24 August 2006
Bahia de los Angeles (28 54' N 113 31' W)
We're anchored in SoBLA (aka Ceilidhville) where we've been hanging out with Ceilidh and SolMate at "Duffy's," Jay and Janice's micro trailer/palapa on the beach. They have a dart board on their wood porch, and so far we've had two afternoon games interrupted by weather. The anchorage is a bit of an open roadstead in the SW corner of the big bay, and when the wind comes up from the east or any of the northern quadrants there's an ugly fetch.
The first time it happened the "J" team (Jay, Janice, and John) were being soundly beaten by the "Others" (Linda, MJ, and Stan). We'd been keeping an eye on the weather and watching some unusual clouds creeping over the eastern mountains like San Francisco marine fog, but it was a great game (for some of us) and we didn't want to call it quits. Finally it was obvious that the wind was picking up from the east and there was concerned chatter on the radio from the rest of the boats around the bay. We hastily carried chairs and dishes into the trailer and gathered up our potluck lunch things before racing to the dinghies on the beach.
It was already a bouncy ride back to the boat where we started our engine and got the dinghy outboard stowed on Nakia's stern. Although it hadn't been his intention on the beach, once we were on the boat John decided he'd better raise the anchor while he still could. The depth sounder read nine feet and the bow was getting buried in the swell. If conditions worsened, we'd be caught in a potentially dangerous situation. Stan said later he wished he'd thought to capture John raising anchor on video, and John said it felt like a "Victory at Sea" moment with the bow climbing up and then plunging off the waves.
Of course as soon as we were motoring to the safety of La Mona the wind was already backing off. Even so SolMate followed us over later so they wouldn't have a sleepless night worried about more of the same. Since Ceilidh's more used to the conditions down here at their home base they stayed put, and we all had a calm and peaceful night.
We returned the next morning for a rematch at darts. This time Nakia anchored farther away from the shallow shelf that runs along the beach down here. Once again there was a close match being played as weather built up late in the afternoon. The J's had trashed the Others in the first game before the latter got its act together and pulled out ahead in the second game. But the J's came from way behind and it was down to a last bullseye for the Others to win it.
We'd been watching lightning over the western mountains and rain coming down the valley but we were sure it was going to pass us by. It's a real conundrum for cruisers who wish for rain to get a free boat wash, but who are sitting ducks for lightning strikes. Here in the desert you rarely get the former without the latter, and usually the rain dumps over the mountains and valleys before it reaches us out on the water.
We'd been focusing so much on the activity over the mountains that we almost ignored the ominous black cloud high overhead. It just didn't seem low enough to start anything, so we were startled when we felt drops of rain falling on us. This time John and Stan raced out to the boats to secure hatches and portholes while the rest of us stayed behind to close up Duffy's. Then we took cover up on a neighbor's second floor covered deck where we could observe the boats. As the southernmost boat, Nakia was first to disappear in the pouring rain. John radioed back to us that he'd be staying out there until it had passed. Stan took care of closing up SolMate and Ceilidh and hurried back to the beach soaking wet. There were two lightning strikes that were within a mile or two of us - it's pretty scary when you only get to "one, one thous..." and the thunder cracks right next to you!
The storm soon passed by, we watched the mud puddles disappear into the sandy soil, and then we were all walking the Buster dog on the beach, enjoying the fresh green smell in the air like nothing had happened. It was just another lazy summer day in the Sea of Cortez.
Linda and John