They are coming in.
10 April 2018 | 25 49.555N:-111 18.804W
Bill
There is a "norther" coming into the Sea of Cortez on Friday and everyone is scurrying for cover. With wind forecast to be in the low 30 knot range, no one wants to be at anchor facing north with land behind you should you drag in the winds. Puerto Escondido it a well protected circular harbor about half way up the sea and a nice place to grab a mooing buoy of tie up to one of their new docks. Lots of expansion going on since it was bought from the Mexican government a few years ago with lots of new docks and a clearing out of older boats that have been on older mooring where they didn't belong. We currently have 46 boats in the mooring field with us and there is room for more but only so many of the new mooring balls available. We may get full at the rate boats are coming in.
After getting settled in yesterday and checking in with the marina office, we went in about 1600 to meet with members of the Hidden Port Cruisers Club(formally the Hidden Port Yacht Club) to learn about what was new at the marina and get the scoop on what had happened since we were last here in 2010. In the end, we joined the club(cost of $200 pesos for both of us). Now they don't do a lot as the group is just getting started again after a year of turmoil at Escondido with the new management coming in but as we will be returning sometime late this year once we are back on board, we thought we should join plus it's nice to make some new friends.
This morning, we started battening down what is on deck on Zephyr as the mainsail, while covered of course, wasn't tied down to the boom. We pulled off the dew laden cover and put on the straps and put the cover back on. Was there any chance of it coming loose in just a 30 knot winds, well probably no but why take the chance when it's not necessary. As for out genoa sail on the bow, we will take another roll in it so the sheets are wrapped around several times so the wind can't snatch the sail loose. We've been in lots worse weather including two storms with hurricane force winds(Newport, Oregon and South Africa) with no problems since we were well prepared. We had the threat of a big blow when we were in Bonnaire in the Caribbean with all the boats that were on mooring buoys scurrying for the security of the local marina but the winds only got to about 35 knots at worst but it sure threw the fear of God into the other cruisers. We just doubled our mooring lines and took an extra line all the way to the concrete block on the bottom and hooked to it as well. No problems. Better to much prep than not enough.
Once everything was stowed, we took our last five gallon jerry can of gasoline and put two into our outboard tank and three into the main stern tank we use to fill our Yamaha generator when she gets low. Cleaned and lubed a couple of locks to keep the saltwater out of them and reattached. It's not a lot but we wanted to get everything done in the morning before the heat of the day gets intense..