oh those pesky Coromuel winds.....
15 June 2015 | Isla San Francisco
Chip
It appears that Hurricane Carlos will not have much, if any, impact on us and may spin itself out shortly. Whatever the case, we are close enough to get into La Paz if necessary. Our night in Evaristo was somewhat exciting with the dreaded Coromuel winds coming to town. These WSW winds blow hard (gust to 30 in our case) through the night and usually shutdown during the day. There were 4 boats including us in the anchorage at Evaristo. Around mid-night, with the rigging singing from the gusting wind and the boat whipping from side to side, the Admiral wakes me to say that the Catamaran anchored in front of us seems closer. Figuring this to be a case of Chicken Little, I rollover for a few minutes before getting up to take a look. Well the Catamaran isn't closer - it's gone! I look around the anchorage and soon spot this 50' or so boat dragging anchor and slowing heading out to sea toward an island 7 miles away with its crew fast asleep. No telling just how close it had passed by us but it had to be close! Our efforts to hail them on the radio are unsuccessful (I suspect, like us, they tired of hearing the little Mexican girl screaming all night into daddy's VHF radio and either shut it off or turned down the volume). Luckily the cats anchor snagged something about ¼ mile out of the bay and they stayed there for the night. The shocked look on the crews face in the morning when they came topsides to find they'd moved a good distance was priceless. Anyhow, our next night in Isla San Francisco the Coromuels blew again and, with my tail between my legs, I took more seriously the Admirals' words of concern although I did mention to her that this is a very common problem with Catamaran (she isn't buying it�....)!