We woke up to a huge thud at 3:00AM. Oh wait I am getting ahead of myself, it was a windy day and the forecast said the winds were going to be high at 25-30 knots. We left the little cove where I finally learned to paddle board. Rosie even stood up and got the hang of things on the board. She paddled out to a pod of dolphins, so we got some really cool photos of her and the dolphins swimming all around the paddle board. There I go again getting off track. There are so many things happening it is hard to put it all down for the blog.

Any way we sailed back to Puerto Escondido from Coronados Island. Dan and Kelly from S/V Papillon were on their way from La Paz to meet up with us in Loreto. They had gifts for Puddle Pirate and we never would miss an opportunity to visit with some of our cruising family. When we arrived at Puerto Escondido we grabbed a mooring ball and settled in for the big blow. We tied Puddle Pirate up to the ball the way that the marina recommended so we felt secure for the night. So we thought but things don’t always go as expected. I forgot in Mexico there is a saying “it isn’t what you expect, it is what you inspect.”

About 3 AM Puddle Pirate went crash and with that we were out of bed and up on deck. It was pitch black outside but the lights on the shore were now in our faces. We looked to our right and saw we were up on the sidewalk of the jetty break water. This is not a good place to be. Puddle Pirate was leaned over on its side against the rocks. The side walk was just one step off the boat. Now that is easy access but not the kind you want. Lew went below and put a call out; Pan-Pan Puddle Pirate is on the rocks. Three other fellow boaters answered our call and came to assist. Two people stepped onto our boat from the side walk and helped with the lines. Lew dropped our dingy in the water and with the two other dinghy’s they pulled us off the rocks. It wasn’t easy; our keel was centered on a big rock so we had to pull the stern then back out in a very tight spot. The dinghy’s pulled and pulled with all their might. When we finally made it up right and floating I gave it gas and off we went to the full dock for the night. We still had 2 strangers on the boat that were helping us with the lines. Gabby and Rose were awesome they helped tie all the lines and assisted with navigation in the dark channel.

We arrived at the full dock and thanked our new friends. Within 5 minutes of settling in after everyone had went back to their boats, a fishing boat yells out to us. “You can’t park there, there is a fishing derby this morning and we need the dock for the derby.” I thought to myself, what an ass he doesn’t know we have an emergency and need to possibly haul out at light. How could he not know? After all we were the excitement of the marina. Doesn’t he lesson to channel 16? Well Lew let him have a few choice words and told him to take a hike. The fisherman went to complain to the guard and derby official, they told the fisherman to take a hike as well then they canceled the tournament due to high winds. Some fisherman just only thinks of themselves and that allusive fish they never catch.

At first light we checked the haul damage and it looked good to go. We had no water in the bilge so we untied from the dock and went back out to the mooring field. We had a diver come over and dive the boat to check for damage below the water line. He took some really nice photos to show us the damage. Thank god there was no major damage. We had a couple of scratches in the haul to the fiberglass but nothing that couldn’t be fixed when we haul out in San Carlos. We were very lucky!

That day Puddle Pirate was the talk of the marina and everybody was driving by to look at the damage. But there was no damage they could see. We do have a stout boat. Dan and Kelly arrived at brought Puddle Pirate an 8 man life raft. This will come in handy for our crossing to the South Pacific. Well I hope that we don’t have to use it, but it is nice to have. Dan also gave us his SSB so we can check for weather and use sail mail to keep in touch when out at sea. It was really nice seeing Dan and Kelly again. A big thank you to them for always looking out for us, they rock!