Here is a shot of the almost full moon still shining brightly well after sunrise on Tuesday, September 13.
Christi thinks that on Tuesday, our friend, Chris, had an angel watching over him and protecting him. Eric thinks that Chris got lucky with a chain of fortuitous coincidences.
Continue readingSunrise on Monday, September 12
We spent most of the day doing chores. Christi was cleaning the waterline when she got an especially painful jellyfish sting on her ankle. It hurt so much that she had to get out of the water. Somehow, a jellyfish managed to get inside her flipper and stung her multiple times around the ankle! Fortunately, she had managed to do most of the boat before the sting. As the day went on, her ankle swelled up.
During the morning, two more cruising boats came into the anchorage. Both were couples that we had first met in Santa Rosalia, and both had weathered Hurricane Kay with us in Don Juan. We made arrangements to do the float together. This time, we planned to be there at the peak of high tide so we could get more rides in.
Continue readingOn Friday morning (September 9), we were surprised to wake up to no wind and no rain. The storm had cleared much earlier than expected. What a relief! It did start to drizzle not long after we woke up, but the drizzle didn’t last long.
The rivers had dried up. We couldn’t believe how clear the water in the bay was! Between all the mud that had come down and the churned up water, we’d expected the water to be too dirty to run the generator or watermaker. Another happy surprise!
Continue readingThursday, September 9 – We were all up very early. In good news, the forecast had improved to only 30 to 40-knots of sustained winds with gusts to 50. Also, the worst of the storm would hit in the late afternoon, not after dark. Taking the storm at night was scary because it meant we wouldn’t necessarily be able to see a problem arise and head it off, so having it hit in daylight was very comforting. While Kay was a category 1 hurricane out in the Pacific, it was merely a tropical storm strength here in the Sea of Cortez.
In the early morning, there was light rain and no wind at all. This was taken at 0715.
At 0730, the wind started. 1000 is when it started to get strong. We actually had a relatively normal morning until 1100. At that point, Eric and Christi stopped everything and did nothing for the rest of the day but watch the storm from the pilothouse while Keith played video games.
At 1150, there was a 39-knot gust. Kosmos moved 60 feet closer to shore. Eric freaked out, thinking that the anchor had dragged. He did some quick math and realized that the chain was now as streched out as it could be and the anchor was holding firm. That was a relief!
Continue readingHere is the sunrise on Tuesday, September 6. Look at how bright the moon is despite the early morning sun.
Not long after that photo was taken, the wind picked up. We had 17-knot sustained winds with gusts to 25-knots for pretty much the entire day. Since the wind was coming from the same direction as the hurricane would be coming from, this was actually a blessing. It meant all the boats were pushed into the place that they will be during the storm, allowing each of us to more accurately judge if we are far enough away from other boats/hazards to be safe on Thursday. One boat left, deciding they’d rather ride the storm out in the Bay of LA than Don Juan. A few boats repositioned themselves into different spots here in Don Juan.
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