Calm before the storm?

Bahia de los Angeles Village, BC, Mexico

We had a very nice peaceful night anchored here off of the village of BLA.  Listening to the experienced cruisers on the radio nets and in person, we hear that this can be a very tricky place to be at times.

This area of the Sea of Cortez is subject to violent, but short-lived squalls called Chabascos, usually accompanied by thunder, lightning, rain and strong winds.  These are summertime convection storms that can come up with very little warning; in some ways not so different from what we have seen in the prairies back in Alberta.  So far, we have only experienced the edge of one such blow, while we were safely tucked in at Puerto Don Juan - the winds there never exceeded 30 knots, but we heard that some nearby areas were hit by up to 50 and 60 knot winds.  One boat limped into the anchorage with broken back stays and shrouds and a mast that was being held up only by jury-rigged lines, so we do try and keep an eye on the sky at all times.  Not sure what we would do different though.

To make matters worse, here off the village of BLA they often experience another type of wind called an Elefante.  These are localized, strong, westerly winds that funnel through the valleys between the high mountains on the peninsula - basically what we would call a katabatic wind.  They are usually experienced when both the west and easy coast of the Baja peninsula are experiencing calm conditions, exactly like we have now.  Rumor has it that these winds can top 100 mph and last for several hours, but only occur in a few specific spots along this east coast, including where we are right now.  So far, we have not seen any sign of these winds either, but that is most likely what we caught the edge of during our overnight passage from San Francisquito about a week ago - they were westerly winds that fortunately never exceeded 25 knots where we were at the time.

Regardless of the risks, we have decided to stay put here for another day.  This morning we were off the Guillermo's for breakfast before some further exploration of the village - I think we have seen most of it now (it is not that large).

Here are a few pics from the last few weeks...

Sailing Close-hauled north of Santa Rosalia

Sunset on overnight passage

The usual dolphin escort

I would post more pictures but this Internet connection really sucks.   What you here see has taken me the best part of 2 hours to upload, and even using our little Toshiba netbook, this does take power we can ill afford right now.  Maybe tomorrow?

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