now we're Waiting for the Moon
23 April 2016 | Puerto Escondido
We made another nighttime excursion to seek better anchorage -- very unusual for us to move at night but with these forecasts of weather from such different directions from day to night its hard to find an anchorage comfortable for the full 24 hours.
On Wednesday we moved to one of our very favorite anchorages: Candeleros. It seemed to fit the bill as it is protected from the afternoon easterly winds as well as the forecast westerlies at night. We do know that the westerlies there often blow harder than predicted so we anchor near the western shore so there isn't much fetch for the waves to build if the winds build up. That night the west winds were forecast to be in the mid to high teens, so we expected we'd probably have in the low twenties in Candeleros. And that's what we had when they started up about 10pm, but they kept gusting higher and higher and by midnight we were getting some gusts into the 40s!
Our anchor was set well so we had no worries of dragging, and we were far enough from other boats we didn't worry about them dragging into us, but it wasn't comfortable all the same. The biggest problem was the dinghy which was hanging off the side of the boat started getting picked up by the winds so we had to quickly get it up and tied down on deck - timing it between the big gusts. Once that was done and everything was secured as if on a passage we were finally ready to lay down to get some sleep. Well that sleep came easy because just as we were getting ready for bed at 1 o'clock the wind stopped just like someone flipped a switch!
We enjoyed a pleasant day yesterday swimming and walking the beach and in the late afternoon we picked the dinghy up on to the deck and began preparing for the west winds in case they came up strong again. We didn't expect they'd be as bad, usually those are random events. But when the wind switched to the west at 7 pm and was already hitting 20 knots we decided to get out of dodge because it could even be worse than the night before. With the all weather protection of Puerto Escondido just a little over an hour away we headed out.
The sun was setting on our way over but the big waning moon was due to rise right about the time we'd be in the bay to pick up a buoy, so this time we were waiting for the moon instead of racing to set anchor as we'd done on our midnight run to Coronados.
It actually didn't matter as we still had great visibility when we reached Puerto Escondido and inside the bay the winds were light and the water smooth making it easy to see the other boats and the open mooring buoys. We had a very good sleep after that.
I chuckle every time someone says "boy you are living the dream" -- usually in response to a pretty sunrise or sunset photo I share. As I've always said, this cruising life is not the vacation many think it is -- it's just life with good and bad but lots of beautiful scenery. And it is always an adventure.