And the storm came!
05 June 2011 | Anse Amyot, Toau
Bill Hudson
The storm began about 1300, about 7 hours before it was forecast. We were lucky that we had finished all the outside chores we had planned for the day. I even had time to snorkel on the mooring buoy to make sure it was secure. The folks on Soggy Paws(another cruising boat here in the anchorage) had gone diving on all the moorings earlier in the season and had found them to be in good shape but better safe than sorry. With winds forecast to be in the 30 knot range and Zephyr weighting in at about 45,000 pounds, that creates a lot of strain on any mooring or anchor that we use. All looked good when I got to the bottom. We'd covered just about everything on deck from the mainsail to the winches to the windows on the dodger, we were on a mission. Tracy took care of the teak while I did other things. We were on a tight time line.
At 1300, you could see the wind and the rain as it marched from the South across the lagoon of Toau heading for our little cove of Anse Amyot. There are currently 14 of us here in the anchorage. Thirteen on mooring buoys and one big 68 footer(Imagine) on his anchor. He's too big for any of the moorings. There was a pot luck scheduled for 1500 with everyone to bring in a main course for themselves and a side dish to share. In between showers, we climbed into Puf(our dingy) and fired up Dragon(our Mercury 8hp out board) and headed in. By the time we were half way there, we were both pretty well soaked(at lease our bottom halves) from the waves breaking over poor Puffs side. We got to the dock, along with several other brave souls and tied up and met several of the other cruisers that are taking refuge here. Valentine and Gaston(own the atoll) had set up a barbecue for all of us to cook on. Fish--both in filets and whole ones were covering the grill. Just about everyone had brought in something they caught earlier in the day. We of course brought hot dogs. We haven't caught any fish since we set off so we were digging into the freezer to see what we had worth taking. Being gone from Mexico for almost two months, the stock in our meat locker is down a good bit. The folks on Soggy Paws brought to gorgeous filet mignons wrapped in bacon no less. They have a much bigger freezer than we do. We bought two Hinano beers and had great conversations with the other cruisers. We sat across from Dave and his wife and two young daughters, the owners of the 68 footer. We found out that they had gone through the same things we had after they bought their boat trying to get it ready for cruising. They even went farther in their difficulties in that they had to re fiberglass their entire hull as it was delaminating. I can't imagine how much that would have cost having been done in the US. While I think my systems are enormous, his electrical panel is a big as a conventional door on a house. He has two 8 kilowatt generators on board that he has to run 6 to 8 hours a day to keep his systems running. I makes me feel better that I only have to run our about two hours a day to keep up with our demands. He also has a crew of two along to help out.
While the winds continued, the rain had let up for a while. We finally decided to head back to Zephyr about 1800 as we wanted to get Dragon off and pull Puff back on board. With the forecast for the winds to continue for the next four days, I don't think we will be going anywhere in her for a while and we knew we would sleep better with her safe and tied down on deck. Of course on the way back we got soaked again but nothing a quick shower wouldn't fix. We made sure everything on deck was tied down and were safely below decks by 1900.
The winds continued through the night hitting into the 30 knot range and are still blowing in the 20s as I type this. Our wind powered electric generator is spinning like mad on the stern actually making nice volts for our system. It take a good storm like this with lots of wind to make her sit up and take notice and actually make some power. Anything less than 20 knots and she just isn't in the ball park for power generating. I'd planned on firing up our little Honda generator when we returned from the pot luck but the DuoGen was making lots of power and had reduced our need quite well so there was no need to turn on the Honda. As we went to bed later, she was spinning like mad and continued through the night.
It's been about an hour since I typed this post and we have more excitement in the anchorage. About an hour ago, a catamaran called Phambili radioed in to see if there were any available moorings. With the answer being NO. They prepared to come in and sit at anchor. They traveled all the way from Raiatea considerably West of Tahiti. Now why they bucked the prevailing winds and came back East is beyond me but to each their own. The normal progression is from the eastern atolls to the western islands.
As a separate point, upon our arrival we crossed over 4,000 miles since leaving La Cruz. So now we have made it over 12,000 since we took off for Alaska back in April of 2008. Not bad for some lake sailors from Colorado.
So here we sit and here we wait. The storm continues around us.