We've been battling some minor medical issues, the tail end of these never ending colds and kristina's headaches have been irrelevant since its been blowing like stink out of the north and pushing up big steep seas.
We finally saw an awesome weather window in the forecast. Northwesterlies decreasing to around 10-15 knots and dying down to become southerly 10 knots. We saw the window and decided to head north or west. We got hte boat sorted and planned to leave yesterday. We scraped a thick layer of barnacles off the dinghy and ran our errands in town. I realized then that it was a friday.
There is a longstanding superstition against leaving port on a friday. We have never been superstitious people, which might explain why we left port on a friday 3 times on our last cruise. The first time we left San Diego on a friday and lost our transmission, trapping us in ensenada for months. The next time we left on a friday we we got our asses kicked trying to get to Turtle bay and had the hardest passage of our lives. The third time, we left Mag Bay and lost our propshaft out of the back of the coupler, trapping us in Cabo for 6 weeks.
Conversely, in 2007, we decided not to tempt fate and wait until midnight plus 1 on a saturday morning to make our crossing of the Sea of Cortez. This meant we'd have to make a night entry into San Carlos but we were not confident that our coupler would hold together. We made it into San Carlos after a delightful crossing and got our anchor down before the prop-shaft backed out of the coupler. I consider that to have been a lucky passage since we didnt break down till we were safely anchored.
My superstition proved useful again as the afternoon wind blew like snot all afternoon, right from the direction we wanted to go.
Unfortunately while we were being superstitious hurricane Rick was born and intensified at a record rate. Here is a quote from the NHC page: "RICK NABS ATTENTION WITH IT'S RAPID
EVOLUTION...INTERESTS IN SOUTHWESTERN MEXICO AND BAJA CALIFORNIAL SHOULD
MONITOR THE PROGRESSION OF THE HURRICANE"
"You dont have to do this, Rick.
This thing is very threatening, forecast to hit Category 5 before curving north toward Baja. Don Anderson says "This thing is a carbon copy of Jimena." Its still too soon to say whats actually going to happen but we need to figure out if we're going to try to flee to the northern sea or find a slip here in San Carlos. The big problem with the latter option is that its well into October now and this place is packed with returning boats. our friends on Harmony informed us that they just splashed their boat into the only available slip in Marina San Carlos. We're going to go talk to Francisco this morning and see if we can get a slip and if we cant we'll go to Marina Real.
Sounds like the cyclone season isn't done taking our money yet.
We'll work on keeping the blog updated while we sort out what we're gonna do.
We departed Portland Oregon September of 2006 with high hopes but due to breakdowns and failures we returned home to earn money and stayed for 18 months before returning for the refit of doom.