Jimena (Tuesday): Arrived in Santa Rosalia

We interrupt this normally totally time shifted blog for an important emergency broadcast.

Yes, Toast and the girls are in Santa Rosalia and a Cat 5 hurricane is bearing down on top of us. No, we are not too happy about it.

We didn't mean to do this. We first heard about it from a call to Glenn yesterday as he drove us to the Tijuana bus station. At that point, there was no going back, no going forward faster. We just got here when we could. Hurricane Jimena has been drifting around like a drunken sailor so no one knows really where it's going to hit. For awhile, it looked like it it would run directly over Santa Rosalia. Now it looks like it's veering farther west and north. We'll see.

In any case, we're getting ready. Fortunately, Don Quixote was damn close to hurricane ready before we left. We arrived after our 16 hours on the bus to a flurry of activity to set the last lines on everything. DQ is now cross tied to the breakwater and on the pylons. We're pulled off the dock far enough to make it a challenge to clamber on and off. We have food for nearly two weeks, water for that long if we're frugal (and we can make more), enough diesel to motor us anywhere in the Sea that isn't smashed flat if we need to get out of here.

It's way too late to run. In fact, there are over 20 boats here because no one seems to really know where this damn thing is going. Puerto Don Juan is chockablock full of boats, Guaymas is still in the target zone... hell even Escondido isn't considered a safe harbor. The whole sea is just bracing for the worst. I'm almost reluctant to look at the storm tracks.

Tomorrow night is what the consensus appears to be on when we'll see the worst of it. We have arrangements with the harbor master to move all the children (and the kitties) to the harbor master's office on shore when the weather starts getting really ugly. They've started putting wood on the windows to protect the kids. There isn't enough room for all the adults so I suspect it'll either get super duper crowded or a lot of people are going to try to sit it out on their boats. I'm not one of them. We'll tie her down as best we can, I'll go out with a partner captain to check lines every few hours, and otherwise I'll stay with the girls.

Please send us all the positive karma you can.