Rough Weather Off the North Island

Auckland - The City of Sails
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Oddly enough to us, practically the first question of every Kiwi on learning that we recently sailed across the Pacific from North America is: “Did you have any really bad weather?” Generally, this isn’t the first question asked by Americans. Americans ask us about pirates, sometimes about banditos and avian bird flu, and memorably once about the availability of Starbucks coffee in Puerto Vallarta.* Experienced cruisers don’t ask either type of question since the answers are well known. Instead, they ask which islands we visited on the crossing and have we yet found a cheap place to do laundry.

Kiwis focus on the weather. This is smart. New Zealand coastal weather is challenging at best. At her worst, New Zealand’s coasts kill boats, boaters, and fishermen with a dreary regularity which provides a steady trickle of articles for page three of the New Zealand Herald. I believe it might even provide enough work to qualify as a journalistic beat. Of course, by far the majority of vessels and individuals lost are very small motor craft and weekend fishers. A well-founded cruising yacht which has already proven herself transiting the world’s oceans with a crew that is alert and on their game is unlikely to come to too much grief. Listen to the regularly broadcast weather reports, pay very close attention to your charts at their most detailed setting as most of the coastline is distressingly shallow and littered with obstacles, and do not get cocky.

Because New Zealand is likely to offer a global sailor some of the worst weather seen since leaving the Pacific Northwest or the Caribbean on the front end of the hurricane season. She certainly served Don Quixote a quick smack in the face translated as roughly, “Wake up you idiots! You’re not in the tropics anymore.” While it is difficult to say with precision since our wind instrument head unit abruptly died in Tonga, we estimate that we saw the highest wind speeds of our entire journey while making the passage from Whangarei to Auckland.

Not surprisingly, we were out in the rough weather because of a calendar. It really can not be said enough times: The most dangerous piece of equipment on a cruising sail boat is the calendar. We were under direct orders from BioSecurity AND Customs to get ourselves down to Auckland by Friday. BioSecurity wanted us to get Dulcinea into quarantine; Customs needed us to import the boat since we were not applying for the temporary import permit used by most vessels entering the country. As a side note, if you are planning to import your yacht into New Zealand and you are going to try to do so under the Work visa personal goods exemption, you must do this in Opua or Auckland. Details details.

It was leave Thursday or not leave until Monday which clearly would not suit New Zealand officialdom, so off we went in spite of rather nasty weather reports. We knew going into it that Thursday would entail very brisk winds from the north sweeping us south at high speed while Friday would clock the wind around 180 degrees and hit us on the nose for the last 20 miles into Auckland. Unlike the vast middle of the planet, the weather reports from Whangarei to Auckland are frequent, broadcast on VHF radio every three hours, and quite accurate out to 3 or 4 days. Trusting the reports, we knew that the trip was going to be unpleasant but completely within our wheelhouse.

The trip was precisely as predicted. On Thursday, we put up our downwind sails wing on wing and sped south roughly 60 NM. We were chased by a truly ominous black cloud virtually the entire time. At one point, we were clocking a steady 10 NM speed over ground. With no swell, virtually no wind waves, pointed downwind with probably 35 knots gusting to 40 behind us, I’m not even certain we could have slowed down if we wanted to. We made the trip in record time. For those keeping score, 10 NM is ridiculously fast for Don Quixote, and we haven’t seen 40 knots since we left the Oregon coast in 2008.

Friday was much much worse. We got up early to make the last bit into Auckland in time to get all our paperwork complete by mid-afternoon. As we rounded the corner into the Whangaparoa Passage, it was clear that the forecast had been depressingly specific and accurate. It was blowing 30, gusts to 35 but now straight on the nose. Rounding the point, it might have been worse as spray was blowing off the tiny wind caps and straight at us. We attempted to tack back and forth for awhile. I stopped looking at the knot meter. Why bother. We suck going upwind. We were making 7 to 8 over ground but our speed towards our destination was virtually negative. Eventually, we gave up, pulled down the sails, and motored into the teeth of gale. Unlike the prior day, the channel in this area caused a seriously nasty tidal current vs. wind wave action so the entire 20 miles was spent in a banging, bashing, smashing slog. We arrived in sunny, breezy Auckland beaten to a pulp and exhausted.

This is normal weather at this time of year off the west coast of New Zealand. It isn’t even particularly exciting to the locals. Yachtsmen here, like in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon have a wary and respectful relationship with their coastline. High tide swings, shallow seas, and thousands of islands, islets and rocks require experience and caution. I am not at all surprised that New Zealand sailors are some of the best in the world. Just navigating their home waters is an incredible proving ground.

This area is also tremendously beautiful and extremely fun to navigate. There are pocket anchorages all over everywhere. The holding for anchors is mud, mud, and more mud putting us back into gunkholing mode. Little towns dot the coastline complete with parks where a cruiser can land a dinghy and go for a walk-about. Small volcanoes dot the seas and spear up on the horizon, wildlife is abundant, and they tell us that the fish leap on to the hooks. We’ll stick to crabbing and mussels since the only thing we do worse than sailing up wind is catching fish.

But it will all have to wait. The family is united on precisely one thing right now. We do not want to go sailing. We absolutely do NOT want to go to some pristine, quiet anchorage and enjoy each other’s company. Stick a fork in us. We are done.

* Yes, there is a Starbucks in Neuvo Vallarta at the mall outside the marina. However, no… they do not sell whole bean coffee. I am not proud I know this.

Beach Access Arrives in Auckland
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

It's Probably the Uniforms

Year Round School Uniforms
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

I keep writing about the cold. I can't help myself. My fingers are numb, a sensation which has the effect of producing a gradual numbness of the creative impulse. I type mostly so that the fingers keep moving and do not freeze solid. But today I believe I finally discovered the source of the mystery which is the national psychotic belief amongst the people of New Zealand that they live in a warm, dry country. The problem is the uniforms, specifically the school uniforms.

I came to this conclusion on my walk this afternoon. I was coming down out of the local hills after my usual 8 km dressed in fleece pull over, sweats, knee high socks, gloves, hats, and considering seriously the addition of thermals on my return to Chicken House. School was just getting out and swarms of Kiwi children filled the streets with shouts and laughter and bare feet.

Still? It's winter, people! It's 8 C and squalls of chill rain have been blowing through all afternoon leaving icy sodden puddles on the sidewalks through which these kids blithely stomp and splash and kick. The kids are wearing the standard school uniform: polo shirts and a pair of shorts for the boys, polo shirts and a mini skirt for the girls. Most of them have their fleece "jumpers" stuffed into book bags to keep them from getting wet and dirty on the walk home. Well by all means! Just wander home with your coats and shoes in your bag to protect them from the freezing rain beating down on your wee brows and the mud from splashing your socks. Never mind that knees and thighs are going blue, noses are red, hair is wet, polo shirts, shorts and skirts alike all sodden and droopy. Thrifty Kiwis one and all, freeze the child but god forbid add wear and tear to pricey shoes and jumpers and jackets and tights.

And these children will grow up to become Kiwi adults who in turn will not look askance at half naked children running through sleet barefoot. These are the hearty people who think insulation is for wimps and only profligate morons need central heat. A nation so thoroughly fueled by fried fish and baked pastry pies need not fear wasting illnesses or lingering colds. It's all just Kiwi as.

Inspiration Strikes

Aeron and Stephanie"
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

"What are you doing?" mumbles my husband as I leap out of bed. It's the middle of the night. It's cold. I mean it's really cold. He doesn't sound happy, I must have accidentally lifted a gap in the covers.

"Just thought of something," I reply as I rush into anything, any item of clothing that will prevent my small parts from going numb as I make my way to the bathroom.

What my thought consisted of is: I need to go potty. You'd think after twenty years of marriage, I could simply say to my spouse, "I gotta piss like a racehorse." And that would be that. However indelicate that phrase might be, it would have the benefit of being the truth, not to mention striking the right note of desperation.

It takes desperation to pee in the middle of the night at Chicken House. The house is stygian and a breeze ripples down the long uncarpeted hallway as I pad my way towards the back of the house. Even more than the lack of appliances or basic climatic amenties, I find myself routinely flummoxed by the hardware in our rental quarters; For some inexplicable reason, the Kiwi builders of a century ago thought it reasonable to retrofit the house with light switches at about eye level scattered randomly around the house. All the door handles are also at this odd height. I can't find a light. I can't find a door knob. I just bump around in the night like a zombie in a B-grade movie. Before I find the bathroom, I hear Jaime's bed squeaking against the wall and a murmur from my youngest.

Having roused the house with my antics, I now treat them to the pleasant sounds of water plashing into the echoing hollow pit which is the toilet. The cacophony is rendered particularly acute for several reasons. First, Chicken House possesses neither curtains nor carpet while the roof is made of tin. Every familial twitch and twitter bounces around within the kettledrum confines of the hallway and reverberates off the cardboard walls.

The second reason my tinkle resounds like a flash flood through an Arizona arroyo is that I have learned not to put my ass on the toilet seat in the middle of the night. Ceramic, it appears, can actually drop below the freezing temperature of water. Placing warmed butt cheeks on the lid surface results in profound numbness and red ring on the skin that can take hours to fade. So during the night, my privates hang roughly 3 feet above the water level assuring the highest possible volume of sound and splash. It is my hope this tactic will thus avoid a fecal, gluteus toasticus scenario similar to sticking my tongue on a frozen lamp pole.

The third problem is of course that my bladder is full. It is so full that I have been driven from fleece and husband-filled warmth into the dark, frigid night knowing full well that I'm bound to quite literally freeze my ass off. There is a chill, damp wind blowing through the cracks in the window behind me, down the back of my neck, and pooling in a swirling mist at my feet as the torrent goes on and on and on. Long enough that I hear Mera's voice call out in concern, "Mom?! Are you okay?"

Um. A nice little muscle twitch and a frantic attempt to deal with paper, lids, and jammies without making contact with any surface in the bathroom including myself, "Uh… yeah… yeah…" Just what I need. A solicitous pre-teen banging around in the dark with me. "I'm just … cleaning the bathtub!" She must not actually have been awake as silence greets my announcement.

Fumbling around in the dark, I decide that hygiene be damned, I'm going back to bed without numbing my hands under freezing water rubbing a chunk of frozen Ivory fruitlessly between my palms. No self-respecting bacteria could survive the Arctic conditions in Chicken House in any case. Rebounding off the wall a couple of times, I make my way back to my bed, kick off my slippers, and huddle shuddering under the covers.

DrC obligingly curls around me, generously donating unequivocal love and manly warmth to the effort of thawing me out. "Cleaning the bathtub? Is that the new hiking the Appalachian trail?" He sounds hopeful.

"If it wasn't before, it is now…"

On My Walk
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

I'm Baking

Our First Sierra
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

“Jaime! What are you doing?! Get out of that!” I growl menacingly at my eldest daughter who is hovering over the stove.

“It's okay, Mom. I'm just testing them. It's been awhile since you made them. Maybe you didn't do it right,” she attempts to soothe me.

But I know what she's up to. I know my daughter. I know everything about my offspring. “Get OUT of the rolls. They are perfect. Back away from the rolls. Back away slowly,” I warn.

All three girls giggle as I advance on the galley with a deck brush raised in warning. Aeron and Mera attempt to divert me while Jaime slides three piping hot garlic rolls out of the pan and juggles them as she disappears into the port hull. My feints and dodges do no good, and the thieves disappear into a garlic and olive oil induced coma in their cabins.

The temperature mercifully dropped below 100 a few weeks ago, so I started baking again. I didn't know I loved to bake before I owned a boat. In fact, I barely acknowledged my skills as a chef. It's a well known fact in the Conger household that just because you can doesn't mean you should. And into this bucket, I long ago relegated my not inconsiderable capacity to convert raw materials into tasty, nutritious meals.

Boat life, however, provides the critical ingredient which is missing from land life cooking: time. It's fun to cook when you have the time to do it right. When you are not spending the day commuting, running errands, working, picking up the kids and ferrying them to after school activities or play dates, you have time to think about cooking. You have time to select ingredients, paw through books, and get creative. You can make bread and yogurt and cheese. You can test this and try that. There are lots of opportunities to just enjoy the physical mechanics of chopping, blending, stirring, whipping, and kneading.

Since we've been living on Don Quixote, my interest in everything having to do with cooking has increased. Oh sure, I like it when DrC takes over, and I get a night off. But as a rule, I do most of the cooking, the girls and DrC do all the cleaning. I do all the provision planning, write up the daily lists of what is edible and what is not to be touched as it has a place in a future meal. I supply the maternal nurturing gestures which maintain our sour dough yeast starter and our yogurt culture. We grow sprouts, we bake muffins and scones, we invent creative ways to use the sun to cook stuff.

Then the heat hit. When the heat hits down here, it isn't a metaphor. It hits you. Really super hard. You can't move. It takes the breath away. And positively the absolute last thing on earth you want to do is add even one micro-erg of heat to the boat through the process known as cooking. For weeks, I couldn't get any more creative than “cold.” If I could figure out a way to prepare or serve something without turning on the stove, it became dinner. As a result, we ate quite a bit of cereal, fruit, and store-bought yogurt. For nearly two months, I stored dish rags in the oven.

Praying at the Candy Altar
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

The northers, however, finally started blowing cool air down into the Sea of Cortez. For weeks, we've woken to a salon well down in the truly pleasant 70s. The days rarely top 90. So I pulled out my yeast, fed them a little honey, and started down the familiar baking path. In the past days, I've made cookies, muffins, and many many batches of garlic rolls. Two of those batches were supposed to be normal sandwich bread, but after the kids descended on the first batch like locusts after a week crossing the desert, it seemed like a good idea to just pump out the garlicky goodness until they subsided.

This cool weather better last awhile.

For My Next Hurricane

Holding the Middle
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

As part of the recovery process from Hurricane Jimena, I made it a point to interview my fellow crew and captains as to what worked and what didn’t work. While the consensus was, “No mas hurricano” never again... get the hell out of dodge... there were also many ideas of how to improve the odds for the next one. Just in case. While there are books written on this subject, it never hurts to talk to the people who just lived through a big storm.

Unfortunately, I conducted most of these interviews during the Grace e deos/Soccer party the day after the second time Jimena hit us. The following are the ideas and suggestions I can remember:

More Fenders Everyone wanted more fenders. If you don’t use them, someone else can. Also, fenders need to be blown up so a fender-blower-upper.

More Lines Everyone also wanted at least one more line. Everyone. Little docklines good for tying up to a fuel dock are just not going to prove helpful in a big storm. Get 1” line and store it dry and safe somewhere, ready for a storm. Have at least one, and preferably two pieces of anchor road that are at least 150’ long so that you can run lines a long distance. Four boats in Santa Rosalia had to run multiple lines over 100 feet to a far side breakwater. These lines were critical to keeping those boats from smashing the docks during the storm.

Don Quixote’s Strap More than one captain asked me were we got our 300 feet of 3 inch cargo strap. http://www.strapworks.com. I’ll write a tech tip about how this worked and why.

Alex’s Telcel It was fantastic downloading the latest radar and weather over Maitairoa’s 3G Telcel. Yes, you can get this information over your SSB, but the SSB requires huge bandwidth and doesn’t work so well when there is a lot of electricity in the air. The Telcel modem plugged into Alex’s notebook, used almost no power, and worked all the way through the storm.

Prepare Food for a Passage Treat the storm as a passage when it comes to the galley. Have meals prepared in advance, snacks ready to deliver whenever tired crew come in. Always have hot water ready for coffee, tea, soup, and chocolate.

Clean Everything Before It Hits It is quite possible that boats in Santa Rosalia will not be allowed to do laundry for over four weeks. Make sure all your sheets and towels and clothes are clean in advance.

Get Cash After the storm, no one can take credit cards and the ATM machines are not functional because the phones and power are out. Make sure that you stock up on a substantial amount of cash, preferably in small bills.

Take Your Meclizine If you are prone to sea sickness, you are going to get sick on the dock from the movement during a big storm. Take counter measures in advance.

Manning the Lines
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Attend the Boat This came as two recommendations: if you can, be near your boat where you can attend the lines, anchor points, and fenders yourself. Boats in other hard hit locations such as Escondido and San Carlos report that attended boats survived, unattended boats broke moorings, drug anchor, or smashed on docks. Staying in a marina with a dedicated, hard working dock crew helps enormously. The boat captains at Santa Rosalia could not say enough positive things about Escaula Nautical Singlar, her staff -- particularly Arturo and Alfonzo -- and her management. Harbormaster Carlos and his team were impressive, courageous, and critical to the survival of the boats in that harbor.

* *

I know quite a few of my readers are fellow Sea of Cortez cruisers. While the storm experience is still fresh in your mind, please add comments and suggestions to this post. If I get enough, I’ll compile them for a second round.

Jimena (Thursday, 7 PM): She’s Back

Setting Them Again
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

ji men' a, adj. unpredictable, changeable, likely to change course quickly. EG: A jimena driver just cut in front of me to get to the exit four lanes over!

I hate this storm. I HATE THIS STORM. She’s coming back. The cruisers who listen to Don Anderson and monitor these things just got done listening to the latest updates and checking EEBMike for the weather forecasts. After squatting on top of us for hours, Jimena apparently drifted over to Isla Tiberon, parked again and proceeded to beat the crap out of San Carlos and Guaymas. We are only beginning to hear how bad it was over there. In the meantime, she’s turned around and started heading back over the sea towards us.

The good news is that apparently Jimena has been downgraded. Instead of 90 from the east, we can anticipate 40 to 50 from the north west and south west. There are a lot of reasons why this is a considerable relief, not the least of which is that we won’t face nearly the fetch or swell coming into the harbor, and both the hills and large marina buildings to the west should go a long way towards protecting us. But the forecast is for a great deal mas agua.

I do not understand how this city can withstand any more rain. Frankly, I don’t really know how we’ll stand more rough weather ourselves. Everyone is so tired. The gear is in incredibly bad shape, though I guess we can be thankful that we were all way too tired today to take any of it down. With few exceptions, the fenders are destroyed. All the boats are on their last lines. Another problem we face is that it’s much harder to run off side breakwater lines to the north. During the storm, Ballina nearly pulled out the one piling we had run over to the Navy pier. I’m not sure they are going to be particularly excited about us running another one.

We got the news just as I was serving dinner. Joanna has been doing most of the cooking, while Don Quixote has taken the lion’s share of the hosting. We decided to feed the children and then hustle them back off the boats and into the ladyies’ bathrooms. Of course, the only two tasks I managed to get my poor tired body to accomplish today was to wash the cat laundry and to move everything we owned back on to the boat. Reversing the process just so we can get run over by Jimena a second time adds insult to injury. I resent this storm deeply.

CONTINUED (Thursday, 12PM): Rain Rain Go Away

Adios Jimena
Originally uploaded by svmaitairoa.

Squalls have been passing through all evening as the bands of Jimena move over us. However, so far we have not seen winds any greater than 25. The rain is steady, sometimes heavy but mostly a light drizzle. Unless Jimena is still parked in the middle of the sea, we may be done. With all the lines strung on the boats and dock, we could sit through 25 to 30 knots squalls until hell freezes over.

Here’s to sincerely hoping bitch Jimena is dead.

CONTINUED (Friday, 2AM): Stick a Fork in Me

I can’t sleep on the floor of the bathroom any more. There is hard, rock hard, diamond hard, and this bathroom floor. Joanna appears knocked unconscious at the entrance so the kids won’t panic if they wake up and find me gone. I’m taking the cat home. If Jimena decides to throw up another temper tantrum over my head, she better be ready with some serious winds. It’ll take another Cat 2 to wake me up.

Jimena (Thursday, 9 AM): After the Storm

Going Down
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

After a few hours of exhausted sleep, we emerged this morning to a wet overcast world. Only the truly bold are leaving the marina. When I go to the upper story and look out, the streets are a sea of mud as far as the eye can see. The surf is still pounding on a shore transformed with debris, driftwood, and boulders mounded 15 feet high and 20 feet deep. The bus station next to us is awash in mud, vehicles smashed into one another.

But all the boats are still here. In fact, with few exceptions, the boats sustained no major damage. The marina itself is clean, washed by over a foot of rainfall of even its usual patina of dust and bird shit. We feel like a clean island in a sea of sticky dark mud.

Don Quixote is untouched. I can hardly believe it. I’ve checked each line, each fender. I’ve looked in the bilge and started the engines. No damage. It almost seems selfish to feel so gleeful, but we’re here. We’re afloat. We’re okay. Well, we’re wet. All three cabin hatches leaked, and we had water pouring in through the port winch as well as in the port front hatch. I caught a good fraction of it in bowls or buckets and the rest is drying rapidly. We should be able to move back on tonight, sleep in our own beds for the first time in nearly two months.

Ironically, the worst damage we sustained during the storm was self-inflicted. Leaving Dulci on the boat the first few hours of the storm was a mistake. She was pissed. She elected to graphically display her displeasure by enacting out the word ‘piss’ on my bed -- an act this cat absolutely never engages in so there is no question of chalking it up to an accident or poor training. I can see her peeing and then dancing on it in a vengeful rage to ensure it would soak all the way through to the mattress. Two blankets, two sheets, two mattress pads thoroughly soaked in cat urine, and a promise from the harbor master that there is no water to the docks for at least 4 weeks, no laundry for the same. In desperation, I went out and caught two large buckets of rain water, filled one with soap and bleach, and started the process of detoxifying the vile mess. For the first rinse, I laid the bedding out flat on the marina patio and let the rain just soak on it for an hour.

Alex of Maitairoa and his wife walked into town this morning. Their pictures convinced me that the girls and I will not do so. Mud everywhere, houses and cars buried, favorite spots, tiendas, and stands simply gone. We understand that hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, have lost their homes. It is hard to know how these people will recover, though the evidence of their capacity for doing so surrounds us. A crowd of men descended on the marina parking lot this morning, many half covered in mud from their walk through town. They clambered up on to the earth moving equipment parked here the night before the storm and headed out. It’s only mid-day, and Highway 1 through Rosalia is already clear enough for large equipment and 4-wheel drive, emergency vehicles.

I took the children for a short walk one block to the south. It is too dangerous and the mud far too deep to take them north into town. The drifts of mud are roughly six feet high in that direction. To the south, however, a decorative berm rises high enough above the highway to be clear of mud. We used the walk to talk about hurricanes: what they do to the landscape, how wave action undermines buildings, the sources of landslides, how fast objects can move in a 90 mile per hour wind, how a beach ecosystem changes due to hurricanes and how the shoreline is modifying permanently. We examined pieces of metal thrown from buildings at high speed and embedded in trees, walls and mud. At this point, the kids started looking a bit ashamed of themselves -- and rightfully so. I can’t tell you how many times Joanna had to yell at the kids when they tried to slip outside to ‘look at the storm.’ We also made lists of things required for disaster preparedness: water, food, shovels, gloves, money, wood.

The children were very creative, very thoughtful in their answers. The five of them have been through an amazing experience. It is clear their understanding of how to prepare themselves for a similar event has grown exponentially and in ways that even the littlest -- Aeron and Skylar -- will not likely forget. These are not children who will fail to have an earthquake bag or an emergency medical kit.They have a profound respect for the power of wind and rain now and are probably the only children in Santa Rosalia not dancing in their bare feet in the mud. You only need see one piece of rusted metal poking out of the mud to know that bare feet are a bad idea in this environment.

Breakfast After the Hurricane
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

I am watching them very carefully, however. There was no crying, no wailing, no fear during the storm. My three girls spent their time reading, playing, and watching movies. Only at the peak when Steve and I were at our personal nadir did the storm seem to touch a core fear. But it’s in their eyes. Mera isn’t smiling. Her new composition -- Lull-A-Bye for A Hurricane -- is haunting, slow and sad and eerie. She plays it almost obsessively which drives Aeron out out out of the house in her own expression of frustration and fear. I can’t get Aeron to stop moving. Not to eat, not to change into clean clothes, not to watch a movie or read a book. The child whirls around the marina like a small, blonde tornado. Right now she is squeegy-ing the plaza, pushing water from the cold room all the way to to breakwater and shouting with pleasure as it pours down the wall. At some point, the crash will come. It will hit them.

I haven’t cried yet either. It will hit me, too. Not yet, however, and until it does, I have a lot of work to do. I think I’ll go find another sqeegy.

Jimena (Thursday, 1 AM): I Don’t Understand

We're Still Afloat
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Between 11PM and midnight, the storm just stopped. I don’t know exactly when. With no access to the Internet or SSB, we have no idea why the wind is gone. For an hour, we have been waiting on the dock or near the entrance to the bathrooms, ready for more. Now one by one, the boat crews and dock hands are allowing for the possibility that we are done. Someone will swing by the bathroom to check on us or to grab a bit to eat, exchange the forecast, and then admit that they are going to bed.

I made a quick check of the boat. In the stygian dark, she appears unscathed. I find this difficult to believe. Only a few hours ago, there was little question in my mind that we were going to lose her. Now as I empty pots and buckets and wipe down the floor, I marvel that the books are still on the shelves. The seas remain a roiling, boiling herky jerky, bouncing nightmare oddly more disturbing now that the wind and rain have vanished. I tumbled in the cabin and bruised my shoulder against the lockers while gathering extra bedding. There is no question of taking the children back to the boat tonight.

I would like to blame the incredibly hard bathroom floor for my insomnia, but I suspect the problem is mental instability. Monday night saw my family on a 16 hour bus trip from Tijuana to Santa Rosalia. Tuesday night I went to bed exhausted and worried about the coming hurricane only to be awakened at 3 AM by a phenomenally fierce, albeit short-lived chubasco. Since dawn I’ve been working outside in the storm or sitting with the children attempting to hold the center together. I spent most of that time soaked to the skin. Sheer physical exhaustion, lack of sleep, and the two beers coursing through my system should combine to knock me catatonic and instead here I sit in a hard plastic chair with a Tecate logo writing by the light of a dim LED. Maybe I have just forgotten how to relax. Maybe the sheer intensity of these three days has been such that my mind doesn’t know how to stop pick pick picking.

Toast After the Hurricane
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

I don’t understand it. I didn’t understand the ridiculously confused forecasts as Jimena moved from Cabo up the Pacific coast. It was bewildering to watch it repeatedly defy all predictions and models as it veered with almost sentient glee towards the most populous ports on the northern Sea of Cortez. It was impossible to get our heads around the ferocity of the wind even as it knocked us over on the docks and nearly sent us into the waters of the harbor. We were taken completely by surprise when the wind tunnel and deluge abruptly stopped, and now I just can’t get my head around the notion that it might be gone. I keep waiting for the other half, the part where the wind clocks around 180 degrees, and we do it all over again in reverse.

They tell me this is not what is going to happen. Alex pulled down a radar and track from EEBMike showing Jimena is on her way to Guaymas. What is left of my educated, rational self believes him, but my monkey brain is still jumping up and down, screaming and throwing shit at the wall. Monkey brain needs to shut up and eat the oranges.

Jimena (Wednesday, Midnight): The Sky is Falling

The Sky is Falling
Originally uploaded by svmaitairoa.

In the last hour, we were finally able to settle the children and cats on chairs and tables, small pink, green, and blue islands floating on a one inch sea of rain water. The rain was a stinging horizontal wall outside forcing its way through window sills never designed for more than a light drizzle. To make matters worse, a small leak in the ceiling three stories above us gradually grew to a steady pour of water. Like a tiered alfalfa sprouter, the water accumulated at the top and gradually poured down the sides of the building, collecting in pools on the floor above before running down to the next layer.

Then abruptly, the sky fell on us. The ceiling in the cool room, after soaking up the rain for nearly twelve hours, gave up. Sheets of plaster gave way with a tremendous crash, nearly burying Skylar in sodden chunks of white mud and electrical components. Only a warning pop and her quick movement saved her from serious injury. Abruptly woken from a sound sleep, Aeron was a wreck, crying and almost incoherent. Jaime, Johanna, Steve and I practically catapulted the younger children out of the building and down to the only dry room remaining on the entire property -- the woman’s bathroom. We then returned to quickly gather our gear before the remainder of the ceiling gave way. Food, bedding, clothing, paperwork, and electronics -- all we might have left in the world if the docks give way and which took us hours to move up from the boats the day before -- was moved in less than 10 minutes from the office to the bathrooms.

It's Gone, Right?
Originally uploaded by svmaitairoa.

It is only now, after we’ve settled the children in the back room on the floor that we can look around and realize that Jimena is gone. Sometime between our Chicken Little act and provisioning a slumber party in the women’s head, the rain and wind stopped as though some fickle sky god flipped a switch. I’m sitting at the entrance to the ladies room sipping a beer with Steve, Joanna and the dock hands waiting for a forecast. This is probably the eye. We probably have hours more to go. But for however long it lasts, we’ll sit here and listen to the drip drip drip as gravity works its will, nerves humming and twitching with adrenaline and exhaustion.

Jimena (Wednesday, 9 PM): We’re Losing Her

Don Quixote and Lillith Riding Out Jimena
Originally uploaded by svmaitairoa.

Steve can’t move. He’s sitting across from me wet to the bone, numb and blank with exhaustion. The wind and rain are a solid vertical wall slamming the office from the east with relentless, violent force. We don’t know if Festima is going to hold. A large motor yacht has worked partially lose and broken the end of the dock across from Ocean Blue. While the crews managed to literally tie the dock to the piling with industrial sized anchor rode, we don’t know how much longer it will hold.

As Steve slowly sips a cup of soup, the details emerge bit by bit. Most of the leeward fenders on the boats abeam of the storm are nothing more than flat chafe guard leaving the boats to beat against the docks with no protection against damage to both boat and pier. The spray and wind are so fierce, we can’t see the breakwater, we can’t see Festima from the main dock. We only know she is still there because we are still here.

The wind is too strong to walk against, the boat crews have largely disappeared into their boats unable to work outside any longer. The monohulls abeam to the wind are heeled over so far some have their leeward rail in the water. For hours, the crews have replaced lines, added chafe gear and fenders. Lillith cobbled together boogie boards when their full set of fenders smashed. Arturo scrambled from slip to slip tightening every dock cleat, every bolt holding this lego set of a dock together. But now they are done. Even the hardiest and most willing soul is hunkered down in the boat, engines on, waiting for the dock to dissolve or the last lines to part. There is absolutely nothing left to be done.

Steve can not talk about it. He is clearly deeply torn. He wants to be on his boat, but at some point in the last half hour, he reached the wall I hit several hours ago. The boat is important, but the children on shore are more important. I can’t help but wonder how this would have played out for the crew of Don Quixote had DrC been here. Would I have spent more time assisting out in the storm, trading off with my husband the care of our children? Or paradoxically, would I have felt any obligation to be out there, instead maintaining the serene supportive calm of Joanna for the children hour after hour while Dean struggled to save our home. And at what point would DrC have been sitting here in this room with the same haunted look I see on Steve’s face now?

We’re losing our homes. Jimena just won’t go away. Stories I’ve read about hurricanes talk about their ferocity, the noise, the wind and the incredible volume of water. But I’ve never read an account of a storm’s height lasting for more than a few hours. It’s late. I don’t know how late, but the storm has been raging with winds at least in the 50s since late morning. Sometime in the last hour, someone turned the wind dial to 11 ratcheting up the speed exponentially and pegging all the wind indicators. We’ll have to wait till tomorrow to know for sure but I think at least 80, maybe more. It’s late. I’m writing by LED, no power left on the computers. We must be approaching midnight. God damn storm must have stalled right over our heads.

As Steve speaks, I can see Mera and Aeron processing the information. Jaime, little Steve, and Skylar are largely oblivious, but my little ones are so sharp, such intelligent, curious and deeply -aware- creatures that they immediately sensed the difference in him when he came into the room this time. I know they are eavesdropping. DrC and I have never tried to protect the children from the harsh reality of the world by blocking their access to information. When a clear picture began to emerge, they came to me and wrapped their arms around me, shook and unhappy. It is time to do my own damage control and start protecting what I have left.

Arturo Resetting Line
Originally uploaded by svmaitairoa.

I’m doing my own hunkering down now. Aeron and Mera and I talk about how boat insurance works. We discuss our plans to go to New Zealand anyway and how that will not change if we lose Don Quixote. In fact, we won’t have to worry about finding someone to maintain or charter the boat now while we are gone exploring another part of the world. Mera wants to know the probabilities: losing Don Quixote, getting a job in New Zealand, salvaging more personal things off the boat if she gets smashed up on shore. Aeron wants to know how to translate the probabilities into terms she can get her head around. After absorbing the possibilities and cuddling with me for awhile, they are now dosing off on their bench island.

We are all here. Everything that is important is in this room. Steve kept Ocean Blue and Don Quixote afloat as long as he could, but the bottom line is that I’m glad he’s not out there any more. We’re done. Grace e deos.

Jimena (Wednesday, 7 PM): Tipping Point

It's Getting Ugly
Originally uploaded by svmaitairoa.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to post this. We just went to the backup generators at the marina and port office. The computer systems and Internet are not on that circuit, naturally. So Internet is down until power comes back. And I can’t go to my boat.

Jimena decided to move directly north, which put Santa Rosalia very much in the path. I’m sitting in the Cool Room with the five children of Don Quixote and Ocean Blue and watching the wind and rain howl. I’d guess the wind speed in the 50’s and we’ve probably seen at least 6 to 10 inches of rain already. The kids have renamed the air conditioned cruiser lounge the Wet Room. The window sills are flooding as is the office above us, and water is pooling on the floor everywhere.

I’m scared. This morning after the first blast I learned graphically where the expression “keep your shit together” must come from. As my stomach cramped and my body rejected dinner, I squeezed my eyes shut tight, took deep breaths, and chanted the phrase which is now my mantra, “We matter, money does not. We matter, money does not.”

Because our boats are getting the crap beaten out of them. Everyone did the best they could, but now we’re essentially helpless in the face of the weather. The storm surge is blasting against the breakwater in 30 foot splashes for all the world like Mickey Mouse on a sorcerian rampage. The boats are bouncing against their lines, children’s toys in the Santa Rosalia bath tub. Everything is jerking and pounding, the wind is screaming and the rain is a stinging deluge. Imagine standing in a shower on the pound-the-hell-out-of-your-shoulders setting. This is the most water-wasteful shower head in the world which alternates massage and sting pellets with a sporadic high pressure open facet.

Santa Rosalia must be a complete disaster. Even what we can see of Highway 1 is a solid wall of mud and water. Occasionally, an emergency vehicle goes by and it’s a wonder it doesn’t simply float away.

Despite the surging waters, the swirling gale, and the incredible bounciness of the boats, the docks are still there and our boats are still afloat, but I don’t know how long that can last. All the captains and most of the boat crews are on the dock, including the port captain and the harbor master. We have several marina staff as well. All told, there are roughly a dozen people manning the docks, the lines, the chafe. Typical of the team, Steve of Ocean Blue can’t bear to spend more than ten minutes at a time away from the boats.

As a group, our single greatest worry is a boat tied to the fuel dock upwind of the marina. We all thought it was a fine place for them, almost completely sheltered in the lee of the breakwater, until we discovered to our horror after the winds had already begun to pick up that the lines and secure fittings on the boat were limited and inadequate. While there is almost no wind at that spot, surge is rolling past s/v Festima Lente’s bow, raising the boat nearly 8 feet on each rolling wall of water and slamming her against the pier. She has snapped every line originally securing her and most of those we’ve desperately thrown over the remnants.

If that boat goes, it takes out all the breakwater lines set by the south side boats, which include Ocean Blue, Rhumb Line, Lillith and Don Quixote. Even if we cut those lines before Festima Lente yanks us off the docks and on to shore, that leaves us with no off side lines to prevent the large, windy catamarans from beating the dock to pieces. Losing this fuel dock boat is simply not an option. After Festima started snapping lines, the rest of the cruisers took over setting an anchor and getting an extremely heavy duty line wrapped around the masts and dock pilings as well as hanging a tire on the side. The crew of all the boats worked like dogs to get that boat set. They continue to work like dogs monitoring the docks, the decks, lines, chafe, movement. Wet, yellow shadows moving in groups of two, three, five where necessary to make sure none of the boats is lost.

Saving Festima Lente
Originally uploaded by svmaitairoa.

But I’m not one of them. I was. I tried. But now here I am with the children in the safe room. I think I could have stayed out there working, but at some point, I would have needed to have a serious breakdown. I could feel it coming as the wind built and the boat started jerking hard against the lines, bouncing against the dock, twanging the lines holding her to the far pier. I felt the tears starting as I leaned into the spray off the break on my way to the port captain to get line for Festima. However, if I break down, the girls will know. They will see evidence of it on my face, in the redness and puffiness of my eyes. They will know. And what’s holding them together right now is Johanna and I sitting here calmly reading novels.

Every time my breath hitches, terrified at the potential loss of Don Quixote, our cruising lifestyle, and our plans for the future, I remind myself that we matter. These three girls, even this kitty cat by my side. We matter most. I matter more than Don Quixote, and DrC doesn’t want to lose me. So I’m not a heroine today. I’m a mother, I’m scared, and I’m going to sit with my children in relative safety while this hellish wind and rain move slowly past, trusting to the hard, dangerous sacrifice of my fellow cruisers working out there.

A Little Editorial Therapy

All Tied Up in Knots
Originally uploaded by svmaitairoa.

As many of you are now no doubt aware, Hurricane Jimena hit Santa Rosalia square on. With winds from the east of upwards of 90 knots and an enormous swirling surf, the safety of the boats was by no means certain. The safety of ourselves was by no means certain. Just as I’ve been told that telling a particularly harrowing birth story can make the whole thing easier to put behind a woman, I’ve been using writing to work through my own issues regarding this experience.

I never promised that Toast Floats would be a strictly accurate, autobiographical account of our cruising life. It is probably pretty clear that many of the articles are somewhat fictionalized exaggerations. I take liberties with the order of events, the exact dialog, stretch the truth a bit. I attempt to interweave current, topical bits with stuff I may have written months ago and like to have a least three weeks to two months in the blogger queue in case I can’t get online. And while I enjoy writing the informational articles with tips and ideas on how to cruise, I mostly use Toast Floats as a way to have fun, to explore a style of writing which is the antithesis of the regimented, formulaic composition required of my profession.

However, I’m afraid this time my own needs are going to take precedence over keeping Toast Floats a humor blog. I need to get this stuff out of my system before I feel I can move on or write about anything else. So for the next month or so, I’ll gradually write, edit and reedit the hurricane related content. Most of the content is autobiographical, some a technical post mortem of what worked and didn’t work, much of it serious and a portion of it highly emotional. I thought to mix it with the lighter pieces I drafted while on the road with my family in the United States, but I think I'll just get it over with instead. It’s probably going to be a bit of a slog for long time readers who usually expect a chuckle from their toast-feed.

Please be patient with me. I’m a resilient, irrepressible personality. My mommy told me so. I’ll get back to the fun stuff sooner than even I probably think possible at the moment.

Out the Other Side

It's all good. We'll go back to our regular time shifted blog now. I am borrowing a TelCel connection at the moment so I can't post up a lot of articles. If you don't see anything here for about a week, my apologies. We're doing fine, but I'm having trouble with our SSB and can't use the Internet for posting my usual blog stream.

I encourage you to browse Maitiroa's pictures at: http://tinyurl.com/jimena-santarosaliapics. I declined to take many pics myself so some of those will reappear in this blog in the future as I write about our experiences. Alex took pictures before, during and after.

We're putting ourselves and our boat back together. Most of the work is actually recovering from being gone for over a month. As soon as we get all the pieces back aboard in a form where they won't simply rattle apart, we'll head north. You can follow our SPOT track (link on the upper right of this page) as we motor (flee?) north. We have a solid weather window for at least a week, so I'm MOVING. Our buddy kid boats waited the hurricane out in Willard's Bay and barely saw any overcast. -THAT- is where I plan to put us for the next hurricane.

Thank you again for all the comments, emails, Facewall posts, prayers, and support. It means a great deal to us.

Jimena (Thursday, 8PM): It's Just SITTING There

After spending nearly 11 hours beating the hell out of Santa Rosalia, Jimena headed out to sea towards Isla Tiberon. On arrival, the storm parked itself and spun around inflicting a similar hell on San Carlos and Guaymas. We have heard rumors of boats lost off moorings and other damage on the docks, but we know very little in the way of details.

Then she came back. We were feeding the children a nice hot dinner last night when Rhumb Line came down the dock with Don Anderson's weather report. Confirmed by NOAA and other sources, the consensus tracked Jimena doing a 180 and coming back towards Santa Rosalia. Because what we needed was another hurricane. No one had loosened any lines, but there was still a great deal of work to be done. Ocean Blue and Don Quixote finished feeding the kids and then hustled them back up to the girls' bathroom for the night. We prepped the marina's emergency generator, moved the cats, and then set to work on the docks. T

The reports estimated we had two to four hours before winds of 25 to 35 with gusts in the 45 range. That's not bad when everything is in fine shape. But Santa Rosalia is a mess. The marina is doing surprisingly well, but the boats, the crews, the gear... we're worn. Also, we'd set for east and south east the day before. Now we were looking at north and northwest initially before the storm would pass and clock around. So more work on lines, chafe gear, tightening every cleat and every bolt on the docks. We ran additional lines for the north side boats over to the naval pier. And we scavenged everywhere for supplemental fenders for those boats whose fenders were smashed absolutely flat the night before.

Then we waited.

And waited. And waited. All night long, we experienced small squalls with winds 5 to 15 and a steady, dreary drizzle which would occasionally get serious but reminded me most strongly of a Seattle storm. The kids settled down eventually. The cats also finally decided we were not going to change our minds and reluctantly set up camp near their food and carriers.

By midnight, we decided that weather forecasters know nothing about Jimena. Not one prediction of this storm ever seems to subsequently materialize. Not Don Anderson – for many the cruisers' guru of all things Baja weather, not NOAA or NOGAPS, not the Europeans or the Canadians or the Mexicans. We all agreed that we could basically put the weather up to a vote of the sailors on the dock and produce an equally accurate result.

By two, we stopped waiting and collapsed. Figuring we would wake up if the wind picked up, the exhausted crews and the marina employees just fell down dead, many in their gear, and trusted that Jimena would let us know if we needed to get up. Since Monday, I've had a total of approximately 10 hours of sleep caught in one and two hour catnaps, on a bus, on the floor of the bathroom, in chairs. I actually think it would have taken a Cat 2 hurricane to wake me up. Jimena spitting at me in tropical storm mode wasn't going to do it.

This morning, my body finally decided that I'd had enough rest to be a responsible adult again and allowed me to awake. Unbelievably, the weather hadn't changed, nor had the forecast. Jimena is still sitting out there stuck halfway between Guaymas and Mulege. Bands of wind and squalls pass through from the north periodically. Dark, fast moving clouds still fill the sky though we now catch glimpses of blue. The port captain announced that it would dissipate by noon. However, here we are at noon... Like I said. Take a vote. I vote that we're done.

The city is a disaster. The authorities and people were getting ahead of the mud and rock yesterday, but I cringe at the thought of what all this steady rain is doing to already unstable hill sides. The flooding and mud yesterday were truly unbelievable. I didn't walk up into the town itself, but have seen the photos of those who have. I hope to be able to share these with you as soon as we have a solid connection. The town of Santa Rosalia we know has disappeared under drifts of mud and stone – all our friends, our favorite tiendas, taco stands, and verduras vendors have been scraped off the streets and into the harbor.

We at Singlar Marina are incredibly lucky. While the officina is essentially a write-off, the rest of the facilities are still operational. Unbelievably, the staff just got the power up to all the buildings and are working on the dock circuit. Water is still our biggest concern, though all the boats have full tanks. We'll also be able to use the storm and pool water for washing ourselves, dishes, and the mud off the boats.

DrC was able to send me a message from the States. The emotions are so close to the surface that just holding the printout in my hand almost made me break down. Aeron and Mera both seemed equally moved. It was important to have that bit of contact. To know that he was aware of our safety.

He did say that he hoped we could get out before the next storm arrives. I'm afraid that's just not possible. The harbor is closed for the foreseeable future. The town surely must want to get rid of this fleet as we're just another set of mouths to feed and water at the moment. However, there is an island of debris floating just outside the entrance that renders the harbor unnavigable. If these Santa Rosalians pull another rabbit out of their incredibly hardworking hat, we might get out in a week.

At this rate, Jimena will still be sitting in the middle of the sea contemplating it's soggy navel.

Jimena (Thursday, 5 PM): We're Still Here

I am so sorry we couldn't report in sooner. Don Quixote, Dulci, the girls and I are doing fine. Our only casualty on the boat may be the SSB. Or DrC disabled it before he left without telling me. I have to prowl around and do some troubleshooting.

Santa Rosalia was hit extremely hard by Jimena. I suspect you have little news, the American news media noted that Cabo survived and said little else. Well, Jimena weakened and slowed as she made land fall, moved north and then parked somewhere near Bahia Concepcion about 70 miles south of here. The problem was not really the winds. We mostly saw 40 to 50 with only about an hour or so in the 60s. The problem was the duration. The high winds and heavy seas started blasting at about 3PM and didn't stop until roughly 11PM. Equipment, lines, docks, boats and people almost didn't make it. It felt like it was never going to stop.

I am writing up several long reports about our experience, some of which I wrote during the storm itself. I'll post these as I can when we have Internet. That may be a very long time, however.

First the bad news. Santa Rosalia is a disaster. Flooding in the city and surrounding area is tremendous. The four water pump stations between here and Mulege are all destroyed. The harbor is full of trucks, cars, and household debris. We know of one fatality -- a policeman trying to rescue someone in a truck that was washing out into the harbor. We anticipate more, though. The extent of flooding and landslides in the region has to be seen to be believed.

Now the good news. The resiliency of these people is tremendous. Highway 1 -- our gateway to food, water, transport, and aid -- is already opening up. The harbor crew believe we'll see the power back on within a few days and water trucks arriving on roughly the same schedule. The local favorite restaurant -- Terco's Casa de Pollo -- had not one, not two, but THREE large refridgerator trucks park outside their restaurant for the duration of the hurricane. We expect to be having our roasted chicken within a day or so.

The crew here at Marina Singlar Santa Rosalia were nothing short of heroic. The incredible length of the storm was killing us. I admit freely to all of you that we thought we were going to lose the boats.

Steve and I could feel it, we could see the lines parting and the docks coming apart. We had a dangerously positioned upwind boat who could have taken out all of us. And the storm just keep going on and on and on. The crew of all the boats pitched in however and where ever they could. I've never seen such a strong sense of community and shared purpose. There is not a boat on this dock who can say they rode it out without the essential help in effort or equipment of the Singlar crew and/or other boats.

In particular, I want to mention Steve of Ocean Blue and his wife Joanna. Steve's been a friend, a codependent afternoon beer drinker, and a gadfly at times as he rags me about the van, Cal Berkeley, catamarans, hell... anything. But last night he was simply amazing. He saved our boats. He saved other people's boats with his work. His wife Joanna concentrated on taking care of all the children. Between the two of them, I was able to be half parent, half sailor. I could split my time between the girls and the docks.

Don Quixote herself rode the storm out well. All our preparations before leaving the boat paid off. When we arrived Tuesday morning, we had a boat fully prepared for hurricane winds. All we had to do was provision and set out the long lines. This was critical because there just wasn't time to do anything else. Believe it or not, we sustained no discernible damage other than this inexplicably silent SSB. Because we were bow to the storm, we didn't even destroy our fenders and surprisingly there was no chafe to speak of on any of our lines. We did get very very wet. I've discovered leaks in the hatches and holes in the boat we didn't know existed. But with a few days of concerted effort, we should be back to normal.

The girls spent most of the storm in the cool room. However, the three story building was like being in an alfalfa sprouter, water pouring in through the top and then progressively down each later. At about 10:30PM,the ceiling on the bottom floor where we had the kids resting collapsed precipitating a move to the ladies bathroom. The bathrooms were reinforced with title due to moisture and sustained no storm damage. The kids were hot but they were safe.

Dulci did not like the hurricane. She particularly hated the cool room where seats and tables made small islands in a one inch sloshing lake of flood water. She liked the bathroom much better but was happy when I moved her with me to the boat at 1 AM after the storm passed.

We're now in recovery mode. We woke this morning to mud, rocks, and debris absolutely everywhere. The harbor is closed for at least a week while they dredge out the debris and the storm dross outside the harbor dissipates. We have food, water, and power for at least two weeks after which we'll probably head north to Bahia de Los Angeles.

Tomorrow, I'll start putting the boat back together. Our suitcases remain unpacked, there are dishes and wet towels everywhere, and -- probably most critically -- we have no shade covers or dodger up. Once these clouds leave us, Don Quixote is going to be an oven unless we get to work.

Jimena (Tuesday Evening): And Now We Wait

The good news is that according to most of the major models Jimena is stalling as it hits land fall and tears itself apart.* The bad news is that it is probably going to rain buckets in central Baja between Santa Rosalia and Guerrero Negro for days. The probability of Highway 1 making it through the storm is, IMHO, roughly the same percentage as your average soccer score. The strong rains could bring serious flooding to the entire central part of the peninsula closing off these areas -- and incidentally everything south of here including Cabo and La Paz -- for potentially quite a long time.

Historically, the last time a major hurricane stalled over those mountains, Santa Rosalia flooded. This sent tons of garbage, mud and debris sliding down main street and an arroyo to the south of the marina. There was so much gunk swooping down on the water front that the port captain had to close the harbor for nearly two weeks. Locals tell us that Highway 1 wasn't clear of large boulders for months.

It's good time to be on a fully provisioned boat with my own capacity for power and water generation.

Speaking of the boat, we rode out several early bands of strong rain, wind, and lightening starting with an incredible opening act at precisely 3AM. The skies simply opened up. The lightening and thunder were very impressive, though the winds never really topped gusting 30. The deluge lasted about 20 minutes and then it turned off as quickly as it started leaving us in an incredible, eerie warm damp calm broken only by sirens in the hills. Power went out briefly then came almost immediately back on. Aeron asked me if that was the hurricane. I told her it was just a sampler, like the little cups distributed at Costco. She informed me that she decided she didn't want to buy a big package. Can't say as I blame her.

At about 8 this morning, the wind finally started to climb consistently. We're now at about 20 kts/hr steady with gusts to 25. We could ride on this for weeks. To provide perspective to our non-nautical folks, Don Quixote and Ocean Blue rode out 30 gusting to 35 with a few 40ish peaks on these same docks without any special preparation of the boats or lines whatsoever. The storm tracks now seem encouraging that our peak winds may only be in the 50s here. With all the extra lines and work, the boats should hold well. And at this point, it's looking increasingly like the boats could hold the dock itself together we're so laced up to the shore and other fixed points. We anticipate the worst of it to start about mid-day with the intensity peaking this evening and into the night.

The girls have moved their hurricane party gear into the building on shore where we will take shelter as the winds pick up. Currently, we're letting the kids run around and enjoy the odd light and the wind. The boats aren't bouncy and with no rain, it hardly seems worth locking them up. We -are- banning the pool of course. Thunder cells have been moving in and out since early morning. So far, we still have power to the dock and everyone is charging their batteries up until the last possible moment. With our solar panels down, we're all reluctant to unplug until the power actually starts to fluctuate on shore.

I think I'll spend the morning cleaning house. That prosaic. I might even try to get some laundry done. It's better than fussing over my lines and worrying. The kids do not have school today, but they are becoming considerably more knowledgeable about hurricanes, as you can well imagine. You can talk all you want about wind speed and direction, cyclonic action, storm tracking, and weather bands in a cyclone, but when you watch the weather change moment to moment as the hurricane touches the area, it's a living, breathing science lesson. Mera in particular is fascinated. She's trying to figure out just how six international agencies can come to such totally different conclusions with regard to the track after it hits land. If she figures it out, I'll let you know... I wouldn't put it past her. At present, her opinion of NOGAPS is pretty dim.

I want to thank everyone for all the good wishes and positive karma. If you believe in prayer, then the storm track models suggest it worked since we are no longer in the worst path of danger. If you're more of a pure random number theory type, we rolled lucky 7's that the Navy boys' model was the wrong one. I'll continue to tweet updates until I can do so no longer. There will be a time, no doubt, when I won't even be able to safely use the SSB. No worries. That 'dark time' is when the girls and I will all be safe in a building on shore, and Don Quixote will be riding on her lines out in the harbor. As soon as it's safe to do so, I'll go back to tweeting our status from the radio.

* If you are looking for a good web site to track Jimena, I recommend http://eebmike.com. It has everything there you could possibly need from text to moving graphic representations. Please make sure you click the sponsors as this is cruiser funded, cruiser provided service.

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.

What I Did At School Today

[Editor's Note: Written while we were still in Rosalia.]

Sand Studies
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

I didn't know that the cold could make you sleepy. Well, okay... we've all read the books or seen the movies where extreme cold makes people fall asleep. But this isn't extreme. I'm in the single air conditioned room accessible to the crew of Don Quixote at the Singlar Marina in Santa Rosalia. It's only 22C in here which is actually rather warm when you get right to it.

The girls and I worked hard all morning cleaning and purging and organizing, then moved to the Cool Room for a few hours of school. Whereupon, the three of us promptly fell asleep.

Not literally. We keep nudging one another to preserve a semblance of awareness. But there is something about finally escaping the unrelenting heat and humidity for even a few minutes that shuts the body down. Cold. We spent 20 consecutive hours growing weaker, more dehydrated, and more tired, then when we moved into this ice box, our bodies seem to have taken it as permission to finally relax and fall asleep.

I want the kids to complete some schoolwork. I want to correct that schoolwork. I want to write you a nice article about everything we are doing. I have ambitions to get the pictures on the hard drive organized, start learning how to record podcasts, update the map, pull down some Geocache sites.

*yawn* Um... update iGTD. Uh... *blink* write a letter to DrC and Jaime... … um... zzz .zzzzzzzz z

Decommissioning Don Quixote for the Summer

Regurtigating Crap
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

We're leaving the boat for at least six weeks in Santa Rosalia. During that time there is a small but finite chance she'll have to ride out a small hurricane without us. Even if she doesn't, Don Quixote is going to sit for many weeks in the blazing sun all by herself. No family. No cat. No friendly mechanic to pat her diesels and soothe her ruffled rigging. She is going to be alone, lonely, solo.

In preparation, DrC and I put together a list of Things to Do Before You Leave the Boat, a.k.a. The Decommissioning List. Okay, technically it was two lists. DrC is big on grabbing the nearest pulp product – whether it be used envelope, napkin, paper towel or cruising magazine – and having at it with a handwriting style which combines the frenetic pace of a homicidal, crack-addled race driver and the manual dexterity of a toddler. I, on the other hand, discuss the issues at length, type the notes into iGTD, organize the tasks into contexts and projects, prioritize and date each unit of work, assign resources, and create online links to related materials. After which I print the results and they rot in the same bacteria-laden, sodden pile in the corner of the salon in which you'll find DrC's notes scrawled. It's a Thing We Do.

Before DrC left, he preemptively translated the majority of his own list into action. We took down the jib and all the running rigging, washing them in Woolite before storing them off the boat in a room onshore. He conditioned the diesels with biocide and prepped the outboard for a long stretch of quiet. While he was here, we cleared the bulky items out of the lockers, took care of the electrical, and completed all the heinous annual maintenance required on both holding tanks. Then he left.

Ever since, the much reduced crew of Don Quixote consisting of good ole me and two moderately unreliable little girls have attempted to complete our Decommissioning List. All this work seemed daunting when the waves were gently rocking the boat and the cool breeze was spinning us gently into new vistas every hour or so. Now at times the list feels insurmountable. I can hardly contemplate buttering toast, let alone scrubbing out the bilges.

We have been considerably hampered by the weather. The temperature has ranged from a hot 98 to a heinous 106 during the day and has only once gone below 85 at night, usually hovering in the low 90s. The humidity dips to 45% when the wind blows from the west but spends most of its time in the 65 to 75% range. The Santa Rosalia weather site cheerfully reported this morning that was only 36C but “it feels like 43C.” That's 109 people. That's insane. Several mornings I've sat naked in the salon in front of a fan using a bag of frozen fruit to cool my head while I watched the fog roll in. I hate fog at 90 degrees.

Nevertheless, we manage to chip piece by piece at the incredibly comprehensive list I created while sitting in lazy splendor sipping rum punch in Animas Slot. With only a week or so left before V-Day (the day we put our lives into the van and head north), we are close to the point where the only tasks left are those that must be done on just about the last day: cleaning and shutting down the refrigerator and taking down the bimini, for example. I can see the light at the end of this long, effort-driven tunnel.

After living on the boat for two years, it is simply astounding how much grunge we have accumulated. As we empty out each locker, scrub it down, wipe it out, spray it with vinegar water, and reload, we daily watch the water line rise. For an awkward few weeks, the bows were six inches up and driving the transoms down as we started from the front of the boat and worked our way back. As we near completion, Don Quixote is beginning to resume her trim. I think that by the time we're done, DrC and Jaime will return astonished to our lean, mean, trim sailing machine. Whereupon we will promptly fill her with dirt, cat hair, kid crap, cheap plastic shit, and Costco bulk food items.

Purging Pleasures
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Mera, Aeron, and I are just about done in, though. We're ready to spend days driving here and there. We are definitely ready to be off the dock and away from Santa Rosalia. I don't know how long we'll spend in the States; We've been hearing horror stories from cruisers who proceeded us up there into the Real World which suggest it's not such a fun and happy place.

At least we'll know that when we get back, our boat will be ready to go. At least we know that just about anywhere we go in the States will be cooler and more comfortable than here.

Upwind Sailing

Endless Coolness
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

A picture graces the cover of Sail Magazine of a magnificent catamaran cresting a wave, bows thrust out over the peaks looking for all the world as though the craft is about to launch itself into space. The sails are full, lines straining, and if you can see the captain and crew their faces are caught in a rictus grin of manic sailing glee. The sun is bright, the boat gleams. As a reader, you can not look at the picture without seriously contemplating purchasing one of these amazing craft. It's 35 degrees out, you're soggy and bundled to the eyebrows in a slightly skanky smelling wool coat, boarding a plane home from a meeting in Chicago. You grab the magazine, a pack of Juicy Fruit, an Odwalla, and a tired looking bagel before heading out of the shop to get in line.

It might improve your state of mind to know that approximately .05 seconds after the picture was taken, the boat slammed back to reality as it smashed bows forward into the back of the wave. Someone screamed over at the camera man, “Do you have the damn picture yet?” If the answer was in the affirmative, the crew breathed a sigh of relief, relaxed the lines a bit and fell at least ten degrees more off the wind; They might take longer to get back to the dock, but at least it won't be a miserable flipping slog. If the answer was in the negative, the crew braced themselves for another 15 minutes of loud, uncomfortable bashing into swells, wind, and a very hard ocean.

In my considered opinion, upwind sailing is romantic only in magazines. In the real world where boats actually float, gentlemen never sail to wind. While it is true that sail boats are generally designed to sail to windward, and in fact many sail considerably better and more rapidly pointed into the teeth of the gale, it is rarely a comfortable ride. In truth, the problem is not really the wind, it is the unfortunate truism that where cometh the wind, there cometh the swell. After only an hour of steady 20 knot winds from the northwest, you can count on a seriously nasty northwest chop. The stronger and longer the winds persist, the steadier, bigger, and crestier the waves become. Ocean swell, in fact, is largely a by-product of really big, really strong, really steady winds someplace out in the middle of the ocean which like ripples in a global pond just radiate out out out out until they roll you in an anchorage on the Mexican coastline during otherwise perfectly calm and windless night.

Just to make life entertaining out here, swell often comes from one direction – let's say a pineapple express from the southwest – while wind waves emerge from a norther. So now we're looking at a 2 foot swell every 7 seconds from your stern port side and a 4 foot wave every 3 seconds from your bow port, 15 knots on the bow port, and a helm woman in a very bad temper. The kids are just queasy enough even after a year at sea to be rendered incapable of geometry and history, while the captain is puzzling over the latest cause for coolant loss in the refrigerator.

We call it “the bash.” The bash is not a party. The bash is precisely what the boat does every few seconds for hours on end as you push your way north. This same coastline southbound in precisely the same conditions is a gentle roller coaster ride, water sluicing down the sides of the boat with an occasional swell thumping playfully on the bridge deck. Current, wind, and the fine performance of a cat in light winds ensure a quick passage with speeds averaging seven or eight knots an hour even in our dog slow condomaran. Upwind, however, is an entirely different story. We barely average four as our poor home crashes against the wind driven waves.

The famously rocking horse motion ascribed to catamarans is strongly evident... no heeled slicing of bow through waves for us. We rock up, push our bows into open air, then bang down. If we start to make too much speed and headway, instead of bashing down on the back of the wave, we swoop our bows directly into the face of the following wave. The girls love it when this happens as the result is a flood of water through the tramp and over the bows, wind driven spray pushing all the way into the cockpit even – when the angle is just right – drenching the helm in her cursing, exhausted splendor. Lest anyone worry about us, Don Quixote is in no danger in these seas of turning turtle. While it is true that burying bows into the face of a wave is precisely how a catamaran can flip, let's be clear that to do so requires much bigger waves, much greater wind than what Don Quixote is facing on the Mexican Riviera. Ironically, it also requires a downwind sail, which I can assure you we are not doing at present.

I'm a Serious Boat Cat
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

No, our catamaran is a really solid boat. She doesn't actually object to this type of sailing, and beats steady progress northwards with a resigned, firm approach. She takes the waves, she handles the wind, she explains in small creaks and the occasional smashed wine glass that if we're going to bash upwind, there is a price to pay.

Dulcinea is not nearly so sanguine; She'll meow whenever Don Quixote does one of those magazine worthy flying leaps into the next wave, lifting her head to reproachfully glance at me at the helm, her message obvious, “A smoother ride, please. We cats prefer a downwind sail.”