WHATS IN A NAME?

A name is an important part of a vessel and I was always under the impression that unless you wanted to anger the 'sea gods' and bestow bad luck upon it and yourself, you did not rename your boat. However, after some great research and the realisation that the  previous owners had renamed her Catalpa only a year and a half before she became mine, I figured I can do whatever I want. 

The morning of the hurricane the whole 'what should I name my boat' conversation came up (as it did quite often). At that particular time I must have been hungry because naming the boat tortilla seemed like a brilliant idea to me... Apparently not so brilliant - that only lasted moments.

By mid afternoon, once we had prepped the boat for the hurricane and done all we knew to do, I was laying down, reading a story about a ship that was stolen by pirates and re-named 'The Fancy'. I thought this was an incredible name for a boat and it quickly evolved into 'Fancy Pants'. 

I was beside myself. I had spent ages looking for names and finally I had found one that I loved that had a theme song and everything. Partial love for the name was also due to the fact that every time I would have to be hailed on the radio, or we would enter a port the hailer would have to say 'fancy pants, fancy pants, fancy pants! I had struck Gold!

That night the hurricane happened. 

Two days later, when we were prepping the boat to have it pulled off the mud, we were reflecting on the previous nights misadventures. Talking about how in hindsight we should have done this and in hindsight we should have done that. There were sentences starting over and over again with 'in hindsight'.

After about the 5th time Hendo and I looked at each with a look of astonishment and realisation... an epiphany. Some might say, even similar to that of Isaac Newton when the apple fell on his head and he discovered gravity. Instantly it had become apparent that as much as I loved the name Fancy Pants, the boat wanted... In fact needed to be called Hindsight.

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RECOVERING THE BOAT FROM THE MOGOTE

Dinghy and Power Boat towing in the distance

 

Tieing rope to the channel marker to winch over

Hendo checking for holes



Concerned face, getting towed

 

 We had been off the grid in our hotel sanctuary since we were picked up from the boat the day before, so we headed to the marina first thing, with the intentions of seeing what was happening with the boats, missing people, etc.

Club Cruceras along with the sailing community was in full form. Shelly the commodore rounded up people, dinghies, supplies and fuel. It became apparent that there were people still on their boats and sailors still missing. 

The priorities were to get the people still on boats supplies and to take advantage of the high tides by pulling boats off the Mogote. 

We were pretty keen to get out to my boat to see what

we were dealing with so we grabbed a lift with a dinghy heading past and got dropped off at it.

When we got there we saw possibly the most positive sight we could. The boat was now leaning on her starboard side - the opposite to when we had left her. This meant with high tide she had the possibility of being floated high enough that pulling her off wouldn't be too difficult.

Hendo checked the hull for holes (fortunately their were none) while I tried to pull the anchor that we had dropped. Unfortunately number 20 channel marker which was now about 30 metres behind had still not stopped mocking us. During the hurricane it had wrapped itself around the anchor rode which made recovering it a mission. 

We would have just cut the rope, but it was literally the longest piece that we had and thought we might need it to use as a bridal, or at least to assist in getting the boat of the mud. 

We were having so much trouble untangling it that we ended up tieing a rope to the top of the marker and winching it over. It still proved a mission but we got their in the end. The navy watched us battle with it, from their boat. 

We organised for M/v Oso Negro to come at high tide to pull us off. Green at sailing life, we had no idea how to coordinate a boat tow and stress was still running high from literally everyone involved. Lucky for us, Don from M/v Double Overheard came through with a massive rope and tied it for us to use as a bridal. He showed us where to attach it and made it all happen.

Apparently the theory behind floating a boat that has run aground, is to pull the mast down from the halyard with dinghys and so it rolls the boat over. Then using the massive power boat, the bridal is pulled from the bow. This will swing the boat around and off she goes. 

Sure enough this works a treat. Mind you it is actually pretty scary being on the boat while they pull your cruiser so that the rails dip under the water. For a moment, I was worried if the hurricane didn't de-mast or shipwreck it, this might.

But alas, as soon as she was in deep enough for the saltwater intake to be covered, we cranked the engine. As always she purred instantly. Everybody cheered (I don't know if they actually cheered, but in my mind they did).

We were the second boat to be pulled off the Mogote, the first being our good friend on S/v Rascal. 

We paid out a lot of cartons of beer for that day and the whole ordeal.

 

 

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NIGHT OF HURRICANE ODILE - HOW WE FARED

Storm clouds rolling in over La Paz

Lapaz has a hurricane season. It usually consists of hurricanes coming near but only close enough to get some above average winds, with the last one just over a week before Odile proving nothing more than some rain and strong winds.

We were sitting on deck drinking our mid-morning coffee, talking about how we were going to eat fish tacos for lunch, do a shop and then head out sailing the next day. Paul came by and asked us if we had checked the weather and told us a hurricane was coming. Luckily he had shown us how to properly set the anchor a couple of days before. He told us exactly what we needed to do to prepare.

We bunkered up, stripped the decks of anything that could get loose, lashed lanyards, checked anchors and made sure we had a plan in place. 

By mid-afternoon we were bored and pretty sure it was an empty threat, we went for a swim at the mogote with Autumn, decided on a new name for the boat and cruised around very nonchalant. 

At about 9 o'clock the winds started howling and rain set in. At this point the eye wasn't due to pass over cabo til 1am so it had started early and was kicking up a fuss.

We were doing ok, we had a CQR anchor out with 250 feet of chain and we had just put a new swivel on in preparation. We also had a Bruce anchor as backup and a dan forth on rode that we could run as a back anchor if necessary... We had this. 

It was pretty early when the windlass broke and we lost our whole anchor and chain. The wind was so strong that we immediately started drifting at 6 knots. We had seen other boats that had gotten loose go past at similar speeds. Hendo was on top of the fact that we needed to get the engine going so we could steer around the powerboat we were drifting towards and start fighting against the wind and current so that we could try and reset a new anchor with one of our backups. 

Almost instantly we lost our dinghy. That didn't really surprise us because we had been watching it do back flips for at least half an hour before. But was still a sad moment, we were all quite attached.. except the dinghy obviously.

The weather was so rugged that falling off the boat was a huge possibility so being on deck required a lot of care. Hendo steered around the power boat and then was heading up his port side to back where we has been. He said he would head to the front and drop the anchor while I took the helm. I was sure to make him put a life jacket on.

I didn't last long at the helm, the swell was too strong and I couldn't fight it enough so we started to run aground. Luckily for us we hit the muddy bottom of the Mogote.

I have never been so stressed or felt so uneasy. We instantly tipped to one side and set in to get bashed and beaten by the wind and swell. Wet and cold we sat not knowing what to expect.

We ran through different scenarios about what we would do in different situations and decided that the absolute last resort was jumping off the boat. It couldn't sink now at least, because we were already on the bottom. At worst we could sit on the deck and hold on for dear life.

By 1 am the eye hit cabo, we had the radio for constant updates. Everyone was going through the same thing. Dragging, running aground and even taking on water. The desperation of the voices on the radio as people's boats broke free was spine chilling. Everyone could listen, but no one could help because we were all struggling to fight our own battle. 

At about midnight Hendo told me to get low and hold on to something tight. I didn't really know what was coming, but a small sailboat hit us. Luckily for us my boat is old and solid, so could take some brunt.

We started to bounce along the Mogote so dropped an anchor off the front to keep us from moving too far. We didn't want to drift any further into the Mogote, but we also didn't particularly want to drift back out to sea. At least we were safe-ish on the mud.

Must have been no longer than another hour later that another small sailboat decided to come and cosy up with us. Next coming from behind a huge steel power boat was coming directly for us. Luckily he ran aground before he could contact us. He bounced around right aft of us for a while so all we could see when we looked through the companionway was a big ass boat right at our tail. 

About another hour later we gained a big red channel marker. This was probably the meanest to the boat of them all. This marker started at the bow and worked it's way aft, beating the hull continuously for about an hour, destroying rails, life lines, my gas bottle connection and leaving beautiful red scratches on my white bottom.

We were told that Odile wasn't going to become level with la Paz til approx 5 am. It felt like time couldn't go any slower. We were counting down the time til daybreak and I kept saying  how I just didn't want to be doing this anymore. 

It wasn't til daybreak hit and the winds died down that we could really assess the damage. Missing dinghy and kayak, broken wind vein, broken rails, missing and broken rigging, lost anchor, water logged electrics and that's not to mention the hull that still needs to be hauled for proper inspection.

The scariest thing is we got off lightly. On going outside in daylight we discovered that approx 27 boats had run aground - most in worse situations than us. We could see that several had sunk and after the morning radio update it became apparent that there were boats missing with the owners that were on board, whereabouts unknown. Our friend Autumn had run aground into the mogote and got blown off her boat so spent the night in the mangroves.

When I wrote the bulk of this, I was still on the boat reflecting. We were waiting on the 'rescue team' to come and grab us. We were safe so low priority.

Al on M/v Tuna Tamer came out at about midday and collected us. If we had to wait for the Mexican navy, we would have been there for days  

**Vid and Pic courtesy of Hendo... Along with a heap of others over the blog I have not given him credits for.

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THREE WEEKS ON

Sunset over Marina Don Jose



Dive Operations on Tobasco II



Fleet of Dinghy's for Gunthers Memorial

 

Getting Sexy Bruce Ink from Manuel

 

Nearly 3 weeks post hurricane Odile and life around the sailing community has started to come back together. The constant hugs and questions of how you are coping are getting few and further between.

A lot of the boats have been pulled off the beaches and the ones too far gone signed over to salvagers. 

The bodies of the three fellow sailors lost at sea were found and memorials have been held in their honour.

We have spent a week diving for the personal items of Paul and Simone on Tobasco II. An honour to be able to help out the family of an amazing couple that I know would have done the same if the circumstances had have been reversed.

Once again, the dolphins are visiting, the sunsets have become beautiful and the gentle rock of the boat at night is soothing to sleep to. All signs that La Paz and the sailing community here is slowly healing. 

 

 

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HURRICANE ODILE



The boat two days after the hurricane

 

The morning after, The Marker and Powerboat that nearly hit us

La Paz after Hurricane Odile



Morning after Hurricane Odile, pics from the boat




I really am not 100% sure how to write about this.. I know for myself and the people around me this is still very raw.

 

For the first time in my life, I was scared sh*tless. Like not just superficial fear, like fear of losing my life and in all honesty, we got off really lightly. 

 

In short, we lost our whole anchor and chain, nearly drifted into a powerboat, managed to power around them but then as we were trying to set another anchor we ran aground. We spent the rest of the night sitting on a 45 degree angle. Every time we thought we were all good for a bit, something would happen. We had a couple of sailboats run into us, a powerboat come charging for us, as we watched through the companionway - luckily it hit the ground before us. We also had a red channel marker that mocked us even into the next day while recovering the anchor rope, we did get free racing stripes however.

In comparison to the boats with sailors still on them a week later - bailing out water and still on the beach, or the amazing chick Autumn that got thrown from her boat and spent the night in the mangroves, or the two boats that sunk with lives lost, we really have nothing to complain about.

I don't think anyone in the sailing community knew quite what was coming and I think if we did hurricane Odile would have been tackled differently. 

I haven't seen Cabo, where the eye of the hurricane hit. But I keep hearing the word devastation as a common description of it. It is currently under Marshall Law. Riots have been happening as food and water has been scarce.

 

La Paz has been more peaceful. Without power and water, but shops have food in them. There are still places not accessible but for us as foreigner's we don't see them unless we look.

 

Hurricane Odile is said to have been the strongest storm on par with the 1967 Hurricane Olivia to hit the southern tip of Baja. Death toll according to media says 4, all of which are foreigner's. Seems uncanny that not a single Mexican has died in this Hurricane. 

 

My heart goes out to the family of Gunther, long time resident of La Paz and the sailing community. Gunther and Fritz (the most amazing and charismatic Chihuahua) will be well missed.

 

The biggest shock to me is the sinking of Tobasco II. It shows me how ferocious the hurricane was to see this outcome for these so well equipped and knowledgeable sailors. Paul and Simone have played a massive role in a lot of people lives, whether it be offering advice or helping with the most difficult tasks, they were always happy to lend a hand.

The clean up and searching is still continuing. All we can do is continue to put more back into the community and help out where we can.

 

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