The Jefe goes on a Magical Mystery Adventure. March/2024.
My cruising season in Mexico was rapidly coming to a close and it was time to beat feet for Guaymas where I intend to haul out. Sailors Run was resting at anchor in Chamela bay by the small town of Perula. The plan was to depart the afternoon of Monday the 25th of March. The weather for the passage looked good the night before but as one might expect on the day of departure the forecast was offering up stronger winds on the nose. Oh, well 20 kts verses 15 kts wasn’t earth shattering news and both Sailors Run and I were up for a little challenge.
We were underway by 3 pm and should make it to La Cruz in Banderas Bay by 3pm the following day. The seas were up as it has been blowing out here for days and 6 to 8 ft. waves were pretty common, and the crests were sometimes just 40 feet apart making for an uncomfortable ride, lots of hobby horsing going on. It became obvious to me that the winds were increasing to 25 30 kts so I dropped my reefed mizzen, and we slugged on under full main and stay sail.
Normally we would reach Cabo Corrientes the entrance to Banderas Bay early in the morning, but this now looked like it would be dark before reaching the bay, still no big deal except for what happened that afternoon. My auto pilot steering system failed and now I was stuck at the wheel all the time Hmmmmmm!
About 3pm, some 24 hrs into the trip I stood up in the cockpit and stepped up on to the deck and everything was wet from salt spray and a piece of line ended up under my left foot and I slipped back into the cockpit a drop of about 18 inches where I lost my balance falling back and bashing my head on a large stainless steel base plate for a dinghy davit. I heard my skull go crunch and some vertebrae in my neck pop! I possibly cussed at this point and was not pleased when my hand came back soaked in blood after feeling the wound. I dashed below and grabbed some paper towels and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. Just a few minutes later I put my hat with a string on it over the towels and synched it down promising myself that later I would clean and disinfect the wound. It was now that I noticed the boat seemed to be staying on course, so I decided to shut the engine down and check the oil. The motor was a half a quart low so soon it was topped up, but the damn thing would not start! This has been happening way to often so now I carry a starter battery that I had to dig out and carry to the engine with my head throbbing. I knew that the situation was becoming a bit too much, so once back on deck I dropped the stay sail and was content to labor forward at about 2-3 knots and just hang in there.
It was late afternoon and I notice something very strange, there appears to be fir needles all over my boat everywhere I look! I try to pick them up, but it is impossible as they are not really there. I think of the bashing my head took and started to wonder. Oh well I’m at least back steering and we are moving ahead.
I look forward and am shocked at what I see, sitting on the port side by the pirate knockers are two girls, one about 15 and what appears to be a younger sister who is being groomed by the older one. Now if this is not creepy enough on the fore deck are 4- little boys goofing around up there. The boys seem to be trying to hide behind the mast. I look again at the girls, and they seem to be smiling at me so I wave at them, but it seems they don’t actually see me. This passage is getting totally freaky, so I duck below for a minute then come back up hoping they are gone. No way! they are all still there and hang around for what must have been an hour, and they were getting lots of sea spray at their forward locations. “Help Mr. Wizard it just might be time for the Jefe’ to go home”.
Now that the kids are gone it seems to me, I’m on Sailors Run and Debbie is on a different boat, and we are trying to enter Banderas Bay. We are making little headway and are tacking back and forth. Finally, I stay on the starboard tack heading what I think to be north to find the other side of the bay. I have no chart plotter and one of my GPS disappeared this year so I have but one Garmin and it will only operate on external power and the course that it has in it for La Cruz doesn’t show the boat on it. I’m totally amazed at how big the seas are in Banderas Bay. I have the radar on the 16-mile range and after 6 hrs. I can’t believe I see no land ahead of me. I have the position for La Cruz in my logbook, so I look at my coordinates and the longitude are way off. Now I fire up my computer and open up CPN to find where I’m at on the chart “holy s–t”! I’m 20 miles west of the Bay entrance going the wrong way!
Wow, my brain is on overload, and this just seems to become a real “nightmare”. I stare at the chart like a lost puppy and decide that I must sail east back into the bay that I have yet to find my way into. I have now been underway for nearly 60 hours and not one wink of sleep.
I start motor sailing east at good speed and its around 3am on Thursday when suddenly the power goes off on Sailors Run and I shut the engine down thinking we have blown a belt on the alternator. Guess what? the belt is found to still be there, but I change it out anyway because it was suspect. I add another half a quart of oil and guess what? even my starting battery with just the jumper cables is not enough juice to turn the engine over with any speed. Now our situation has deteriorated even further as there is no motor, no lights, no ais, no gps. On the bright side the radar still works and the fuel solenoid for the propane stove still works so, a fresh pot of coffee is started.
The boat is sailing well with jib and main and we are doing about 6 kts is my guess.
It was just an hour of that and the wind completely drops out “S–t”. my mind is overwhelmed, my body aches and it is all I can do to stay awake. I can see Cabo Corrientes light which is abaft my beam and feel I’m inside the bay but just barely and who knows when the wind will fill in again. My body says do nothing; my brain always looks for solutions so when it came up with the idea to launch the dinghy “El Jefe the warrior rises to the occasion”! There is still a six-foot swell running and its dark, so I first unstrap the dinghy from the deck, flip it over and pump it full of air. The launch is hairy as I only want the dinghy over the side. I yard it up with the main halyard now it is swinging wildly about as Sailors Run rolls gunnel to gunnel. I watch and wait for my chance to get in behind on a swing out and get it up and over the lifelines. I manage to make this happen and drop the dinghy into the sea.
Wholly crap! one minute the dinghy is 6 feet below the cap rail then the next second it is above the lifelines. My plan is to get the motor on the dinghy, a 6hp 2 stroke and lash the dinghy amid ship to the port side of Sailors Run. Once the motor is full of fuel and laying on deck, I time a leap into the dinghy and just barely stay aboard as the dinghy yanks at the lines that attach it fore and aft. I look for the flattest stretch of water and grab the motor and yank it into the dinghy. I did however have a safety line on the motor so it could not go to the bottom if I lost control of it. I secure the motor on the stern of the dinghy and tie the helm amid ships so it will power straight ahead. I start the motor and let it warm up before I put it in gear and coming up on the towing lines. Next, I tape the throttle in the 2/3rds power position and clamor back aboard Sailors Run.
I steer into the night doing about 2 knots and heading East, and it was comforting to know day light was coming and we were headed home. Before daybreak I had several mystical happenings, an encounter with strange wooden vessels with twinkling lights aboard, and at one point I went right into one as nothing was showing on the radar and I see wreckage falling about and at one point a bare chested 30-year-old guy was on my bow. I yelled at him and asked what he was doing, and he suddenly disappeared. Day light came and I was no less tired, but the mystical happenings seemed to be a night thing. I now knew I was in the bay and recognized the land masses and creep forward for LA Cruz and a chance to drop the hook in a familiar place and sleep for two days.
The winds were light on this day so about every 2hrs I would fill the gas tank on the dinghy and power on. At 2pm I roll out the jib and we start moving a little faster towards our destination.
Its 3pm on Thursday and I have hit the 72 hours mark with no sleep. I actually nod off and bang my forehead on the wheel as staying awake is starting to look like a thing of the past. It also scares me to see the sun getting low on the horizon and still quite away’s to go before getting to the anchorage. La Cruz is hard to find at night without gps. My worst fears become reality it has become nighttime, and we are still 3-miles away and the mystical demons have returned and now I’m looking at my radar and seeing open water ahead, but my eyes see something very different, the lights along the shore have surrounded me and there are those weird boats with twinkling lights everywhere. I’m plowing through them but know there are real boats up ahead somewhere and decide to hell with this. I see what appeared like a little bay further east, so I head for that, get in the middle and drop the anchor. The anchor chain rattles out and after 100 feet of chain is out it becomes too heavy to stop so I let it run all 300 ft of chain.! I don’t know anything other than now I can sleep, and I crash into bed at 8:45pm and sleep till 7-am on Friday.
Morning comes and we are still where we anchored. I must hoist the anchor by hand using the sail winch to grind the chain back in 25 ft. at a time. At last its up and once again the dinghy takes us the last two miles to the right anchorage.
Now there is another whole side to this adventure, and I feel so sorry for all those that worried and feared the worst. My loving wife Debbie was worried out of her mind and was using every available friend and person in the area to try and start a search for me.
She is all Sailors Run and I was never alone in my challenge. El Jefe. Pictures to come later.
www.sailorsrun.com
