SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip

Two days ago we left Bahia Santo Domingo for Mulege in company with SV Safety Cat. The town of Mulege is on a river and is quite distinct from all the rest of Baja. It is GREEN. There are palm trees everywhere. But the town does not front the ocean. There is a river to the ocean that can be navigated by small vessels (like our dinghies) that choose their tide carefully. The route up the river is not well marked and there is a bar to cross. You could be in Oregon or Northern California...at least that is how the river interface to the sea behaves. We anchored in a rodestead anchorage at the recommended place (in the guidebook). It was a calm morning. Panta Rhei took the lead up the river and it wasn't long before we had reached the town. Its a TINY town, but it has fresh water (which all the Bay of Conception houses truck to their homes) and it has fuel (which everyone uses for their generators). If you are getting the idea that we are in the wilderness, you are following the story right. We had met Miguel and Claudia when we were swimming with the whale shark. So we visited them at their store in Mulege and we went out to lunch. We tried to find an air conditioned restaurant, but the only air conditioned restaurant in town was closed on Tuesday!

We walked to see the prison museum (Mulege was an open prison in years past where prisoners bunked in each night but worked in the community during the day. It was like Texas, the residents were imprisoned by space). We skipped seeing the Mission in favor of getting back to our boats. There was a wind coming up, nothing too strong..18 knots. The current in the river created some huge waves and I was wondering whether we were approaching the limit of the dinghies but we crossed the bar successfully. Then we saw that SV Panta Rhei was at anchor and hobby horsing a lot, but SV Safety Cat had drug anchor and was on the beach. Oh, NO! We took Pari (Nick's daughter) from Nick and Andrea and managed to put her aboard Panta Rhei. Larry started calling for local assistance from a panga and Nick and Andrea took Larry's dinghy to try to rescue their boat. The boat was on a round rock gravel beach, reasonably boat friendly. It was being pounded in the surf with maybe 3-4 foot waves. The boat was floating on both hulls and we thought we could get it off with a little assistance. Nick pulled in his anchor and found it was fouled on discarded fishing gear that it had landed on when he set the anchor. This gear prevented the anchor from setting properly. The anchor is a Rocna, about 40 pounds with substantial chain. It is normally a very strong anchor, particularly for a light 30 foot catamaran. Who could know? He carried the anchor out into the surf and attempted to kedge himself off unsuccessfully. But the anchor did orient the boat substantially bow into the waves. No one nearby responded to our radio calls but some cruisers near Santa Rosalia did respond. They knew someone local to Mulege that was in Guymas and they called him by phone. He called some locals and FINALLY the pangas were coming. It took a couple hours. In the intermediate time, we tried to pull the boat off with the dinghy but with no success. Actually, we might have been able to do it if the port side hull hadn't been breached. Apparently an old patch where there had been a thru hull pealed off where it was laminated to the original hull. When Nick went looking for water, he found the patch floating free. Sometimes trouble comes in batches. With the port side hull filling with water the boat was becoming heavy. The first panga came and took a line and pulled, but it couldn't move the boat. A second bigger panga came out and with the help of half a dozen mexican helpers, we did manage to refloat the vessel. Of course it was listing a lot. We managed to tow it around the light house and into the river. By now the wind and tide had subsided enough that the mouth of the river was not so hard to navigate. We managed to tow the boat close to a sand beach that had vehicle access (4WD required) and no surf. It took the better part of the rest of the day to get the boat close to shore where the port side hull grounded.

Nick was exhausted and discouraged. The entire family was safe though and the boat was in a position from which it might actually be recoverable. Realize that we are in the wilderness, its blazingly hot and we have no tools. What do you do? What can you do? The inside of the boat is under salt water including the outboard motor. And Nick is concerned about salvage. If he leaves the boat he is concerned that it will be stripped. Yet he is exhausted and there really is no place to sleep on the boat.

Enter a good samaritan, actually one of many, starting with the panga drivers and all the helpers. This person (I can't remember his name) turned out to be in Mulege on vacation. He apparently has salvaged boats before. He assures Nick that this boat is VERY worth salvaging. He lends Nick his truck so that now Nick has a way to move stuff off the boat and to someplace secure. Nick gets a motel with fresh water (all the nicks and scrapes turn to infected wounds if you can't clean them regularly). Nick is the only guest so there are lots of places to put his stuff. The good samaritan speaks spanish fluently (and English). He also thinks that the fire department may have pumps. He has some ideas on how to plug holes with toilet bowl wax that is probably available in the local hardware store. And he may know where there is a tractor that can pull the boat out after it is floated. Together, they got the outboard motor off the boat and into a local outboard repair shop where it can be rinsed down with fresh water and oiled and run. Nick worked most of the night with only a few hours of rest.

The next morning SV Panta Rhei returned from over-nighting in nearby Bahia Santo Domingo. And a truckload of local cruisers were driven up from Playa el Burro by Gary, the local cruisers weatherman, to offer help. We removed more stuff and helped to make a plan.

Tomorrow morning we are going back with hookah hoses and shovels to work on sealing the port hull in preparation for pumping out. We'll start at 5am when it will be low tide.

I had napping and sipping Mai Tais in mind when I started this cruise, but somehow it has turned into a wilderness project. We'll let you know the rest of the story as it unfolds.

The picture is taken from Panta Rhei showing Safety Cat on the beach as we found her.