SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip

Last night about 11 pm we were tucked into Bahia San Pedro watching the thunderstorms raging all around us from our own cockpit. The lightning blinded us (temporairly). When our vision recovered we thought we saw a red light just off the rocks on the north edge of our anchorage. It rained and thundered for several hours but the wind didn't get over 20 knots. We were worried that it would wreak havoc and the noise certainly reinforced that possibility. We had set two anchors in 20 feet of water and let out over 110 feet of chain. More chain would have risked swinging onto the beach! Eventually the rain forced us below decks (since it was coming sideways into the cockpit).

Morning came and we clamored out into the cockpit. We saw a 46 foot 20 ton schooner where the night before we had wondered about the red light. That schooner was SV Gold Eagle and he called us on the VHF. Apparently he was 4 days out of Santa Rosalia bound for Guaymas with a dead engine. He had drifted north in light winds before the thunderstorms and when the storms hit, he (It turns out his name is Ron...Captain Ron) was at risk of being blown onto those rocks he was so near. In desperation, he deployed his anchor in 160 feet of water. He reports that those thunderstorms we were worried about were considerably worse outside of the wind breaks provided by the anchorage. His winds were 35 knots.

We spent the day rigging a tow for SV Gold Eagle and towing him to San Carlos where he is tonight safely anchored. The tough part (for him) was getting his anchor back up. His windlass wouldn't lift that much chain so he had to get it back aboard manually using a cockpit winch. Another tough part was getting the line between the two boats. There was swell so you couldn't approach too closely without the risk of actually hitting the boats together. We managed to pass a heaving line between the boats on the second try. We had rigged bridles on both SV Gold Eagle and SV Panta Rhei and when the tow was started, everything worked beautifully. The tow line was about 275 feet of 5/8 inch 3 strand nylon rode. That was a very good length in the sea conditions we were towing in.

Tonight we are secure at the dock with our air conditioning on. We've picked up the suburban to get it ready for the trip to the US to get our new batteries. We've said hello to most of our friends here and planned an aggressive social schedule! That's what you do when you are living the dream.