Update
22 January 2010 | Puerto Escondido
Bill Hudson
It's now a few hours later and lots ha happened in the harbor. Since last night, at least on dingy has broken loose and had to retrieved from the shore. As I told you in the last post, Pam Demonium had anchored in the small circular area just inside the harbor(for those of you looking down on us with Google Earth, the GPS 25 49.319N 111 18.664W). During the night, her anchor dragged and she apparently cam quite close to running into the boat behind her. She is now out here with us attached to a mooring buoy safe and sound though I am sure a bit rattled by what happened to them. When you are out cruising, you normally have great faith in your anchor and the last thing you want to believe it that it will drag in any kind of weather or wind. Ours has in big wind once or twice. That is why we have had to stand "anchor watch" from time to time during the night. Plus, when we anchor, I will take a line of sight bearing with a hand held compass to two different places on shore that I check from time to time to make sure we are where we started out.
At least one other boat came loose and while trying to retrieve his anchor, got caught up in one of his anchor chains and destroyed his prop shaft. He is now waiting for help from the marina and other boater in dingies to get moved to a mooring buoy. The boat in front of us has had his roller furled genoa come partially unfurled and it is now flapping in the wind and has a rip in it. That's not going to be cheap to fix as with all the wind, he can't refurl it and save what is left.
Another has had it's bimini come loose. They aren't aboard so a friend went to their boat and took it down and stowed it for them.
The wind has let up some, so I went back on deck and re-engaged the DuoGen so we will be getting lots of good amps put back in the battery. We are still having gusts into the mid 40 knot range but it's now daylight and it a lot easier to see what is happening instead of during the night when it sounds like all hell is breaking loose out there. It's still raining. You can see it as it blows through the anchorage.
The day is still early and the storm hasn't gotten up to it's full potential yet so stay tuned for more insanity.