On Monday, February 27, we woke up at 0300 to do the last-minute things needed before setting out to sea. We pulled up anchor at 0400. Christi station-kept while Eric went out to set his custom made anchor plate locking system. He could not get it to lock into place. Later, in the daylight, it was clear that mud from the anchor/chain had gotten into the mechanism. While Eric speculated it may be mud, at that moment it was too dark to tell, so he just tightened the chain on the windlass to secure the anchor lock system as good as was possible. By the time we finally got going, it was 0430.
We were not excited about leaving in the dark, but unfortunately, the weather window was small and there was no leaving any later. The 3/4 full moon was luminous and offered a little bit of light; having some light was reassuring.
As soon as we got out of the bay, Kosmos started hobby-horsing like crazy and the ride became uncomfortable. Maybe a better analogy was bucking like a rodeo bull. While standing, we had to hold onto the boat at all times to keep from being knocked over; on the stairs, we needed to hold on with both hands. The sea conditions basically stayed the same for about 30-hours, then they very gradually started to calm down. During the 30-hours, we guesstimate that the swells were 6 – 8-feet at 6 -8-seconds with the occasional 10 – 12-foot wave. When the bigger waves came, Kosmos smacked down hard. Once there was a bit of green water coming over the bow at one point. True wind speed was about 15-knots. Here was sunset on Monday evening:
Between the adverse current and the big waves, Kosmos was moving very slowly. We ran at 1800 RPM in order to keep our speed at 5-knots (normally, we do about 6.1 knots at 1650 RPM). Since the weather window was short, speed was imperative. Our SSB antenna came out of its base and fell over, despite the fact that Eric had tightened it when we were in Turtle Bay.
On Tuesday, it rained a little bit, and we had a beautiful rainbow.
By 1600 (4:00 pm) on Tuesday, the wind had dropped down to about 9-knots, the swells were down to 4 – 8 foot waves at longer intervals (we’re guessing maybe 8 seconds), there were no more occasional big waves, and very little water was coming over the bow anymore. It still wasn’t exactly a comfortable ride, but it was much better than it had been. We still needed to hold onto the boat at all times that we were standing, but not as tightly. Our speed also improved, but we continued to run at 1800 RPM to ensure that we made it to Ensenada before the approaching storm did. Here was sunset on Tuesday.
Here was a cruise ship heading into the cruise ship terminal at Ensenada.
The conditions stayed steady until dawn, when the wind picked up and it started to drizzle. At that point, we were already in Ensenada, approaching Marina Coral.
The entrance to Marina Coral was narrow, and entering in the low light with big waves and strong winds was a little bit scary. Eric followed the same course line that we’d used before when we’d come to Ensenada and smoothly navigated us into the small, man made harbor.
Marina Coral also had fairly narrow channels between the dock slips. We were a little bit disconcerted to find that there were mega-yachts on the end ties that overhung their slips, leaving less room to navigate between them.
Eric again smoothly navigated through the channel and into our assigned slip. Shortly after we arrived, the storm fully blew in. The rain picked up from drizzle to heavy rain with sustained winds at 24-mph and gusts to 37-mph. We knew when we’d left Turtle Bay that we would be cutting it close with missing the storm. We were so glad that we’d made it into our slip before it hit! We were also happy to have God wash our boat for us. With all the green water, Kosmos had been encrusted in salt from the top of the pilot house on down.
Marina Coral was known for its strong surge. The surge was extra bad today because of the storm. Eric did some serious line rigging to help keep Kosmos as stable as possible, including utilizing the toe hook and the paravane fish holders as additional contact points. Even so, she was still moving quite a bit.
We celebrated our successful passage by having breakfast at Coral’s restaurant. Christi was again land sick. After breakfast, we called a dentist that we’d been referred to to make an appointment to have one of Keith’s baby teeth pulled. They said the only time they had availability was today at 1700 (5:00 pm).
Christi and Eric both took naps. At about 1600 (4:00 pm) we called an Uber to pick us up to take us to the dentist office, which was downtown near Cruiseport Marina (Coral was north of downtown). We’d decided to go very early because we were worried about traffic and long wait times for an Uber. The Uber actually arrived quickly and traffic was not bad, so we were there by around 16:20.
As we were being dropped off, Keith asked “What about dinner?” We’d forgotten that he wouldn’t be able to eat after his tooth was pulled, so we rushed over to the restaurant in the nearby San Nicolas Hotel and ordered burgers. We scarfed down our food and ran back to the dentist office. Much to Keith’s frustration, it turned out that he needed to have two teeth pulled, but all went fine. The dentist ordered him to eat ice cream for the rest of the night, so there was a silver lining for him. 🙂
Shortly after we returned to the boat, the rain turned into hail and came down quite hard for a while.