TURTLE RESCUE

 

 

Pic courtesy of Gary S/v Sea Turtle

Pic courtesy of Gary S/v Sea Turtle

Pic courtesy of  Hendo

The sea of Cortez has a huge amount of marine life including one of my favourites, turtles. 

Sailing home after having been out at the Islands, we cruised past a green sea turtle that was sitting on the surface, wrapped in something.

We turned the boat around and as we scooted back past, I stood on the step, and leaned into the water trying to free her. At this point we realised she was badly caught in a plastic woven sack. She was breathing, but severely gasping for air.

We put the kayak in the water and I went on over to see how I could help. She had strands from the bag tangled around her neck and front flipper, binding them together. 

She looked sad. I was a tad nervous that she might try and eat me or that I would hurt her, but she was incredibly passive. Using some pliers I cut the strands from her flipper and then from around her neck. Instantly her breathing changed. I thought that she might take off straight away, but she was exhausted from the mornings battle. She let me pat her and we hung out until she got up enough speed to go on her own way.

Unlike any other turtle I have seen before she had a pink flower on her head. She was beautiful. When we found her she was so vulnerable and yet had an abundance of smaller sea life using her for food and protection. A little ecosystem of her own.

There was warm fuzzy's all round and from then on in the the town, I was known as Aimee Wildlife Warrior (I made the last bit up)

 

 

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ANCHOR WANKER

Anchored in the bay

Anchor Tattoo's

Picture courtesy of Westmarine.com - Doesn't fully capture the part where you have to smoke.

Now this is not technical... And all my sailor mates, be gentle with your criticism... But I feel learning to set an anchor properly was imperative for me.

Talking anchors in the sailing/boating community is like talking religion or politics. Everyone has their own opinion and discussions can get very heated. What type of anchor? how much rode to let out? chain or rope? What anchor for what bottom, etc. Endless contradictive advice came on how to anchor the best way.

Let's be honest, I didn't really care, as long as my boat wasn't  going to go for a wander during the night. 

My boat is already rigged with a CQR as the main anchor and a Bruce as a backup.

With some good guidance, Paul came over and checked out the ground tackle. He told us of some extra items that were needed. After a trip to the chandlery, Paul showed me how to very technically wire up the new swivels to the anchor and chain (which will never ever come loose) and he taught Hendo how to splice a rope into a snubber. 

We had some of it down, but he ran us through it all again. He told us to Angle the boat towards the wind until in the desired position, keeping in mind depth, swing area, etc. Once in position, Put the boat in neutral and drop the anchor with the desired length of chain at 4x depth. Once chain is out, put the boat into reverse until the anchor grabs. Then, put the vessel hard into reverse for as long as it takes to have a cigarette (none of us smoked, though we have since thought about taking it up just for this exercise) at that point the anchor should be fully set. Let out more chain at another 3x depth for good measure.

Other than hurricane night this proved to be incredibly successful.

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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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