Nightmare on Elm St. or Seas from Hell
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There are no pictures for this page but it's a good story.
The
day started out great. It was the morning of Nov 11 and we left San
Quintin on our way to Turtle Bay about 165 miles away. We had planned
to sail to Cedros Island about 100 miles which would take that day, a
night and the next morning. We headed out about 7am to get a good
start. RT was ahead of us about 1/2 of mile most of the day. The wind
was blowing 13-15 knts all day and the seas were a moderate 4-5 foot
following swells. We made good time all day just cooking along and as
the sun started to go down we talked about reducing or dropping sails
but decide to wait a bit. By this time we were about 80-100 miles
offshore passing Bahia Vizcaino and it was starting to get dark. Real
dark! No moon that night. As it got darker the wind started to pick up
and the seas got bigger. A lot bigger. We all decided to drop some sail.
At this time the wind had changed and was coming from the south while
the seas were coming from the North and were becoming confused. It took
us quite a bit of work to get our sails down and we had lost RT during
all of this. We turned and headed toward his lights but when we radioed
him he said he was having trouble. He couldn't get his sails down
because his auto pilot couldn't control his boat and he was getting
over-powered. We finally caught up with him and as the wind and seas
were picking up it felt like a huge roller coaster ride. This was the
scariest E-ticket ride I have ever been on. Once we got to him he
didn't sound too good so we tried to stay as close as possible to him.
The problem was we were on a different tack because he still had his
sails up and his engine had quit and we were bare-poling these waves.
After about an hour or so RTs' lights went out and we couldn't see him
anymore. As we tried to radio him a rogue wave came from the port side
and knocked us down. At that point we lost our radio. While we were
trying to recover we got hit again and this time the wave broke on the
boat. We had confused and breaking seas all around us and by this time
Laura was really sick and had a hard time doing anything but leaning
over the side which was freaking me out. I had one hand on the tiller
and one hand on her. Once we had got a course that worked we only had a
few degrees on either side that we could deviate or we'd get trashed by
the waves. By the time Laura was ready to help I had gotten the Tao of
Hanali down and was afraid if I gave up the tiller we be thrown into
the rage of Freddy (you know, Nightmare on Elm St.) so I stayed at the
tiller for 12 hours and rode the Dragon without moving. Laura helped
keep me awake and focused. Morning finally came with no change in the
wind or seas but at least it was light and we could see what the waves
were doing. We headed towards Cedros hoping to find an anchorage but as
we went by the seas looked too rough to anchor anywhere so we continued
on to Turtle Bay. It was about 65 miles away and we were afraid we
wouldn't make it by dark and another night at sea wasn't an option for
us at this point. After dodging fishing pots and a narrow channel we
made Turtle Bay but not before it was dark. Laura had done a great job
of navigating us here so I believed she could navigate us in. We turned
on the radar and headed in, only sailors that have gone into an unknown
anchorage at night know what that's like. Freaky! As soon as we hit 30
ft of water we dropped the hook, after being up for 36 hours and being
a slave to the tiller the whole time (our auto helm wasn't working) that had to be one of the best
sleeps of our lives. When we woke in the morning we tried to call RT
and we found out that during the night his boat started to take on
water and he lost all his power. He wasn't able to find where the water
was coming in so he called a mayday. He was picked up by a fishing
vessel heading back to San Diego. We were shocked and sad to learn that
RT lost his Baba 30 "Flybaby" and weren't able to help. We would have
sold our boat for tickets to anywhere that night. But were still
sailing. We learned a lot that night. We learned how much we mean to
each other, how much we can take and how much our boat can take. Later,
we met some Canadians (whom became great friends) who were in far worse
conditions in the Pacific Northwest and their courage and sense of
adventure helped us regain our confidence and our courage to push on.
So on we go! P.S. We later found out that the fishing boat that picked up RT clocked the wind at 25-35 knts with 15-20ft breaking seas.
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