11/24/14 – 11/28/14
Dropped the hook in BSM at 0800 and
passed out. Spend most of the first day loafing about. Dove on anchor
and took a salt water bath.
On 11/25/14 we experienced our first
gale on JUMBLE. Luckily, it was in a secure anchorage Neither our 6
day old forecast from PassageWeather or our up-to-date WxFx called
for anything more than 25-30 knots and that was supposed to be a
hundred miles or more to the north of us.
We woke around 0700 to 20 knots or so,
which rapidly increased to 25-30 before we could finish breakfast. It
was time to set our anchor bridle to absorb the shock loads and keep
our chain off the bobstay. It's much harder to get your shit together
when it's blowing 30 knots. Getting the exhaust hose set to protect
the nylon snubbers from chafe was by far the most difficult part.
JUMBLE does not appreciate have an extra 230 lbs on the bowspirt when
he's trying to rise to 3' wind chop. Every time I went out on the
'sprit, I got soaked.
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| The Final Arrangement |
After an hour or two, we got things
settled. The wheel was lashed, jibs were bagged, the foredeck was
cleared, bridles were adjusted and JUMBLE was pointed rock solid into
the wind and riding smoothly. We sat back and listened to fishermen,
cruisers and the San Carlos port captain on VHF. About a dozen
commercial fishing boats came into the bay for shelter. One sailboat
started to drag, but was able to reset his anchor. Wind peaked around
the high 30s with a few gusts over 40. One of the shrimpers reported
an average of 58 km/hr.
By sundown, the wind had settled down
to less than 15 knots and JUMBLE was covered in dust from the sand
dunes ashore. Our anchor didn't drag an inch, but our brand new
anchor bridle bent a little more than I'd like. If it bends in a
short-lived gale, what will it do in a real storm?
We'd planned on doing some practice
dives at BSM while finishing up some projects, but the visibility was
crap after the gale. 15' the first day after and maybe 20' the
second. All we were doing was hitting the 30' bottom and kicking
around.
Naturally, as we weighed anchor, we
could see the bottom 30' down from deck. Oh well.
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