A chance to try sea anchor and fish tacos

Posted By: Tom House "Salsa"
Date: 5/7/08 10:08a.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

Wow, You guys are going to have to try this one out..... Sailing to Santa Rosalia, Mexico is a great adventure. A storm caught us by surprise on the 90 mile open ocea trip. Well it wasn´t a complete surprise, but much more intenst than expected. The port captain said his wind guage showed 40 knots at the storm´s height and some of the crew said they estimated the wave, aka, giant chop, at 8 to 12 feet. That of course was no problem for us...we were right in the middle of the Sea of Cortez when the low past over us. The good news is there was very little for 50 miles around us to hit in the night. The low as it past provided the lull for a perfcet time to stop practicing heavy air sailing with our blade jib and reefed main...sailing as close to the wind as possible without staling and to then practice using our storm parachute sea anchor. That parachute really settled the boat down and it lay pinned to the sea. Our drift during the next eight hours was about eight miles. We took turns sleeping below then rotating to anchor watch and eating peaches. The only thin lacking was a cool stero playing some kind of classical music, orchestrating sounds of an angry sea. By the way, peaches really do taste almost as good the second and third time as the first...for use during such times as one may be practicing laying to storm anchor. When the wind calmed dowm, we shook out the reef, put up a genoa and hoisted the main. It was spectacular sailing as we went right through the middle of a huge pod of whales, blowing, breeching a rolling. They stayed with us or we with them for an hour. Wahoo.... After that the seas and wind calmed to zero...so we motored the remaining forty miles. Most every thing in the boat was wet except the spirit and the adventure. A fish taco and a hotel was the prescription for the evening. Well, we broke a lazy jack, so I´m up the mast today to put in a porper fix. Though I´m supportive of this forum...don´t think I´m nuts for interupting an adventure to write. I´m enjoying the much needed air conditioning, and checking the most current weather reports. One storm surprise and one chance to test out the storm anchor in field conditions is all that was needed for this trip. Is life great or what. Time to restock our supply of peaches. There´s more yet waiting on this adventure. Yey haw....!!!!