Close call

La Ramada Cove, BCS, Mexico

In our bid for the title of most idiotic cruisers, we had an interesting night.

Upon entering this small cove we had to contend with a couple of boats already at anchor, taking the prime real estate. I found what I thought looked like a good spot and we dropped the anchor in about 13 feet of water. When the anchor was set and the boat was swinging to the SE winds, the boat was in about 16 feet of water; everything seemed perfect. We knew there was going to be a low tide overnight but it would only be a drop of about 3 feet.

Around 3AM, the wind came up and, looking out my window, I noticed that we were not facing the same direction any more. The wind was now coming from the west and we were swinging closer to the shore. I checked the depth finder to discover we were now in only 7 feet of water. In a panic, I grabbed the old trusty lead-line and a flashlight and confirmed that 7 feet was correct. Two things of note here; first, we have a draft of 6-1/2 feet; second, according to our tide tables the tide was now going up and was probably about 1-1/2 feet higher than it had been around midnight. Somehow we lucked out and the wind did not come up until we had just enough depth to swing this way. Since we were not aground and the tide was still rising, we elected to wait till daylight to re-anchor.

Fortunately all of the other boats left this morning and we had our pick of places to set the hook. It took us 3 tries but we were finally satisfied with our new location; in over 20 feet of water this time. Just as well, as this afternoon the wind started gusting between 15 and 25 knots and we are sailing all over the place, as this boat is wont to do. One other boat has come in and we noticed they had to try 2 times before they were satisfied as well. Looking out at the open sea, it looks pretty lumpy with a lot of whitecaps - not a bad day to sit in the bay.

We did get off the boat this morning and took the dinghy to the beach and went for a hike along a dusty road. After about an hour we had had enough and returned to the mother ship, where we have now put the dinghy up on deck for tomorrow's long passage.

{GMST}26|22.82|N|111|25.83|W|La Ramada, BCS, Mexico|La Ramada, BCS, Mexico{GEND}