La Paz. I decided to stay there because I have friends in the marina including Jim and Jeanne on “Kanga”, a Valiant 40. Jim greeted me when I landed and helped tie up the boat. It was great to see him again.
It is good to be in a marina again and to know I can get a full night’s sleep without worrying about being blown on a lee shore.
This evening I made reservation to fly to Newport Beach for Christmas and New Year. I will be in Newport Beach from December 22 to Jan 2.
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